There was a black cat named Pino. Pino was the companion of a friend who lived in a loft on White Street in Tribeca, NYC. His name was Manuel Alum. A dancer, Manuel was a charismatic and hypnotic performer. He was utterly committed to his art, to a fault.
I met Manuel at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in 1980; some years later I joined his performing tribe in NYC. I call it a tribe because for many of us dancers, performing becomes more than a profession. Dance becomes a lifelong obsession to show the non‑dancing world what a transformation this art can trigger in people. We are in the tribe.
Manuel Alum had a friend nicknamed Pina. They most likely met many years before in Italy. They were both members of the tribe. I don’t know if Pina liked Pino, or if that matters at all. Exactly 30 years ago, Manuel gathered the three of us to celebrate our birthdays — hers in that evening and mine past midnight.
A curious twist of fate intertwines our tribes again. I now work creating history from the memories of other extraordinary members of her tribe — to document her legacy. She triggered transformation on many levels and for many people. This is a joy and a privilege. Happy birthday, Pina Bausch.
Post scriptum — 29 August 2026
This text, written in 2018, documents an early personal memory from Ricardo Viviani’s formative years in the New York dance environment. It reflects a period when autobiographical recollection served as a way of understanding artistic relationships and lineage. Although stylistically distinct from Viviani’s current writing, the entry provides contextual insight into his early encounters with dancer Manuel Alum and his first informal contact with Pina Bausch in New York. These experiences later became reference points in Viviani’s professional work as an oral historian at the Pina Bausch Foundation, where personal memory, archival research and embodied knowledge intersect in the documentation of dance heritage.
oral history