Dance review: Dances at Dusk--a Moment With Pina Bausch's The Rite of Spring provides a catharsis we all need right now
Set on a Senegalese beach, the streamed performance finds new intensity as a last, defiant act before lockdown
DanceHouse streams Dances at Dusk—A Moment With Pina Bausch’s The Rite of Spring until October 28
WHEN COVID HIT THE WORLD in March, 38 African dancers who had gathered to rehearse an iconic work by Pina Bausch suddenly found out their international tour was cancelled.
But in a last urgent act, organizers of the ambitious project decided to shoot the final rehearsal—on a Senegalese beach, no less. The resulting film, Dances at Dusk—A Moment With Pina Bausch’s The Rite of Spring, is mesmerizing. And you can feel the intensity that came from making this defiant dance in the face of looming lockdown—as if Bausch’s near-legendary 1975 work The Rite of Spring didn’t have enough panicked momentum. It culminates, after all, in a sacrificial woman frantically dancing herself to death.
The setting only adds to the heightened emotions of this rendition of Bausch’s wild and primal The Rite of Spring. Bare feet carve patterns into the sand. (Originally, Bausch’s work was performed on dirt on the stage.) The female dancers’ silky slips and the men’s baggy black pants flutter in the sea breeze. And the dusky light shifts over the course of the piece, the sky blushing otherworldly pink by the end of this frenzied, atavistic ritual.
In this filmed version, you can also appreciate the power of the dancers, who were recruited from 14 different African nations by the project’s organizers: the Pina Bausch Foundation, École des Sables, and Sadler’s Wells. Long shots show the beauty of Bausch’s formations, arms and legs darting through the air, or the corps moving in a giant circle, collapsing to the ground, and leaping up again like they’ve been awakened by some force from beyond. Torsos fold and release; legs bend up and down into deep plies.
Closeups allow you to see dancers wrapping around each other, to witness possessed bodies in convulsion, or to look into the eyes of terror of the chosen one. Her final flailing throes are electric.
In a clever device, Dances at Dusk begins and ends the piece by leaving the cameras rolling. Before Igor Stravinsky’s music starts to blast through your speakers, you see dancers laughing together, someone raking the sand, and a director positioning a woman face down on a fuchsia cloth before yelling “On y va!”. At the end, you hear the exhausted troupe cheer together, and someone turns on the glow of an iPhone. We’ve been transported into some dark, terrifying ritual. And now life goes on, the dancers will scatter across the continent, and the world will move into quarantine.
For dance fans, this is the equivalent of a movie blockbuster. True, we haven’t been able to see a performance in months. But there’s something transportive about this first in a series of streamed events from DanceHouse—-literally taking you to a remote coast of Africa, a world away from late-October, drizzly Vancouver. Added bonuses include a short history on The Rite of Spring, right back to the 1913, riot-inciting “crime against grace” of its Nijinsky roots, given by dance historian Valérie Lessard. The pre-film touches on how many other choreographers have tackled the Rite—including DanceHouse favourite Marie Chouinard, who makes a colourful appearance in interview clips here. Then, after the performance, a making-of film gives you an inside look at the rehearsals.
Mostly, Bausch's dance offers catharsis--something anyone who's been cooped up for six months can really use right now. Just make sure you stream this one on the biggest screen in your house, preferably with surround-sound so you can crank up Stravinsky's blasting winds and thundering beats. I'd recommend popcorn, but once this deadly rite begins, you'll probably forget to eat it.
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