Vio called this evening to see if we were still on for the Pina Bausch show tonight. “Of course we’re still on,” I said. “Good,” she said, “and you know, the show’s three hours long.” “Well, well,” I said, and then drizzled some lemon and ground pepper on a quick smoked mackerel snack before I got on the train.

The stage was a white room, with white wainscoting, white cornices, white floors.

There was a girl in a white dress. She had shiny black hair straight down to the middle of her back. She was a ghost, a fairy, she was a pebble, she was seafoam, she was life, she was death.

There was a woman who loved a man for half a minute. There was a woman who talked about eggs in Spain. There was a woman who lifted her skirt to her knees to reveal bright red shoes, and then she danced suspended in the air. There was a woman who was fire, a snapdragon, an exclamation point. These were all the same woman.

There was a man in a sharp pinstriped suit whose dance had the quick movements of an experienced tailor, measuring, measuring. In his fingers you could almost see a guy with thick glasses and silver hair and deep wrinkles on his face, a yellow tape measure around his neck, a stub of white chalk in his hand. This one I liked because it seemed to suggest that maybe Pina Bausch had been inspired by watching an old man at his craft, and I liked that maybe you could see the blueprint of her creation.

There was a woman who drew an O on a mirrored panel and said, “This is a hug.” She drew an X and said, “This is a kiss.” She drew another O. “Hug.” Then another X. “Kiss.” O X O X. “Hug. Kiss. Hug. Kiss.” She bent over and drew on the floor in chalk. “Kiss, hug, kiss, hug, hug, hug, hug.” She sat on the floor and drew Xs and Os around her. “Hug, kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss,” she said. She smiled. “Imagine,” she said.