THROUGH TIIME AND SPACE: PINA BAUSCH AND MERCE CUNNINGHAM Film Nights
26.09 (SAT) & 29.09 (TUE), 17:30, The Red House Center for Culture and Debate

Sofia Dance Week, The Red House Center for Culture and Debate and Goethe-Institute Bulgaria present:

Through Time and Space: PINA BAUSCH and MERCE CUNNINGHAM

The world dance scene recently lost two of the most significant names in contemporary dance – Pina Bausch (Philippine “Pina” Bausch, July 27, 1940 – June 30, 2009) and Merce Cunningham (Mercier “Merce” Philip Cunningham, April 16, 1919–July 26, 2009). They worked in the 20th century and until nowadays, established dance schools, defined tendencies and styles, and led on generations of followers, dancers and choreographers. In two film nights we try to take a closer look at the two titans.

26 September, 17:30
The Red House, Red Hall

Café Müller (director and choreographer: Pina Bausch, 50 min., 1978, Production: L’Arche Éditeur).
“A highly charged theatrical experience performed by mature-looking performers who appear spent by life before they even begin living. The excitement emanates from the highly controlled energy, the brilliant use of space, the cinematic overlap and flow of imagery. In a deserted cafe with scattered tables and chairs, Miss Bausch wanders in a nightgown, with eyes closed. Yet everything about this groping sleepwalker suggests that she is absorbing into her pores every single detail of the emotionally stunted behavior around her – just as she has absorbed the life around her to create her work.” (©Anna Kisselgoff, ©The New York Times, 13 June 1984)
Café Müller is considered one of Bausch’s most autobiographical works, reflecting her father’s café, where she spent many hours watching the ways the adults tried to survive in the devastated and dislocated society of post-War Germany.

Coffee with Pina (written and directed by Lee Yanor, 2006, 17 min., Wieseltier Production)
An insight into the world of Pina Bausch. The film is based on her long-lasting acquintance with the film maker. It tries to communicate the feeling of infinity expressed trough the body and the ritual of dance, making “choreography come alive”. See more about Coffee with Pina here.

The Search For Dance – Pina Bausch Theatre With a Difference (written and directed by Patricia Colboud, 1993, 29 min., Production: Trans Tel)
Choreographer Pina Bausch has been creating an aesthetic form of resistance for the past 20 years. When she first took up a job as ballet director in the Wuppertal company in 1973, she was virtually unknown. In the meantime, she and her company became world famous. They performed in more than 20 countries on 50 tours. Pina Bausch has become one of the most famous and controversial German choreographers with her staged attacks on the lack of content in the form language presented by classical ballet, against the superficial beauty being dancer and her insistent illustration of mental injury as a direct result of social and conventional pressures. Inspite of all the fame achieved, Pina Bausch remained faithful to the Wuppertal company and continued to seek an honest presentation of existential questions by means of dance – the language of the body.

29 September, 17:30
The Red House, Red Hall

Points in Space (Directed by Elliot Caplan and Merce Cunningham, 1986, 55 min.) This is the critically acclaimed collaboration for the screen by choreographer Merce Cunningham, composer John Cage and filmmaker Elliot Caplan.
Merce Cunningham was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of the American avant garde for more than fifty years. Throughout most of his life, Cunningham was considered one of the greatest creative forces in American dance. Cunningham is also notable for his constant collaborations with artists of other disciplines, including musicians John Cage and David Tudor, artists Jasper Jones, Robert Rauschenberg and Bruce Nauman, designer Romeo Gigli, and architect Benedetta Tagliabue. Works that he produced with these artists had a profound impact on avant-garde art beyond the world of dance.

All films are in English.
Tickets: 3/2 BGN