Pina

One of the sources that our advisor recommended we chase down was the work of a German dancer / choreographer Pina Bausch.  Her work is incredible and really should speak for its self.  I highly recommend the film “Pina” a compilation of her works and interviews with her dancers.  Although completed after her death it is still an incredible film.  This is one of the only films I have ever enjoyed with the directors commentary on (for the second watch through) and yes it is defiantly    worth a second watch through.  So find a friend and your dance pants and enjoy this film.

Now as to what exactly this has to do with us that is a little less clear.  Well it is clear in some ways that are hard to describe in words.  I found that after the film I was talking with my hands a lot when trying to explain to Sebastian or Sam what I wanted, as if some wild gestures on my part partnered with a sentence fragment would articulate anything.  The amazing thing is they seemed to understand what I was going on about.  I think what I got from watching “Pina” was the incredible sense of the exponential power for dance/movement / choreography to tell a story conveys narrative, evoke meaning.

I have always loved dance, and have been frustrated by my inability to translate ideas of dance into architecture.  I think though after watching “Pina” it has changed my understanding of how space can “dance.”  A well-designed space it seems could be a choreographer, who leads an audience thought a dance physically and experimentally.  I am still playing with how explicit, suggested this relationship should be/can be.  But I think it is worth considering in the context of this project further.  The thing I want to avoid is creating just a backdrop or stage.

The last thought about this is that architectural drawing may not be 100% the right way to document this project… I am thinking that there is too much going on in time and 3D space for plans and sections to really capture it all.  I have started looking at dance notation and think there may be some sort of architectural dance notation that is either out there our could be adapted by merging musical/dance notation which caries through time but not space, with architectural notation which caries through space but not time… if any one has any ideas about this let me know thanks.