Pina Bausch in "In love with Tarkovsky"

My meeting with Pina Bausch - excerpts from "In love with Tarkovsky" translated by Alistair Ian Blyth:

I was convinced that there was no hope, that I would never again be capable of experiencing art as I had once experienced it, when I saw Tarkovsky’s film Stalker for the first time during the Ceaușescu regime. I was convinced that I would not be able to, but in a wholly unexpected way it happened once again. I had the same feeling once again. It was a miracle. It is true that I entered the cinema with a certain hope, with faith even, but I would not have been able to imagine that it could happen once more . . . I saw a film about one of the greatest artists of the last century: German choreographer Pina Bausch, who invented what we now call Tanztheater. The film was directed by Wim Wenders and titled simply Pina 3D.  It was the first 3D film I had seen and I understood once again how the art could evolve, how it could reinvent itself to capture sublime moments. The art of dance cannot be described in words. And nor can you describe the feelings you have when you view such a performance. By the end of the film I was absolutely fascinated. I experienced the same feelings as when I saw Stalker in the communist period: pure plenitude and self-fulfilment. I felt that without any shadow of a doubt if the world ended in that instant I would remain eternally happy! Oh, what happiness!

I experienced there art in solitude, but I knew very well that what I understood, what I experienced, was a shared experience, a shared meaning. I knew very well and I was aware that there were others like me, who experienced the film or artwork in the same way or that they had previously experienced it in the same way. Connexions established and unknown, but essential, between those that share the same experience. Art was and is my freedom: the freedom of lived and shared experiences.

I understand that the art of Pina Bausch, like the art of Tarkovsky, provides me with that feeling that would be sufficient to ground my entire existence: joy. It gives me hope and faith and I think that it is no blasphemy to paraphrase the words of Florensky in this context: “There exists the art of Tarkovsky and the art of Pina Bausch: therefore the Spirit exists.” The “Other” exists, “presence” exists, which gives birth to joy. Like the joy that I felt at the end of The Sacrifice, when the child carries the two buckets of water, one by one, to water the withered tree, the tree of lost faith, but which, with faith, can be brought back to life. It is the joy of hope. Because in the end, it is not suffering, but joy that is the mystery of life, its essence. The words of Prince Myshkin cannot be true, when he puts forward that suffering is a spiritual thirst! I cannot accept them; I cannot accept them any longer! Suffering is vulgar, as someone once said. Joy is life’s miracle! Above all shared joy! This is the purpose and the essence of life and of art in its entirety: the sharing of joy. The joy of experiencing art and sharing that joy with others! To share their joy! Let us therefore take joy in Tarkovsky!