‘Nur Du’ Benefits From Satisfying Repetition

Virtually everything that happens in Pina Bausch’s “Nur Du” (Only You) happens more than once, so a second visit to this nonlinear dance-theater epic highlights the German choreographer’s strategic use of repetition to unify the work and give it a sense of existing in a time-loop where the same human follies are replayed over and over.

“Nur Du” was reviewed in these pages last Saturday, following its American premiere at UC Berkeley. On Thursday, Bausch and her Tanztheater Wuppertal moved to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, where the audience responded strongly to the surreal humor of the piece, applauded every solo and gave a six-minute standing ovation at the end of the 3 1/2-hour performance.

Bausch’s first site-specific piece created outside Europe, “Nur Du” developed from her visits to California, Arizona and Texas earlier this year. Adapting and extracting their own impressions of the American West, designers Peter Pabst (setting) and Marion Cito (costumes) juxtaposed the timeless grandeur of a redwood forest with bizarre, mock ‘90s fashion statements--live white mice inside a portable cage worn on the bare chest of Jan Minarik, for example.

On Thursday, with Hollywood only a few miles away, the women’s continual submission to sex-object status gained a bitter pertinence, while Bausch’s ironic use of vintage pop music could be considered another reminder of how much the local entertainment industry is implicated in the screwed-up values she satirizes.

Most of the characters in “Nur Du” are looking for love in their own deluded ways and Bausch portrays them tenderly, perhaps even as an endangered species like the redwoods and the smiling whale that floats in briefly at about the three-hour mark. But it’s up to each viewer to draw the disconnected episodes together in a personal scenario. Bausch is far too wary of people who force their will on others to impose any official interpretation, far too imaginative to limit her audience’s imagination.

* The Pina Bausch Tanztheater Wuppertal performs “Nur Du” tonight at 8 and Sunday afternoon at 2 in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, L.A. Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave. Tickets: $20-$75. (213) 972-7211 or (310) 825-2101.