Throughout human history Dance has been a form of culture that is much greater than the sum of its parts.  Wordlessly it has the capacity to tell stories, communicate with deities, perform rites of passage, lead a people to war or join them together.

Whether linked to seasonal activity in villages or the entertainment history of the 20th century, dance is part and parcel of the human condition.

In the cinematic world director Wim Wenders has made a career making films that do similar things.  

Although I haven’t yet seen it (living in India can have its disadvantages…) his collaboration and homage to the late choreographer Pina Bausch seems to explode off the screen, carrying viewers into vignettes as varied and exhilarating as the tales of Scheherazade.

Perhaps I’ll write more when I find it, but for now just this brief moment of film has captured my imagination…

Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?

— William Butler Yeats