Pina Bausch Tribute @ Filmhouse

It’s hard to imagine any event in the Dance:Film10 festival exceeding the intensity of the tribute to Pina Bausch, the internationally famous choreographer.

For those outside the dance world it’s difficult to quantify the impact of her unexpected death. An analogue for theatre enthusiasts might be Pinter’s death – if it had been shockingly unexpected, and Pinter had been personally associated with every production of his work, and had been as influential on other practitioners as Bausch has been.

An indication of the feeling and curiosity about Bausch was that the ticket demand was so great that the showing had to be moved to Filmhouse’s largest theatre.

The first part of the programme was Anne Linsel’s documentary film about the work of Bausch and the Tanztheater Wuppertal where she was artistic director for 36 years. The film consists of long interview sections with Bausch, interspersed with clips of some of her landmark works and interviews with other members of the Tanztheater. It’s a fascinating film that makes the viewer feel that they are in the presence of a driving creative artist. Most of the film concentrates on her working practices: a mixture of openness to inspiration, and demanding dedication - developing the works with the dancers in an atmosphere of being completely open to input from the cast – to the extent of the dancers not understanding the roles they are taking until very late in the process; or deciding to re-configure the piece after seeing the dress rehearsal. The film also gives away a glimmer of Bausch's character - the affection of dancers and crew, despite her absurdly demanding ways, the way she'd forget to eat unless her husband feeds her in her work break between 11pm and 2am and her response to the controversy her first works caused at the Tanztheater.

The second part of the event was a dance film of the Tanztheater’s Bausch choreographed Le Sacre du Printemps. I don’t know if there is a secret skill in the filming, or whether the dance work is so incandescent, that its power even shines through another medium, but after the completion of the film there was a pause before the spellbound – even shocked – audience could recover to applaud. (A reaction even more striking as many in the audience, I’m sure, would have seen the film before.)

Finally, there was a Q&A session with Barbara Kaufman, a member of Tanztheater Wuppertal, hosted by Morag Deyes. Questions covered were on such topics as the apparent violence in the works, the succession at Tanztheater now that Bausch has gone, what it is like to dance on the soil in Le Sacre, and others. The thoughtful, considered answers seemed in themselves to be a tribute to Bausch’s influence, and I hope it was possible to record the discussion for future reference.