The dancers at Das Tanztheater Wuppertal, unlike those in many ballet companies, are crazily diverse in age, height, shape and color. We meet each one close-up in Pina, the acclaimed documentary about the late choreographer Pina Bausch and her work at Tanztheater. The dancers have surprisingly expressive, eccentric faces; they reminded me of characters in Maira Kalman’s drawings. My favorites were Andre Berezin, a tall Russian who takes stoic, heroic male roles, and Ditta Miranda Jasjfi, a young woman with a tempestuous, kinetic energy. The dancers perform on stage at the Tanztheater, and also at locations (on a traffic island, inside a tram, along the edge of a cliff) in and around Wuppertal. These outdoor segments dispel pretension and bring a special poignancy to the choreography, much of which mimics and elaborates gestures from daily life (walking, embracing, kissing).
But the best part of the movie was seeing Bausch herself dance a part in Cafe Muller, one of her best known works from 1978. (It was also performed, with Bausch dancing the same part, in the opening of Pedro Almodovar’s film Talk to Her.) In a white gown that looks like it’s been lifted from Martha Graham’s closet, and with her long hair loose, Bausch walks into walls, hurls herself across the stage, and turns her arms in huge, looping gestures. Bausch’s body is fine and sinewy, and her movements conjure anguish. Contorted, roiling, she offers a classical image of grief that doesn’t need to be tarted up with 3D.