»Autumn crocus« – Light falls onto a door, from which a barefoot young woman with an uncombed mane emerges as if in a trance. After a few moments of stillness, she begins a wild dance as though in fear for her life. Other people follow and run against walls, against resistance. They wander down a path together, as endless as a conveyor belt, an unspeakable need makes them despair. Exuberant exhilaration closely accompanies anger and violence.

The dance piece »Herbstzeitlose« (»Autumn crocus«) illustrates the limitations of life and the attempt to escape. It demands the opportunity to exceed personal limits. Movement, being moved, stagnation, death and the sensation of new strength are the themes. The autumn crocus plant serves as a philosophical metaphor for invisible flowering, the unseen development and the sudden eruption, like a Vesuvius, from pre-defined norms.

Rainer Behr, born in 1964 in Neustadt an der Waldnaab / Bavaria, began his dance studies in 1986 at the Folkwang Hochschule Essen. In 1989 he was awarded the 1st prize at the Cagliari choreography competition and danced in productions by Urs Dietrich, Susanne Linke, Carolyn Carlson and others. Since 1995 he has been a member of the Wuppertal dance theatre Pina Bausch. He created the dance piece »Herbstzeitlose« as guest choreographer at the dance theatre in Bielefeld, which is headed by Gregor Zöllig and constitutes a part of the Theater Bielefeld.

»The final image is nearly mystical: a four-voice chorus of whispers recites Ingeborg Bachmann’s ›Lieder von einer Insel‹ (›Songs from an island‹). The dancers slide into an imaginary sea, yet everything returns, the cycle of life repeats itself. Just like the unassuming autumn crocus, a plant whose poison can heal as well as kill, asserts itself even under the most difficult circumstances, the human being also always returns« (Uta Jostwerner, Westfalenblatt, Bielefeld, 23.01.2012).