A few days before Wenders's documentary was about to start filming, Pina Bausch died of cancer, and this documentary became a "memoir" of Pina. There are many memories of her dance troupe members. Pina does not appear in many scenes in the film, but you can still find that although she is very old, she can still be said to be a beautiful woman with outstanding temperament. Especially her beautiful, passionate and sensitive eyes, full of insight, she can see the unique place in a dancer's soul and help him express it through dance, her dance group is tall, short, fat, thin, young, There are old people. Maybe they don't have beautiful bodies, but they have different experiences and characteristics, and these are well integrated into their dance expressions, which are so natural. On stage they are separate people. "All training can't erase the taste of 'human'." Just like Lin Huaimin, a modern dancer from Taiwan, said in his book.
There are many classic dance clips of Pina in the film. When I first watched it, as a science student, I always tried to collect the content expressed by the dancer's limbs and various details of the scene, and then I always wanted to think rationally and deconstruct it. Watch the dance. But I feel that all kinds of understandings are so one-sided, powerless and far-fetched. Later in the film, Pina said: "What does spring mean? How does it feel? What do you think of when you think of spring? ... What does the waltz mean? What does the word inspire?". What she has been talking about is feeling, feeling. I suddenly realized how stupid it was for me to use rational analysis and deconstruction to understand her dance. All we have to do is to feel (feeling) those complex and full emotions that dancers express through space, body, movement and expression! And you feel and feel the emotions conveyed by the dancer, which is the key to feeling and understanding her dance.
When you open your heart, only feel, and capture the emotions expressed by the dancer, you are immediately integrated into her dance, and the whole dance is suddenly connected in front of you. You feel the joy, surprise, and pain of the dancer. Sadness, hesitation, confusion, numbness, loneliness, struggle, perseverance, persistence, and many things that cannot be expressed in words, cannot be understood by reason, but can be clearly received by the heart. You have received the message from the dancer, you cry but don't know why, and you smile but don't know why. You know Pina's dancers have communicated with our hearts through dance. After a dance, the dancers lead you to experience the impact of various emotions, loneliness, pain, sadness, and joy come one after another, just like drinking a glass of red wine of a good year, all kinds of flavors linger on the tongue, like smelling a bottle of precious perfume , Top notes, middle notes, and back notes will make you intoxicated with all kinds of fragrances. Before you know it, you seem to be led through an emotional sauna by the dancers. By the end, feeling mentally exhausted, yet hearty. And this kind of spiritual experience is very rare in our ordinary life.
Pina's dancers all have their own characteristics and come from all over the world. It is said that almost all of them are over 30 years old. They are of different shapes and have their own characteristics. That's Pina's attitude, to tap and reveal the different qualities of a dancer as an individual. Pina values the personal experience behind the dancer more than the beautiful body. In a large-scale group dance, you can feel the overall feeling, or you can keep an eye on one or several dancers and feel their stories. Just like a big story composed of small stories, a big world composed of small characters. Even with the same movements, each dancer feels different to you. They are no longer symbols on the stage, but different people who can communicate with your heart. Every one is different! Only this point, many of Pina's dances are worth watching again and again. The different focus in your eyes in the same "Mueller Cafe" is a different story. I would like to have the opportunity to go to the cinema to see 3D. I don't know when it will be introduced in China.
In the end, I would like to thank "Wenders" for making such a good movie and Pina for creating so many good dances, but I suggest that students who watch it find a quiet time and mood to watch it. It is easy to have a good experience in this way. If I watched it in an afternoon when I was in a irritable mood and was in a hurry, I might think that modern dance is a group of lunatics going crazy!
PS. The original soundtrack of the movie is very good, if you like it, you can go and listen to it.
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