Performance Description: “How would you dance, if you knew you were going to die?” This is the central question asked by the late choreographer Pina Bausch when she created her seminal work The Rite of Spring, which examines unyielding ritual when the sacrifice of a “chosen one” changes the season from winter to spring. This pioneering work has gone on to become one of the 20th century’s most significant and important bodies of dance theater. Faithful to Stravinsky’s visceral score, Bausch’s monumental choreography is given a thrilling new life by a specially assembled company of 36 dancers from 14 African countries, and danced on a peat-covered stage as they clash and engage in a wild and poetic struggle of life, ritual, and sacrifice. Rite is paired with a new work created, performed, and inspired by: Germaine Acogny, the founder of the Senegalese École des Sables who is widely considered to be “the mother of contemporary African dance,” and Malou Airuado, who performed leading roles in many of Bausch’s early works. This poetic and tender antidote to Rite reflects their shared histories, emotional experiences, and common ground. https://www.armoryonpark.org/