I finally had a chance to watch Wim Wenders’ documentary film “Pina,” a tribute to the legendary German dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch, and a personal close friend of Wenders’. It is perhaps the best dance documentary I have ever seen.
To paraphrase Pina Bausch herself, “The aim of dance is to evoke certain things, certain emotions. Even literature can only evoke things...”
Pina, a prophet, a dreamer, and above all, a brave lover. She constantly asked her dancers this question, “What are you longing for? Where does all this yearning come from?” And this continues to be pursued in all her pieces. For me, what makes Pina Bausch’s work extraordinary is the co-existence and co-dependence of spirituality and ardour/love of life, always intensely interwoven but beautifully liberated from each other. It is utterly not of this world, and yet all about this world, all about this life. Beauty, sorrow, joy, loneliness, humour, strength... These are but some of the essential hues which paint her all-encompassing canvases of dance, but beyond dance—transcendent.
May this heartrendingly but humorously moving film by Wim Wenders bring freedom, weightlessness, and a sense of sacredness to Pina—all the qualities in her inexplicably wonderful work and being.
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| To Pina with Love ♥ (Pina Bausch, 1967, by Walter Vogel)
“Never let go of the fiery sadness called desire—”
(Patti Smith) |
*For more on this film, please see here and here.
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