Glorious dance film at Corrie

The ever-enterprising Corrie Film Club has chosen a beautiful film called Pina for its showing on Sunday 8th July. Pina Bausch was a phenomenally talented dancer and choreographer who was the living inspiration for the Tanztheater Wuppertal in Germany, and this documentary was being made when she died of cancer, far more suddenly than anyone had expected. The director, Wim Wenders, thought it was impossible to go on with the film, but the other dancers implored him to continue, pointing to the wealth of recorded footage that already existed. He agreed to go on, and the result is moving and beautiful.

The film combines long sequences of Pina’s work, intercut with the dancers’ recollections of her. It was partly shot inside the Tanztheater but many scenes are set in outdoor locations in the famously eccentric German city of Wuppertal. A glance at the trailer will show something of the daring, almost dangerously trusting quality that Pina Bausch expressed with such clarity, and it is easy to see why dancers adored her and found her mesmerically influential.

Originally made in 3D, some critics far preferred the normal, two-dimensional version, feeling that dancers do not need to be shown from strange camera angles or leaping out of the screen. The Corrie showing, at 8.00 pm in Corrie and Sannox Village Hall, will of course be the ‘normal’ version, very close to the real experience of watching dancers work. All are welcome. There is no charge for admission, though any contribution to the running costs of the hall will be gratefully appreciated.