Pina: The Language of Dance

• by Rahul Chadha, December 20, 2011

This post was written by STF blogger Jeff Halpin.

Initially uninterested in attending what he surmised would be a boring dance recital, a 1985 performance of Pina Bausch’s “Cafe Mueller” changed filmmaker Wim Wenders’ preconceptions about dance. Wenders was soon proposing a film collaboration with her company, but felt he lacked the technical skill to capture the movements on-screen. Twenty years later, in 2007, he finally discovered the technology that would allow him to capture the enchanting and engrossing performances he had seen decades earlier on film.

Intercutting archival footage of Bausch in performance and in her studio with solo and group performances, Wenders’ film Pina allows the length and intensity of the pieces to follow the tone that each of his interviews takes with members of Bausch’s dance troupe. We watch as they reminisce, celebrate and exalt the woman who had drawn so much from them, and given so much back to them as performers and as people.

The dancers are shot in locales as varied as the precipice of a massive canyon in Germany’s Bergisches Land region, to the Wuppertal suspension railway for the solos in “Kontakthof.” All the while, Alain Derobe’s 3-D sterographic cameras move effortlessly from the interior stages at the Wuppertal Opera House to the exterior expositions with an eye to movement, sound and pacing that only Wenders could produce.

Renowned dance critic Deborah Jowitt joined Stranger Than Fiction Artistic Director Thom Powers for the post-screening audience question and answer, and said that what was most unique about Bausch was that “she was created worlds on stage.” Bauch’s introduction to U.S. audiences occurred during a period in which modern dance had moved away from narrative, but the worlds that she created were different than any Jowitt had previously seen.

When asked what her reaction to Bausch’s initial New York appearances was, Jowitt explained, “I thought it was alarming, I thought it was playful, I didn’t really know what I thought about it at first. I was apprehensive, but there was so much strangeness and humor in it, right away you could see that she had certain structural ideas that you can see in how Wenders uses it in the film.”

Jowitt gave details on how exactly Pina was able to master “the idea of bringing stories out of her dancers,” by drawing on the experiences of each individual performer. “She would say, ‘Tell me the worst birthday you ever had,’ and she would then weave that into something, with talking, singing or gesturing.”

With regard to the challenge of capturing dance on film, Jowitt remarked that the success and strength of Wenders’ work lies in the fact that “he wanted to bring the audience into it, he wanted you to feel that you were in it. I think that is particularly suitable to Pina, because she does create these specific environments on stage.”

IFC opens “PINA” in limited release December 23.
You can read Deborah Jowitt’s article on Pina here.

Comments

very successful thank you sincerely

    – .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (02/03  at  11:10 AM)

Page 1 of 1 pages of comments