Film screening: AHNEN ahnen. A film by Pina Bausch (1987/2014)

Sunday, 12 October 2025

Screened by the Pina Bausch Foundation as part of the exhibition “paths through my garden – Art by Mark Sieczkarek”, this film – shot with minimal effort – offered Pina Bausch insights into her daily rehearsal work. Uncompromising, and with no regard for conventional viewing habits or narrative arcs, she worked with the medium of film, which was new to her, and simply showed what interested her.

When Pina Bausch was preparing her film *Die Klage der Kaiserin* in 1987, the co-producers in Germany, France and the UK demanded a script. No script, no film – that was the view of the film industry. It took some time for the television broadcasters to accept that it might be possible without a script. Someone came up with the idea that she should shoot a ‘rehearsal film’ to show what might emerge from her entirely different way of working. This is how the film came about – a documentary about the creation of Ahnen, a piece she was working on at the time. The film lay in the archives for more than a quarter of a century and has now emerged as an extraordinary document. This is how Pina Bausch and her company worked. This is how works were created that continue to move the world to this day.

Edited version from 2014, first released on DVD in collaboration with L’Arche Éditeur, Paris.

Featuring:
Jakob Andersen, Pina Bausch, Bénédicte Billiet, Matthias Burkert, Rolando Brenes Calvo, Antonio Carallo, Marion Cito, Finola Cronin, Dominique Duszynski, Josephine Ann Endicott, Melanie Karen Lien, Lutz Förster, Kyomi Ichida, Urs Kaufmann, Ed Kortlandt, Beatrice Libonati, Anne Martin, Dominique Mercy, Jan Minarik, Helena Pikon, Hans Pop, Monika Sagon, Jean Laurent Sasportes, Mark Sieczkarek, Julie Anne Stanzak, Francis Viet.

The conversation with long-standing dance theatre dancer Urs Kaufmann and artist Nathalie Larquet was moderated by freelance journalist Marion Meyer.

Further information: https://under-construction-wuppertal.de/en/events/okt-2025/a…