To everything a season

Pina

Crit

You know, if I keep loving dance films, I'm going to have to stop prefacing every review with "I'm not really a fan of dance, but . . . " (code for "I actually am heterosexual, but . . . "?).

I know dance is supposed to be kinetic, but geez! And oddly, I don't feel as if the (excellent) 3D made a significant difference in that respect. What that feature did was allow for the sort of close-ups on faces that would never be possible in a theater, while still allowing a wrap-around depth of field that made me feel as if I had at least one extra pair of eyes and could pay close attention to two or three of four goings-on at once. And yes, these dancers without a doubt dance with their faces.

What makes the dances special--well, one thing that makes them special--is their exteriority: many of the pieces are staged outdoors, in venues ranging from the lip of a rock quarry to the roof of a factory, from a city plaza to a leafy glade. And even many of the indoor venues are glass-enclosed--a swimming pool, a solarium, a moving monorail car (with passengers who may or may not have had any idea what was going on--hard to tell). And then even when the venue was a conventional stage, it sometimes became a simulated outdoors, via soil underfoot or a rainstorm overhead (and yes, the latter dance does quote unabashedly the title dance of Singin' in the Rain).

Lots more I could say: about the variety of music, about the polyglotitude of the troupe (apart from German and English speech, I noticed French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Russian, maybe Ukrainian too . . . though the Filipina-looking woman, unfortunately, spoke German rather than Tagalog), but it's time for dinner and another movie (and I have a pretty good idea it'll be). Just see it, yo.