German Troupe Sees Poetry in Immigrant Experience

How do you dance about immigration and the feelings of loss and elation that the journey entails? This task was taken on masterfully by the Dance Theatre of the Stadtische Buhnen Munster, which made its U.S. debut Friday night at the Bing Theater on the campus of USC.

The six-person German company’s work, just over an hour long, is called “Papirene Kinder” (Paper Children), a Yiddish expression that refers to the way ancestors become faded remnants in photographs and letters. It was a kind of diary reflecting the heritage of choreographer and artistic director Daniel Goldin, who is the Argentine-born child of Jewish-Ukrainian parents, and has studied and performed extensively with dance-theater maven Pina Bausch

But if “theatrical diary” is the engine for “Papirene Kinder,” poetic movement is the fuel. Gestures were distilled and nuanced; sculptural units evolved into danced passages artfully, evoking vivid emotions with enigmatic details. At first, the five dancers--all amazing movers with striking expressive power--embodied oppression and endurance, wearing faded work suits and moving with weighted caution. They rose and slumped with amazing subtlety, as if breathing the music (a selection of taped symphonic works and folk tunes) or being buffeted by it.

A change of pace and clothing signaled a giddy release into the “new world.” Moments of panic and elated social dancing--and some ballet--intermingled, often accompanied by a spirited babbling in several languages. The past was a presence in the guise of tiny, frail puppet men, who mimed singing and violin playing before sinking to the ground in sepia light. In the end there is a feeling of memory and loss--tempered with the spoken admonition never to forget that people must reinvent themselves over and over.