PINA

Dance. Has a “dance” ever changed your life? Were you born to dance? Is it part of your DNA?  Dancing has the power to transcend every feeling: heartbreak, loss, meaningless migraines of minutia. Dance can free one of tireless shackles that dampen spirits, cloud vision, bulldoze barriers clutching, smothering youthful vibrancy. Nothing screams love, passion, unlimited joy more than a dance; dancing is a catharsis;  the laughter, language, narrative of life.

Anyone who has read the above paragraph and can relate, “Pina” is a must, a bible for the addicted dancer, or aficionado  of the skill. Dancing comes from the soul, it has northing to do with “training” or “professionalism”; those who love to dance, understand the mythic energy that invades and conquers one’s body; powerless to resist, moving as if your life lasts only for the duration of the song: it is water, wine, sustenance and unmitigated happiness.

Philippine “Pina” Bausch (1940-2009) was the choreographer, dance teacher, ballet director for Tanztheater in Westphalia, Germany. It now carries her name. The film revolves around the employed and gifted dancers she inspired,  allowing them to conquest their superlative plateau; the ultimate sphere, knowing they have met and surpassed their wildest, soaring expectations of excellence.

You witness the most innovative choreography involving male/female scenarios, wonderment of landscape, musical accompaniment by master composers; primarily it is a homage to a woman, a visionary so pivotal in the lives of the dancers that the pain of her absence resonates with their every move; robbed of her presence they fly, defy gravity, painting a portrait of sorrow, beauty, respect, love and bereavement rarely, if ever seen, on the screen.

Dancing has been and integral ingredient in most cultures for thousands of years; the first recorded instances were from India, 6000 B.C.; the Hindu god Shiva (Nataraja), “The Lord of the Dance” is often depicted standing on one foot. “Pina” is proof that the vocation keeps evolving , opening its doors to a myriad of entries. See “Pina”, and if nothing else your spirits will take flight and dance long after the curtain collapses, the lights brighten; gloom has dissipated, and in the words of Pina, go forth and “dance, dance or otherwise we are lost”.

FIVE STARS!!!!!

For Now…………Peneflix