Pina Bausch was a most extraordinary artist, and noted artist and director Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire; Paris, Texas) created a stunning tribute to her and her art. As one of the most significant choreographers of the twentieth century, she took modern dance and created an art form that involves and uses all media in order to express essential human emotions, desires, fears, needs, and longings. Wenders’ film exquisitely presents the essence of Bausch’s artistry.
You have never seen anything like it, and we hope that you will join us in this joyous, disturbing, elating, provoking, thrilling, and breath-taking theater that is life: PINA. Words cannot describe it, but here is a preview for the film that was nominated for Best Foreign Feature Documentary for the Oscars: http://www.wim-wenders.com/movies/movies_spec/pina/pina.htm
For years award-winning director Wim Wenders and Pina Bausch had been planning to collaborate on a film with and about her works. Yet Wenders felt he lacked the proper technology to recreate on screen the experience of a Bausch dance theater piece. Finally in an “ongoing learning process [they] acquired the know-how for the preparation, the shoot and the post-production.” In 2009 with filming to begin in two days, Bausch was diagnosed with an extraordinarily aggressive cancer and succumbed to the illness five days later at age 68. Wenders was devastated and stopped all work. The dancers and members of Bausch’s Wuppertal Tanztheater and international appeals convinced him to continue with the project, and the thrilling tribute to Bausch – PINA – came into being.
Bausch and Wenders had chosen four of her works for the movie, “Café Müller”, “Le Sacre du printemps”, “Vollmond,” and “Kontakthof”; the film now includes excerpts of these, as well as footage of Bausch, and solo performances by members of the dance company. Wuppertal and its countryside are integral parts of the film, as is the viewer who constantly engages with the dancers and the choreography.
PINA was nominated as Best Feature Documentary Nominee at the Oscars, and received the Best Documentary, European Film Awards 2011; Best Documentary, German Gilde (arthouse cinema) Film Prize 2011, and the German Documentary Film Prize 2011. It was an official selection in the Toronto, Telluride, and New York Film Festivals.
Pina Bausch
by Wilfried Krueger
Pina Bausch was born in 1940, and became interested in dance at an early age. She danced in a children’s ballet, and at age 14 entered the prestigious Folkwang Hochschule to study under Kurt Jooss. Jooss was known as the leader of the German modern dance movement that allowed a free spirit, yet demanded knowledge and expertise in classical ballet. She deepened that knowledge in New York when she spent a year at the Juillard School and saw how classical and modern dance changed under George Balanchine and at the Martha Graham Dance Company. After an additional year, she returned to Germany and once again worked with Jooss; she began to choreograph some pieces, Fragment or Im Wind der Zeit for which she received her first prize in 1969. When she was hired in 1973 as the head of the Wuppertal Ballet, she promptly renamed it Wuppertal Tanztheater to indicate that her performances would include much more than classical positions and music. Her boundless imagination and interest in all types of music led her to create two new genres, dance theater and dance opera.
She choreographed pieces with such emotional force that audiences sometimes protested vociferously. Her pieces are timeless, and are still in demand 25-30 years later. She envisioned Kontakthof in three three different incarnations; one in 1978 with adult dancers, one in 2000 with “ladies and gentlemen over 65,” and one in 2009 with “teenagers of 14 and over.” She confronts us with reality, yet invites us to dream. The costumes and spaces where she creates dance are as challenging as the choreography. She collaborated with professionals all over the world, and many countries honored her work. The Germans awarded her the Order of Merit, the French the titles of Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et de Lettre and Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur; in addition to sever German art prizes, she received he highest national honor in Japan, Russia, Italy, and Monaco. Several universities awarded her honorary doctorates.
Explore her life, her works, her vision: http://www.pina-bausch.de/en/pina_bausch/
Houston-Leipzig will show the movie PINA on Thursday, August 15, 2013, in the Parish Hall at Christ the King Lutheran Church, 2353 Rice Boulevard, Houston, TX 77005. Registration begins at 6:15 p.m.; at 6:30 we will have our customary food and beverage reception, and the meeting and movie start at 7:00 p.m. Meeting fees are $10 for members, $5 for students, and $15 for nonmembers. Ample parking is available on the Rice University parking lot off Greenbriar for $1, credit cards only.
Please RSVP here or to angelika@houstonleipzig.org as soon as possible, so that we can plan for the reception.