As a writer and an avid reader, I obviously love words, but I find some art forms without words wonderfully expressive. I’ve been reminded of this by seeing the film Pina directed by Wim Wenders.
I’m ashamed to say that before this I didn’t know anything about the dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch. I’m really glad that this moving film has given me a chance to experience her work.
The film almost didn’t happen. Planned with Pina herself, it was cancelled when she died shockingly suddenly two days before shooting was to begin. After a time her dancers from the Tanztheater Wuppertal approached Wenders and asked him to film them dancing her pieces so that instead of a film about Pina it became a film for Pina.
She had an original creative method: she asked the dancers questions and they answered with movement and from their movements she created the works, pieces that ‘talk with the language of movement’ as Wim Wenders puts it.
I found some of the pieces disturbing, but also saw humour and tenderness in Pina’s work.
There’s something about simple repetitive movements performed by everyone together that really gets me. This piece of Pina’s makes me smile.
Check it out. You might like it too!
