ABSTRACT
In this chapter, Arendell details Wim Wenders’ tribute to Bausch, Pina: dance, dance otherwise we are lost. Wenders used four pieces: Café Müller, Sacre du Printemps, Kontakthof, and Vollmond (Full Moon). In Bausch's absence, Wenders wanted her dancers to present him with previously choreographed material so that what he filmed really spoke directly to her work, as she had produced it. For this filmmaker, filming Bausch's pieces in two dimensions felt like a sacrilege or a major infraction. Her dancers were so live, so fully present on stage, that only 3D could fully capture their intensity. In Wenders’ film, this three dimensionality does with film what Bausch literally did with live performance: Bausch literally had her dancers walk straight out into the audience in order to interact with them. Arendell argues that the major advantage with Wenders’ combination of Bausch's choreography and 3D-filming is that the natural elements in her work, specifically water, dirt, or outdoor spaces, feel just that much more real in his film. Arendell argues that Bausch's dancers’ movement is either glorious or all consuming, and possibly both at the same time: simultaneously spent and renewed—a truly Bauschian paradox.
