For an woman whose body of work was so beautifully unique and steeped in an emotional potency and power that spoke volumes even in its silence, it’s fascinating to examine just how strongly the sentiment of Pina Bausch’s art was able to echo and coalesce with that of her peers. Just as the Bausch quote, “What are we longing for? Where does all this yearning come from?” essentially acts as the through-line to Wim Wenders’ entire oeuvre, the German choreographer also found a simpatico realtionship with that of filmmaker Chantal Akerman, whose world of cinema employed the relationship between space and bodies to express “melancholy, narcissistic meditations charged with feelings of loneliness and anxiety.” And in 1983, Akerman captured Bausch’s Wuppertal Tanztheater during a five-week European tour, resulting in the documentary One Day Pina Asked…
“When I watched one of Pina’s performances for the first time a couple of years ago, I was overcome by an emotion I can’t quite define,” Akerman once said—resembling Wenders’ sentiment that upon seeing Bausch’s work for the first time, “My whole body understood it and I had cramps after, as if I’d been onstage myself.” And with her film, Akerman explores rehearsals and performances, bringing us inside the technical process while giving us a glimpse inside the mind of a fascinating and rare artist. We see interviews with members of the company—those who, “Bausch chose not only for their talents, but for certain intangible personal qualities as well. The dancers describe the development of various dances, and the way that Bausch calls upon them to supply autobiographical details around which the performances were frequently built.”
ONE DAY PINA ASKED…COMES TO THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER
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