If you’ve ever seen a piece of modern performance art, or dance that’s equally mesmerising as it is confusing; physical theatre that owes as much to a flick of the hair as as it does to grande jetes or contemporary theatre filled with emotional, cocktail- dressed women then you’ve witnessed the international influence that was, ( and still is, despite her death in 2009) the German choreographer Pina Bausch.

I’ll say from the outset, I have a bit of an affinity with Pina, having studied her at college and appeared in various pieces of theatre ‘ influenced’ by Pina. I say ‘influenced’ as some were more, shall we say, true to her work than others. They all, happily, involved vintage gowns. One piece even had us eating cake and jumping on a bed, but the less said about that the better, probably.

Anyway, my student by-word for all things edgy and expressive,  Pina is getting mass recognition in the new film by her fellow German, director Wim Wenders in his new film, Pina.

Pina herself died suddenly two days before shooting began, but he carried on anyway with her company, the Tanztheater of Wuppertal, and using archive footage of Pina.

The beauty of this film is that Wenders shows the choreographer as she was. A genius. She loved dance, she saw it as a necessity, primal, emotional, a physical manifestation of the workings of the human heart. If you’ve ever seen a child dance, or, indeed, throw a tantrum, then you’ll know. They move their bodies without thinking, their sways and jerks and tip-taps are the most logical, fluid expression of what they’re feeling at the time be it love, confusion, hurt, joy or rage. So it is with Pina’s dancers, but stylised, put together and expressed in a way that we adults not so much understand, but instinctively get.

Pina’s work is often set outdoors, on the beach, at a crossroads, it’s part of  life. For one of her most celebrated works, The Rite of Spring, the stage cascades with water, the element an integral part of the elemental, pagan ritual dance.

Not only is Pina’s talent attracting more attention right now, but next year  Sadler’s Wells and the Barbican Centre are collaborating for the first time to present an unprecedented season of 10 of her works.

The month-long season of international co-productions performed by Tanztheater Wuppertal at Sadler’s Wells and the Barbican in summer 2012 marks a fitting celebration of the Olympic and Paralympic year’s global focus. Seven of the 10 works are UK Premieres.

Admittedly, sometimes Pina’s work is so heavy with epic emotion that you’ll feel drained. It by turns is vulnerable, feisty and fearless, but never, ever unsure. No half measures.

Go and see this film. It’ll remind you of the freedom of dance, just like when you were five.

Pina, in cinemas now.

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About the author

Loma-Ann Marks
Loma was a performer and freelance writer before becoming a journalist on the Daily Star Sunday, Daily Star and Express. She's the Founder and Editor of Culture Compass. North, South, East or West? I'll go anywhere. I like to think that I'm a pretty good map reader ( not everyone would agree ) but then I remind them that I navigated my way around the Paris one-way system with NO mistakes. High Class or Common or Garden? High class in the garden. Clothes or Culture? Culture in new clothes. My best night out ever made me feel....... That things would never be the same again. And they surely weren't the following day.