Pina Bausch
Pina Bausch (center) and Dominique Mercy (second from left) at the end of Wiesenland in 2009 in Paris.
Born	(1940-07-27)July 27, 1940 Solingen, Germany
Died	June 30, 2009(2009-06-30) (aged 68) Wuppertal, North Rhine Westphalia, Germany
Nationality	German
Other names	Philippine Bausch
Alma mater	Folkwangschule
Occupation	Modern dance choreographer
Influenced by	Kurt Jooss
Influenced	William Forsythe, Lloyd Newson, Alain Platel, Wayne McGregor
Website
Official website

Philippina "Pina" Bausch^[1] (27 July 1940 – 30 June 2009) was a German performer of modern dance, choreographer, dance teacher and ballet director. With her unique style, a blend of movements, sounds and prominent stage sets, and with her elaborate cooperation with performers during the composition of a piece (a style now known as Tanztheater), she became a leading influence since the 1970s in the world of modern dance.^[2]

Early life[link]

Bausch was born in Solingen, near Düsseldorf, the third and youngest child of August and Anita Bausch, who owned a restaurant with guest rooms.^[3]

Career[link]

Bausch began dancing at a young age. In 1955 at the age of 14 she entered the Folkwangschule in Essen then directed by Germany's most influential choreographer Kurt Jooss, one of the founders of German Expressionist dance.

After graduation in 1959, Bausch left Germany with a scholarship to continue her studies at the Juilliard School in New York City in 1960, where her teachers included Antony Tudor, José Limón, and Paul Taylor. Bausch was soon performing with Tudor at the Metropolitan Opera Ballet Company, and with Paul Taylor at New American Ballet. When in 1960 Taylor was invited to premiere a new work named Tablet in Spoleto, Italy, he took Bausch with him. In New York she also performed with the Paul Sanasardo and Donya Feuer Dance Company, with which she collaborated on two pieces in 1961.^[4]

In 1962, Bausch joined Jooss' new Folkwang Ballett Company as a soloist and assisted Jooss on many of the pieces, before choreographing her first piece in 1968, Fragment, to music by Béla Bartók. In 1969, she succeeded Jooss as artistic director.

Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch[link]

In 1972, Bausch started as artistic director of the Wuppertal Opera Ballet, which was later renamed as the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch. The company has a large repertoire of original pieces, and regularly tours throughout the world.

Her best-known dance-theatre works include the melancholic Café Müller (1978), in which dancers stumble around the stage crashing into tables and chairs, and a thrilling Rite of Spring (1975), which required the stage to be completely covered with soil.^[5]

Male-female interaction is a theme found throughout her work, which has been an inspiration for—and reached a wider audience through—the movie Talk to Her, directed by Pedro Almodóvar. Her pieces are constructed of short units of dialogue and action, often of a surreal nature. Repetition is an important structuring device. Her large multi-media productions often involve elaborate sets and eclectic music. In Vollmond, half of the stage is taken up by a giant, rocky hill, and the score includes everything from Portuguese music to K. D. Lang.^[6]

In 1983, she played the role of La Principessa Lherimia in Federico Fellini's film And the Ship Sails On.^[7] The Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch made its American debut in Los Angeles as the opening performance of the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival.

Personal life[link]

Bausch was married to Dutch-born Rolf Borzik, a set and costume designer who died of leukemia in 1980. In 1981 Ronald Kay became her life-long companion and was the father of her son, Salomon.

Awards and honours[link]

Among the honours awarded to Bausch are the UK's Laurence Olivier Award and Japan's Kyoto Prize, while in 2008 the city of Frankfurt am Main awarded her its prestigious Goethe Prize. She was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009.^[8]

In 2009, Bausch started to collaborate with film director Wim Wenders on a 3D documentary, Pina. The film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2011.

Works by Bausch will be staged in June and July 2012 as a highlight of the Cultural Olympiad preceding the Olympic Games 2012 in London. The works were created when Bausch was invited to visit and stay in 10 global locations – in India, Brazil, Palermo, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Budapest, Istanbul, Santiago, Rome and Japan – between 1986 and 2009. Seven of the works have not been seen in the UK.^[9]

Death[link]

Bausch died on 30 June 2009 in Wuppertal, North Rhine Westphalia, Germany at the age of 68^[10] of an unstated form of cancer (later reporting cites lung cancer after years of heavy smoking), five days after diagnosis^[2] and two days before shooting was scheduled to begin for the long-planned Wim Wenders documentary. She is survived by her son Salomon and her life long companion.

Wenders' documentary, Pina, was released in late 2011 in the United States, and is dedicated to her memory.

Works since 1973[link]

Filmography[link]

• 1980 Die Generalprobe. Documentary. Dir.: Werner Schroeter.
• 1983 What Are Pina Bausch and Her Dancers Doing in Wuppertal?. Documentary. Dir.: Klaus Wildenhahn.
• 1983 Plaisir du théâtre. TV mini-series documentary. Dir.: Georges Bensoussan.
• 1983 And the Ship Sails On. Drama. Dir.: Federico Fellini.
• 1983 Un jour Pina m'a demandé. TV documentary. Dir.: Chantal Akerman.
• 1990 The Complaint of an Empress. Dir.: Pina Bausch.
• 1990 3res 14torze 16tze. TV series. Episode dated 26 January 1990. Dir.: Cristina Ferrer.
• 1998 Lissabon Wuppertal Lisboa. TV documentary. Dir.: Fernando Lopes.
• 2002 Talk to Her. Drama. Dir.: Pedro Almodóvar.
• 2002 Pina Bausch - A Portrait by Peter Lindbergh based on 'Der Fensterputzer'. TV short. Dir.: Peter Lindbergh.
• 2004 La mandrágora. TV series. Dir.: Miguel Sarmiento
• 2006 Pina Bausch. TV documentary. Dir.: Anne Linsel.
• 2010 Dancing Dreams. Documentary. Dir.: Rainer Hoffmann, Anne Linsel.
• 2011 Pina – Dance Dance Otherwise We Are Lost. Documentary. Dir.: Wim Wenders.

Gallery[link]

Pina Bausch's Nelken (Carnations), 2005.

References[link]

Notes

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pina Bausch

• Official Website
• Stanford Presidential Lectures in the Humanities and Arts Pina Bausch: Life and work, Mimi Tashiro, 1999
• Ballet Magazine Interview Valerie Lawson, 2002
• Goethe Institut 50 Choreographers of Contemporary Dance, Jochen Schmidt, 2009

Wim Wenders
Wim Wenders (2008)
Born	Ernst Wilhelm Wenders (1945-08-14) 14 August 1945 (age 66) Düsseldorf, Germany
Occupation	Film director
Years active	1967–present
Spouse	Edda Köchl (1968–74) Lisa Kreuzer (1974–78) Ronee Blakley (1979–81) Isabelle Weingarten (1981–82) Donata Wenders (1993–)
Awards	Golden Lion for The State of Things (1982) Golden Palm for Paris, Texas (1984) Cannes Film Festival Grand Jury Prize for Faraway, So Close! (1993) Silver Bear Jury Prize for The Million Dollar Hotel (2000)
Website
www.wim-wenders.com

Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders (born 14 August 1945) is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer. Since 1996, Wenders has been the president of the European Film Academy in Berlin.

Early life[link]

Wenders was born in Düsseldorf into a traditional Catholic family. His father, Heinrich Wenders, was a surgeon. Use of the Dutch name, "Wim", a shortened version of the baptismal name "Wilhelm/Willem", reflected his mother's Dutch provenance, but the Dutch version was rejected by the civil registration authorities in 1945 as "unGerman".^[1] He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine (1963–64) and philosophy (1964–65) in Freiburg and Düsseldorf. However, he dropped out of university studies and moved to Paris in October 1966 to become a painter. Wenders failed his entry test at France's national film school IDHEC (now La Fémis), and instead became an engraver in the studio of Johnny Friedlander, an American artist, in Montparnasse. During this time, Wenders became fascinated with cinema, and saw up to five movies a day at the local movie theater.

Set on making his obsession also his life's work, Wenders returned to Germany in 1967 to work in the Düsseldorf office of United Artists. That fall, he entered the "Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film München" (University of Television and Film Munich). Between 1967 and 1970 while at the "HFF", Wenders also worked as a film critic for FilmKritik, then the Munich daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, Twen magazine, and Der Spiegel.

Wenders completed several short films before graduating from the Hochschule with a feature-length 16mm black and white film, Summer in the City.

Career[link]

Wenders began his career during the New German Cinema era of the late 1960s, making his feature directorial debut with Summer in the City (1970). Much of the distinctive cinematography in his movies is the result of a highly productive long-term collaboration with Dutch cinematographer Robby Müller. Some of his more successful and critically acclaimed movies, Paris, Texas and Wings of Desire, for example, have been the result of fruitful collaborations with avant-garde authors Peter Handke and Sam Shepard. Handke's novel, The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick was adapted for Wenders' second feature film, The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty. Handke co-wrote the script for Wings of Desire and Until the End of the World, both featuring Solveig Dommartin.

Wenders has directed several highly acclaimed documentaries, most notably Buena Vista Social Club (1999), about Cuban musicians, and The Soul of a Man (2003), on American blues.

He has also directed many music videos for groups such as U2 and Talking Heads, including "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)" and "Sax and Violins". His television commercials include a UK advertisement for Carling Premier Canadian beer.

Wim Wenders at Cannes (2002)

Wenders' book, Emotion Pictures, a collection of diary essays written while a film student, was adapted and broadcast as a series of plays on BBC Radio 3, featuring Peter Capaldi as Wenders, with Gina McKee, Saskia Reeves, Dennis Hopper, Harry Dean Stanton and Ricky Tomlinson, dramatised by Neil Cargill.

Wenders was collaborating with artist/journalist and longtime friend Melinda Camber Porter on a documentary feature about his body of work, Wim Wenders - Visions on Film, when Porter passed away - the film remains incomplete.

Wenders is a member of the advisory board of World Cinema Foundation. The project was founded by Martin Scorsese and aimed at finding and reconstructing world cinema films that have been long neglected. He serves as a Jury Member for the digital studio Filmaka, a platform for undiscovered filmmakers to show their work to industry professionals.^[2]

In 2011 he was selected to stage the 2013 cycle of Richard Wagner's Ring der Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival,^[3] a reflection of his capacity to produce imaginative tributes to great works of art.^[4] The project fell through when he insisted on filming in 3-D, which the Wagner family found too costly and disruptive.^[5]

While promoting his 3-D dance film, Pina, Wenders told the Documentary channel Blog in December 2011 that he has already begun work on a new 3-D documentary, this one about architecture.^[6] He also has said that he will only be working in the 3-D film format from now on.^[7]

Selected exhibitions[link]

2006

Wim Wenders: Immagini dal pianeta terra, Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome, Italy Journey to Onomichi – Photos by Wim and Donata Wenders, Omotesando Hills, Tokyo, Japan Pictures from the Surface of the Earth, images from touring exhibition, Salon of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade, Yugoslavia Dark Places, curated by Joshua Decter, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA

2005

The Forest: Politics, Poetics, and Practice, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC Through the Lens, group exhibition, C. Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore, MD

2004–05

Pictures from the Surface of the Earth, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Århus C, Denmark

2004

Pictures from the Surface of the Earth, Australia and Japan, James Cohan Gallery, New York, NY Between The Lines, group exhibition, James Cohan Gallery, New York, NY Images of Time and Place: Contemporary Views of Landscape, group exhibition, Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, NY Wim Wenders, Galleria Marabini, Bologna, Italy Through the Lens: Eight Photographers, group exhibition, C. Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland.

2003

Wim Wenders, James Cohan Gallery, New York, NY Wim Wenders, Galerie Judin Belot, Zurich, Switzerland

2000–04

Pictures from the Surface of the Earth, touring exhibition: Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2001), Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao (2002), Haunch of Venison, London (2003); Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2003); City Art Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand; Millennium Art Museum, Beijing, China; Shanghai Museum of Art, Shanghai, China; Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China (2004)

2000

Buena Vista Social Club, Rose Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, CA

1996

Wim Wenders: Landscape and Memory, Gallery of Contemporary Photography, Santa Monica Wim Wenders: Photos, in conjunction with the publication, Wim Wenders: Photos, Munich Goethe Institute (1996), Goethe Institutes worldwide

1995

Wim Wenders: Landscape and Memory, Gallery of Contemporary Photography, Santa Monica, CA

1993–95

Wim Wenders Photo Exhibition, in conjunction with the publication, Once, Munich: Schirmer/ Mosel (2001), touring exhibition: Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome (1993); Villa delle Rose, Bologna (1994); FNAC, Paris (1994); Parco, Tokyo (1994); FNAC, Berlin (1995); Villa Rufolo, Ravello (1995)

Wim Wenders (2005)

1989–94

Wim Wenders Photographs, touring exhibition: Galerie F. C Gundlach, Hamburg (1989); Galerie Marie-Louise Wirth, Zürich (1990); Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film, Munich (1991); Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles (1991); Shibuya Seibu Dept. Store, Tokyo (1992); Kiyomizu

1989–94

Temple, Kyoto (1992); Musée de L'Elysée, Lausanne (1992); Amerika Haus, Berlin (1992); Venice Biennale (1993); Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek (1993); Sala Parpallo Palau Dels Scala, Valencia (1994); San Telmo Museum, San Sebastian (1994)

1986–92

Written in the West, in conjunction with the publication, Written in the West, Munich: Schirmer/Mosel (1987), touring exhibition: Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1986); Encontros de Fotografia, Coimbra (1987); Palazzo della Triennale di Milano (1988); Film Society of Miami (1988); Goethe Institut, Stockholm (1988); Goethe Institut, Copenhagen (1988); Saint-Yrieix-La-Perche (1990); Städtische Galerie Schwarzes Kloster, Freiburg (Breisgau) (1992)

Legacy and honors[link]

Wenders has already received many awards, including the Golden Lion for The State of Things at the Venice Film Festival (1982); the Palme d'Or at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival for his movie Paris, Texas; and Best Direction for Wings of Desire in the 1987 Bavarian Film Awards^[8] and the 1987 Cannes Film Festival. In 1993 he won the Bavarian Film Awards for Best Director for Faraway, So Close!.^[8] In 2004, he received the Master of Cinema Award of the International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg. He was awarded the Leopard of Honour at the Locarno International Film Festival in 2005. In 2012 his dance film Pina was nominated for the Best Documentary Feature of the 84th Academy Awards.^[9]

He has been awarded honorary doctorates at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1989 and at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium in 2005.

Filmography[link]

Selected bibliography[link]

• Wenders, Wim (1984), Paris, Texas, Nördlingen: Greno, ISBN 978-3-921568-11-8 
• Wenders, Wim (1986), Emotion pictures: Essays und Filmkritiken, 1968-1984, Frankfurt: Verlag der Autoren, ISBN 978-3-88661-078-5 
• Wenders, Wim (1989), Emotion pictures: reflections on cinema, London: Faber and Faber, ISBN 978-0-571-15271-1 
• Shepard, Sam; Wenders, Wim (1991), Paris, Texas: Screenplay, New York: Ecco Press, ISBN 978-0-88001-266-9 
• Wenders, Wim; Hofmann, Michael (1992), The logic of images: essays and conversations, London: Faber and Faber, ISBN 978-0-571-16517-9 
• Wenders, Wim; Handke, Peter (1998) (in German), Der Himmel über Berlin: Ein Filmbuch von Wim Wenders und Peter Handke, Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag, ISBN 978-3-518-02406-5 
• Wenders, Wim; Wenders, Donata (2000), The heart is a sleeping Beauty: the Million Dollar Hotel - a film book, New York: teNeues, ISBN 978-3-8238-5468-5 
• Wenders, Wim; Hofmann, Michael (2000), My time with Antonioni: the diary of an extraordinary experience, London: Faber and Faber, ISBN 978-0-571-20076-4 
• Wenders, Wim (2001), Written in the West, New York: teNeues, ISBN 978-3-8238-5469-2 
• Wenders, Wim (2001), Once: pictures and stories, New York: D.A.P./Schirmer/Mosel, ISBN 978-1-891024-25-2 
• Wenders, Wim; Hofmann, Michael (2001), On film: essays and conversations, London: Faber and Faber, ISBN 978-0-571-20718-3 
• Lindbergh, Peter; Wenders, Wim (2002), Peter Lindbergh: stories, Santa Fe: Arena Editions, ISBN 978-1-892041-64-7 
• Steinhilber, Berthold; Wenders, Wim (2003), Ghost towns of the American West, New York: Harry N. Abrams, ISBN 978-0-8109-4508-1 
• Wenders, Wim; Tawada, Yoko (2007), Where Europe begins, New York: New Directions Publishers, ISBN 978-0-8112-1702-6 

Quotes[link]

• "Sex and violence was never really my cup of tea; I was always more into sax and violins."
• "I consider Ozu my all time grand master."
• "I want to make personal films, not private films."

See also[link]

• James Cohan Gallery

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Wim Wenders

• Official website
• Wim Wenders at the Internet Movie Database
• Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
• filmportal.de including biography, filmography and photos
• Wenders Bibliography (via UC Berkeley)
• Wim Wenders Interview (portuguese subtitles; Flash/HTML5)
• Interview with Wim Wenders (in three parts; Flash/HTML5)
• Interview with Wim Wenders (German)
• CNN interview with Wim Wenders
• Wim Wenders's Cinématon - A 4 minutes portrait by Gérard Courant (1982) (Flash)

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