What Are Pina Bausch and Her Dancers Doing in Wuppertal? (1983)

Overview

Wuppertal is a drizzly, industrial city on the Rhine and one immediately wonders why Pina Bausch and her avant-garde dance troupe have settled there. A socially engaged documentarian, Wildenhahn is also perplexed by this issue and spends considerable time trying to place Bausch in a context outside of the aesthetic. Still, the dance company's daily life and the excruciating rehearsal and performance schedule is solidly captured. The film begins cleverly: a dance critic offers sagacious comments on ballet dancers finishing their careers at mid-thirty just when, according to Bausch, the "aspects of misery, suffering and fear of death should become an integral part of a dancer's spiritual and psychological make-up." Wildenhahn's camera glides over the dancers' bodies as Bausch leads them through their paces, a consummate teacher. Leaving behind rehearsals of "Bandoneón" and "Walzer," Wildenhahn then ventures out into the streets of Wuppertal searching for the dance of the common people.