Excerpt of an article by Irene Sieben in tanzjournal, Edition 6/08

No dust, nowhere.

On the reconstruction of Ausdruckstanz and Tanztheater. Irene Sieben

The figure stands in the light as carved in stone. An enormous shadow reflects the gold shimmering 'Gestalt' on the back wall of the stage. Some spectators shiver. Others lough irritatedly. Fabian Barba dances Mary Wigman. No, not like Mary Wigman and not either the Hexentanz, which has been tried numerously. The man from Ecuador looked at three dances from the cycle Schwingende Landschaft from 1929 thoroughly: Seraphisches Lied, Pastorale, Sommerlicher Tanz. He dances in dresses, his hair a bit magnified. He is rangy, strong. The question concerning his gender identity fades, no hint of a drag queen. He dances purely, earnestly, moved from the inside. And he unveils a secret, which the dance-film mostly slur: the fine something between performer and spectator, which should have caused Wigman's fascination in her time.
Barba meets the big gesture, the pathos of the 'High Priestess' with cool briskness. "If Mary were to revive out of her grave, she would be excited by him. He detects the essence, the meaning of a gesture", says Susanne Linke at this year's conference of the Mary Wigman Gesellschaft in Bremen. She discovered the 26-year-old during the performance tour of the new P.A.R.T.S.-graduates. And he searched for allies with her and other Wigman scholars, to trace the aesthetic out from the remnants. The Tanzplan Deutschland enables him a residency in Fabrik Potsdam for half a year in 2009. There he wants to reconstruct the whole Wigman cycle, also 'adapt' some dances which are only documented in scripts, writings and photographs. What arouse his passion? Barba: " At P.A.R.T.S. we watched in the subject dance history videos of Martha Graham's 'Lamentation'. Everyone laughed. We found it strange. It was not the kind of dance they taught us at school. This kind of style had no place in our release technique training. This style seemed completely out of context. The question sticked with me: What has changed that nowadays students laugh at something that was intended as serious art and received as a dramatic experience? That motivated me for my research project. And so I discovered Mary Wigman. I found something in these old movies, something that seemed familiar to me. Which aesthetic codes did she use that felt close to me? And I discovered that modern dance, as it was taught in my home country, had some similarity with Ausdruckstanz."...