Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Barbican/Sadler's Wells, review 5. ... but - vital, this - just as your guests are perhaps starting to enjoy any of them, interrupt the action with some intensely irritating, lamentably un-funny Mittel-European clownery. 6 Have lots, and lots, of sweeping - petals are a particularly good excuse for that. 7 Fold in a snake or two, with (perhaps somehow related) a drizzle of mock-fellatio, either with a banana (Ten Chi) or an ice-cream cone (Fensterputzer). 8 Set it all to music as self-consciously eclectic as possible. 9 Season with a pinch of cutesy audience participation. 10 Repeat everything - words, movements, ideas, jokes - as many times as possible. Over-cooking is vital. This sort of confection might ideally be served at, say, 30 minutes or so, but, instead, be sure to simmer it for around three hours, until your saner guests are climbing the curtains in exasperation. Poor Pina Bausch, that tireless pioneer of contemporary dance, died only three years ago, at the untimely age of 68. Earlier pieces of hers in this 10-part World Cities series (running until July 9) have been getting rave reviews from people I trust. And at her best - in Rite of Spring, for example - Bausch could be undisputably stupendous. I would concede, too, that Der Fensterputzer (the Window Washer) is more successful than Ten Chi (Heaven and Earth) - the choreography is a little better and, vitally, the humour does occasionally hit the spot in high style. But, although premiered in early 1997, just months before the end of British rule, it gives precious little dramatic sense of an already fascinating nation on the brink of fundamental change, while - and this is no exaggeration - Ten Chi feels less evocative of its rich and rivetingly contradictory setting than a lunchtime trip to Yo Sushi. Great art knows not only what to give, but how much of it to give. These two touristy pieces, sadly, take an age to say almost nothing of interest, and they left this critic bored to the point of fury.