Matthias Burkert, 1953–2022

Yesterday, on 27 October 2022, our long-time collaborator Matthias Burkert passed away in Wuppertal. For more than four decades, his work and his presence as a human being shaped the Tanztheater Wuppertal and Pina Bausch’s pieces.

We have lost a valued colleague who, through his musical work, his playful and sometimes experimental approach to music and improvisation, and his sensitivity towards artistic processes, left an indelible mark on the work of the ensemble. We mourn the death of Matthias Burkert.

In silent gratitude,
the ensemble of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch

Matthias Burkert was born in Duisburg in 1953. He finished school in Wuppertal in 1972 and went on to study piano, trumpet and singing at the Wuppertal campus of the Cologne Music Academy. Following his graduation in 1978, he took up a teaching position at his university. Two years previously, in 1976, he had become music director of Wuppertal’s theatre for children and young people. When he saw Pina Bausch’s work for the first time, he was deeply impressed. In 1979, she asked him to become part of her Tanztheater, drawing on his love for improvisation and extensive musical knowledge. Working closely with Pina Bausch, Burkert influenced the Tanztheater in important ways and even appeared on stage in some pieces. Since 1995, Burkert has been sharing the responsibility for the musical direction of the Tanztheater with Andreas Eisenschneider. From the very beginning, Burkert attended rehearsals, noted down the questions that Bausch posed to her dancers and collected many different pieces of music for each individual dance. As Pina Bausch used to say, the final choice would depend on which piece of music still sounded fresh and new after many times of hearing it: “In twenty years, we still have to look forward to what comes next.” Moments of silence were equally important. It had to be a ‘healthy silence’, where the energy of the piece continued to resonate, not merely a moment without music. Norbert Servos