The innovative and often intensely dramatic movements composed by German choreographer Pina Bausch were often deemed as controversial and unsavoury in traditional dance circles. Her work, however, was unavoidably creating a new language in contemporary dance, and sought to push boundaries as to what the human body could achieve in terms of physical exertion, poise, surrealism and illusion.

Bausch’s pieces often incorporated speech, music and film, creating a synergic and often violent energy in each performance; in her version of Bluebeard, chaotic speech was used which produced a real frenetic atmosphere for the audience and featured scenes of graphic sexual exploit and gesture, typical of much of her mature work. Her original approach influenced the international development of dance and theatre and inspired not only a generation of choreographers, but also many visual artists and filmmakers.

Awarded many prestigious prizes, Bausch remains one of the most prolific choreographers of the 21st century. Since her death in 2009, her dance company Tanztheater Wuppertal has ensured that her work is as popular as it ever was, with the 2010 international tour that included Athens, Istanbul, Monaco, New York, Barcelona, London and Edinburgh International Festival.

This year, critically acclaimed director and filmmaker Wim Wenders has produced a revolutionary film, simply called ‘PINA‘, which brings Bausch’s dance aesthetic to our screens in 3-dimensional footage. Premiering at Berlin Film Festival in February, the director sought to present Bausch’s choreography in a way in which the viewer could experience the emotional rawness of the dancers in the film. The three dimensional aspect only adds to the expressionist movements created by the performers and allows the dance to envelop and engage with the audience.

Arriving in London and hosted by the Barbican centre at The Curzon Cinema on Wednesday 13 April, the showing will act as the launch of an exciting project for 2012, with a variety of events taking place at the Barbican in collaboration with London dance institution Sadler’s Wells. Each of the works – with seven being UK premiers – explore a specific global location that the company lived in for a time; including Japan, Istanbul, Brazil and Rome.

The month long season of performances and shows will run from 6 June – 9 July 2012.

www.pina-bausch.de

Text by Felicity Shaw, London.

Yohji Yamamoto’s worldly charisma coupled with the magic of his creative world has had a profound effect on many people through the years, lending a staying power to his inner circle of ongoing friendships and working relationships that continue to flower and bear fruit.

One such disciple of Yohji is Donata Wenders, the German photographer and wife of filmmaker Wim Wenders. Donata confesses to wearing little else than Yohji’s garments. Her fascination with the ritual and procession of a Yohji Yamamoto fashion show is explained in A#2, in her detailed recount of the comings and goings backstage, accompanied by her black and white photography.

Donata’s film photographs are emotional and very human, and although they are photojournalism in the sense of their subject and documenting an event, they remain entirely artistic and complex through interplay of light, shadow and the human body. In her text, Donata suggestively personifies Yohji’s garments, as teachers to the young models who wear them, and she describes how the girls transform:

“The girls slip into ‘their’ dresses and doing so they all seem to transform, as if they were butterflies appearing out of their cocoons. Somehow they all turn magically into the characters they are made to be for this moment on the catwalk.”

Wim Wenders is a German image maker – a film producer, director, writer and photographer whose art formed a part of the New Wave in German cinema from the 1960s onwards. Some of Wenders’ more famous works include the film ‘Paris, Texas’ and ‘Wings of Desire’, both profound films that explore human relationships, tensions and involve a strong sense of spatial belonging – the idea of ‘place’ and connection with land and cities.

For Yohji Yamamoto’s A#2, a series of Wim Wender’s photography deals with the Grand Canyon, in Arizona, USA. Instead of a conventional focus on the sweeping, dramatic landscape, Wenders uses it as a backdrop to record the insignificant and idiosyncratic behaviours of the tourists who visit there – their sneakers and snapshot cameras, their motorbikes, campervans and 4WDs. In Wenders words:

“In all these tourist places
where people are expected to take pictures,
I can only take pictures of these people.
There is something very dramatic
about the longevity of these landscapes
and the short lives of these people
even if they try to prolong it
with the photographs they take.
Well I guess that goes for me, too.
Then again, I’m not a tourist.I’m a traveller.”

- Wim Wenders