Up Close & Personal : Pina Bausch and her amazing Dance... Celebrating her B'day and 10 cities piece in London Olympics 2012

“Dance, Dance, Otherwise we are lost….” Pina Bausch

I love to dance, curtsy my Bulgarian friend, I came across this amazing German choreographer, dance teacher and ballet director of Modern Dance, Philippina "Pina" Bausch. I am celebrating her birthday is today (27th July) with a post which presents her works that totally changed the way I look at dance, as a medium of creative expression. I was very much inspired by Pina Bausch’s brilliance in ideation, communicating raw emotions as well as her powerful choreography.  Her representation of emotions through dance reaches deep inside and stirs the soul to new level of awareness of those feelings.

After years of persuasions, Pina gave her nod for a movie to be made about her and her works by a long time associate Wim Wender. He persuaded Pina only after the advent of 3D Format in movies, as he felt 2D format would not do justice to her expansive visual expressions and creativity, which underlines almost all her works on larger than life stage performances. Unfortunately Pina died just 5 days before the start of shooting and the movie turned into a moving tribute to her genius, by Wim Wender’s in the film “Pina – 3D”. This was released in 2011 and was nominated for an Academy award. The sheer brilliance of her choreography, style and the environment comes out powerfully in the 3-D format.

It’s also an apt time to remember Pina as today as during this 2012 summer’s London Olympics, her city pieces – 10 works based on her travel all over the world including India, will be performed by her dance company, the Tanztheater Wuppertal in theatres all across London. As Roslyn Sulcas said in an article in the New York Times “It’s a cultural decathlon of sorts”. Well at the cost of $2.8 million, an amount almost unheard-of for a dance season anywhere, it actually is “An Olympian Twirl Around the Globe” Click here to read the article…

I loved all her works that I could find online but I am specially biased towards her work “Bamboo Blues” since it’s inspired by her journey to India (Nov 2006) especially to Kolkata (West Bengal). Interestingly, way back in 70’s, her work based on Stravinsky's 'The Rites of Spring,' was stopped from being performed in the same Kolkata by Mr. Buddha Deb Bhattacharya, then a young political leader and now Ex Chief Minister of West Bengal, on the grounds of nudity not conforming to Indian culture. It was not that Pina Bausch wanted to hurt the sensibility of Indians … it was just that she felt  and was more closer to reality of life, then most of us are comfortable in openly discussing, even among friends.

Now here is one great piece of collation of her works I have found over the net, which actually encompasses almost all the best of her works. This was collated as a presentation for an university thesis by “MyNiCkIsUnIqUe” at You Tube ….

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On the critics objection to the darkness and violence in her works

"One thing has not changed. Lacerating self- doubt. At this point, I do not know anything. I just cannot hope. I feel my way, and try not to be afraid, it is just not that the dancers do not know where they are going, I also do not know ... I have to trust myself." – Pina Bausch

Through her work, Pina Bausch always sought to discover and articulate a universal grammar of human existence that transcends local cultures. She studied various cultures, constantly changing, captivating images of human emotions: anger, fear, love, rendered in an ironic and poetic manner. The dancers portrayed their own experiences and cultural codes on stage; the images transcended language barriers and conveyed universal understanding”

She passed away on 30th June 2009. She was suffering from cancer. Doubtless she was one of the greatest dancers and choreographers.”

The above excerpts are from the interview Dr. Sunil Kothari had with Pina Bausch at National School of Drama (Delhi – India) on 4th January, 2008. (Click here to read the full interview…)

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Pina Bausch was always thinking, reworking within herself, totally engrossed in the movements and images changing around her. She was constantly evolving with those changes such that her rehearsals for stage performance were actually a continuous stream of evolving passion … and that is all a dance is all about… Evolving Passion.

Finally I leave you with a very interesting and contemporary love sequence...

Text Curtsy Wikipedia
Video curtsy YouTube

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ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

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