{"id":2283,"date":"2018-07-27T11:45:25","date_gmt":"2018-07-27T10:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ricardoviviani.com\/?p=2283"},"modified":"2026-08-29T12:13:57","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T10:13:57","slug":"a-cat-named-pino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ricardoviviani.com\/?p=2283","title":{"rendered":"A cat named Pino"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ricardoviviani.com\/public\/productions\/oral_history\/black-cat.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ricardoviviani.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/black-cat.jpg\" alt=\"Photo via Good Free Photos\" style=\"width:480px;height:auto\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I met Manuel at the Jacob\u2019s 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\u2011dancing world what a transformation this art can trigger in people. We are in the tribe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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\u2019t 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 \u2014 hers in that evening and mine past midnight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A curious twist of fate intertwines our tribes again. I now work creating history from the memories of other extraordinary members of her tribe \u2014 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Post scriptum \u2014 29 August 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This text, written in 2018, documents an early personal memory from Ricardo Viviani\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-right\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ricardoviviani.com\/?tag=oral-history\">oral history<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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\u2019s &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ricardoviviani.com\/?p=2283\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;A cat named Pino&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dancehacker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ricardoviviani.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ricardoviviani.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ricardoviviani.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ricardoviviani.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ricardoviviani.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2283"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ricardoviviani.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3125,"href":"https:\/\/www.ricardoviviani.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2283\/revisions\/3125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ricardoviviani.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ricardoviviani.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ricardoviviani.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}