After Gertrude Stein, the second Muse of my youth was Pina Bausch, one of the earliest creators of "dance theater" in the seventies, in Germany. Pina is considered the greatest choreographer of our time, and if you have been lucky enough to see her work (onstage or on film or YouTube) you know how everybody in theater and dance has busily and eagerly copied her ever since she started out. Pina recently died; I wrote an homage to her which you can find at http://renatestendhal.com/2009/09/369/, but even more recently, the latest documentary about Pina (premiered this year at the Film Festival of Berlin) played in San Francisco. It showed her still alive, working on a fascinating piece of dance theater with teenagers picked from random schools in her town Wuppertal. None of the young stars had any dance or theater background...
You can see stunning photos and an excerpt from the film at the end of my review of Dreams of Dancing: Tanzträume. http://www.scene4.com/0710/renatestendhal0710.html
Yes, one copy or so is circulating on a performance circuit, Judith, and that's how I could see and review the film in SF. But that's a very small chance for most of us -- one day here and there. We are wondering about regular distribution and Netflix... Fingers crossed!
I just got a great idea from She Writer Kathleen Depuydt: to type "Dancing Dreams" into your Netflix account: it's being recognized as an existing movie, and if enough people "save" it in their queue perhaps Netflix will manage to provide it!
Gerry and Ginster: let's keep each other posted if and when we are able to track down the DVD of the film, most likely in Europe. Ginster: is the Hommage to Pina for sale in Germany?
Thanks Renate, for introducing me to Pina Bausch. Your article was outstanding and I will share it with my granddaughter who is a dancer. Ivy will start college in the fall and has been accepted into a school where she will be a part of the dance program. I hope to find the documentary about Pina for Ivy.
Judith, your kindness helped me correct and figure out some tricks and hyperlinks for my blog post... Your own links in your comments are great - I hope readers click on them to see the excerpt from "Café Müller" and read your words!
Renate, Obviously your hyperlink for "Pina Bausch" to Wikipedia is fine. The second possibly intended one shows the URL for your website/news, but leads to the earlier Wikipedia page. You could make "my review" or the Cursive "Dreams of Dancing" a hyperlink that leads to your excellent article at Scene4. I'm glad my notes on tags were welcome. As for "signing up" for my website, that must have been "signing up" or "creating account' with Google in order to be able to leave comments on blog posts that require a Google ID, which I don't consider a bad idea. If anything you'll have another free email account @gmail and will benefit for greater flexibility moving around in the blogosphere.
Renate! In my aim to add something to my comment I lost my hyperlinks ; ) So will have to put them in again. Would be nice if you could travel from here to my blog, eh? Just read your article at Scene4. Excellent. I posted a comment there and hope it will show soon. Together with other (some legendary) theater and dance buffs I'd take a rented coach from Amsterdam to Wuppertal (as related in my tribute of 6/30/2009). Bausch's expressive arms created a standard hard to surpass. Last year I enjoyed the rare video clips plus interview with Bausch. Thanks for your links I'm going to watch that docu you posted for sure.
PS you can make hyperlinks to your blog by highlighting words, then clicking on the chain link icon above the writing window and pasting in the URL of the site you want to link to, the word will show highlighted (as my links in this comment are). For multiple word tags (such as names) to show up together in right order, not separated, put name in quotation marks ("Pina Bausch").
Wonderful, thanks, Judith. So we both wrote tributes to Pina after her passing... Yes, Café Müller is one of the very powerful pieces, very personal because of her growing up in a café, and you are probably aware that beloved Almodovar used scenes from the piece in his film "Talk to Her": two men are watching Pina from the first row and one of them is crying... Apart from the lovely feeling of sharing a passion with another She Writer -- with you--, you are giving me a most welcome lesson about the tags that have irked me for months!! And yes, the hyperlinks! May I ask you which words you would highlight in addition to those I already put in as hyperlinks? (Your former, longer explanation about signing up at your website got lost in cyber space, I am afraid.) I am quite aware and do it as often as I can...
Yes, one copy or so is circulating on a performance circuit, Judith, and that's how I could see and review the film in SF. But that's a very small chance for most of us -- one day here and there. We are wondering about regular distribution and Netflix... Fingers crossed!
I just got a great idea from She Writer Kathleen Depuydt: to type "Dancing Dreams" into your Netflix account: it's being recognized as an existing movie, and if enough people "save" it in their queue perhaps Netflix will manage to provide it!
Gerry and Ginster: let's keep each other posted if and when we are able to track down the DVD of the film, most likely in Europe. Ginster: is the Hommage to Pina for sale in Germany?
Thanks Renate, for introducing me to Pina Bausch. Your article was outstanding and I will share it with my granddaughter who is a dancer. Ivy will start college in the fall and has been accepted into a school where she will be a part of the dance program. I hope to find the documentary about Pina for Ivy.
Judith, your kindness helped me correct and figure out some tricks and hyperlinks for my blog post...
Your own links in your comments are great - I hope readers click on them to see the excerpt from "Café Müller" and read your words!
Excellent and very inspiring, dear Judith! I will follow your guidance and suggestions joyfully....
Renate, Obviously your hyperlink for "Pina Bausch" to Wikipedia is fine. The second possibly intended one shows the URL for your website/news, but leads to the earlier Wikipedia page. You could make "my review" or the Cursive "Dreams of Dancing" a hyperlink that leads to your excellent article at Scene4.
I'm glad my notes on tags were welcome.
As for "signing up" for my website, that must have been "signing up" or "creating account' with Google in order to be able to leave comments on blog posts that require a Google ID, which I don't consider a bad idea. If anything you'll have another free email account @gmail and will benefit for greater flexibility moving around in the blogosphere.
Renate! In my aim to add something to my comment I lost my hyperlinks ; ) So will have to put them in again. Would be nice if you could travel from here to my blog, eh?
Just read your article at Scene4. Excellent. I posted a comment there and hope it will show soon.
Together with other (some legendary) theater and dance buffs I'd take a rented coach from Amsterdam to Wuppertal (as related in my tribute of 6/30/2009). Bausch's expressive arms created a standard hard to surpass. Last year I enjoyed the rare video clips plus interview with Bausch.
Thanks for your links I'm going to watch that docu you posted for sure.
PS you can make hyperlinks to your blog by highlighting words, then clicking on the chain link icon above the writing window and pasting in the URL of the site you want to link to, the word will show highlighted (as my links in this comment are).
For multiple word tags (such as names) to show up together in right order, not separated, put name in quotation marks ("Pina Bausch").
Wonderful, thanks, Judith. So we both wrote tributes to Pina after her passing... Yes, Café Müller is one of the very powerful pieces, very personal because of her growing up in a café, and you are probably aware that beloved Almodovar used scenes from the piece in his film "Talk to Her": two men are watching Pina from the first row and one of them is crying...
Apart from the lovely feeling of sharing a passion with another She Writer -- with you--, you are giving me a most welcome lesson about the tags that have irked me for months!! And yes, the hyperlinks! May I ask you which words you would highlight in addition to those I already put in as hyperlinks? (Your former, longer explanation about signing up at your website got lost in cyber space, I am afraid.)
I am quite aware and do it as often as I can...