Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German filmmaker and author, who is a major figure in New German Cinema. Among the honors he has received are prizes from the Cannes, Venice, and Berlin film festivals. He has also received a BAFTA Award and been nominated for three Academy Awards and a Grammy Award.
Wings of Desire is a 1987 romantic fantasy film written by Wim Wenders, Peter Handke and Richard Reitinger, and directed by Wenders. The film is about invisible, immortal angels who populate Berlin and listen to the thoughts of its human inhabitants, comforting the distressed. Even though the city is densely populated, many of the people are isolated or estranged from their loved ones. One of the angels, played by Bruno Ganz, falls in love with a beautiful, lonely trapeze artist, played by Solveig Dommartin. The angel chooses to become mortal so that he can experience human sensory pleasures, ranging from enjoying food to touching a loved one, and so that he can discover human love with the trapeze artist.
Talk To Her is a 2002 Spanish psychological melodrama film, written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. It stars: Javier Cámara, Darío Grandinetti, Leonor Watling, Geraldine Chaplin, and Rosário Flores. The film follows two men who form an unlikely friendship, as they care for two women who are both in comas.
Philippine "Pina" Bausch was a German dancer and choreographer who was a significant contributor to a neo-expressionist dance tradition now known as Tanztheater. Bausch's approach was noted for a stylized blend of dance movement, prominent sound design, and involved stage sets, as well as for engaging the dancers under her to help in the development of a piece, and her work had an influence on modern dance from the 1970s forward. She created the company Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, which performs internationally.
And the Ship Sails On is a 1983 Italian film directed and co-written by Federico Fellini. It depicts the events on board a luxury liner filled with the friends of a deceased opera singer who have gathered to mourn her. The film was selected as the Italian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 56th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.
Alice in the Cities is a 1974 German road movie directed by Wim Wenders. It is the first part of Wenders' "Road Movie trilogy", which also includes The Wrong Move (1975) and Kings of the Road (1976). The film was shot in black and white by Robby Müller, and contains several long scenes without dialogue.
Meryl Tankard is an Australian dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker. She started her career at the Australian Ballet in Sydney in 1975, and was principal dancer with Pina Bausch and her Tanztheater Wuppertal in Germany between 1978 and 1984. In 1989 formed her own dance company in Canberra, the Meryl Tankard Company. In 1992 she was appointed director of the Australian Dance Theatre in Adelaide, South Australia, leaving in 1999 to become a freelance choreographer. Furioso is considered one of her defining works; other well-known works include Two Feet, Furioso, Songs With Mara, and Chants de Marriage 2. Her life partner is photographer and visual artist Regis Lansac, who does the videography for many of her works.
Sir Alistair Spalding has been the Artistic Director and Chief Executive of Sadler's Wells theatre since 2004.
Jun Miyake is a Japanese composer. His music was used in the film Pina, nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature in January 2012. He has also been awarded by the German critic's award, Der Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik, as Best Album of the Year for his last three albums, "Stolen from Strangers", "Lost Memory Theatre act-1", and "Lost Memory Theatre act-2".
Dominique Mercy is a French contemporary dancer. He has been a member, since 1974, of the Tanztheater Wuppertal company of Pina Bausch as well as a choreographer in his own right.
Declaration of War is a 2011 French film directed by Valérie Donzelli, and written by and starring Donzelli and Jérémie Elkaïm; it is based on actual events in their lives together, when they were a young couple caring for their dangerously ill son. It was released on the 31 August 2011 and received very positive reviews; Allociné, a review aggregation website gave it an average of 4.3 stars out of five. Le Monde gave it a full five stars, saying "Against cancer, an undoubtable force of happiness". The film was selected as the French entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards, but it did not make the final shortlist.
Opernhaus Wuppertal is a German theatre in Wuppertal, North Rhine-Westphalia. It houses mostly performances of operas, but also plays, run by the municipal Wuppertaler Bühnen. The house is also the venue for dance performances by the Tanztheater Wuppertal company created by Pina Bausch.
Gian-Piero Ringel is a German producer.
Hélène Louvart is a French cinematographer. She graduated in 1985 from the prestigious École nationale supérieure Louis-Lumière in Paris. She is a member of French Society of Cinematographers (AFC). She has worked with many French and international directors, such as Wim Wenders, Agnès Varda, Claire Denis, Christophe Honoré, Jacques Doillon, Nicolas Klotz, Sandrine Veysset, Marc Recha, Alice Rohrwacher, and Léos Carax.
Thomas Heberer is a trumpeter, quarter-tone trumpeter, cornetist, keyboardist and composer, primarily focused on jazz, creative improvised music and contemporary chamber music. Based in New York City, he currently works as a leader and sideman in a variety of bands in Europe and the US.
Café Müller is a dance choreographed by Pina Bausch set to the music of Henry Purcell. It has been performed regularly since its creation and in May 1978 was performed and filmed at the Opernhaus, and broadcast on German television in December of that year.
Josephine Ann "Jo Ann" Endicott is an Australian dancer. She danced with the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch dance ensemble in Wuppertal, Germany, from 1973 and 1987, and continued to dance with the company as a guest dancer from 1994.
Raimund Hoghe was a German choreographer, dancer, film maker, journalist, and author. Because he was born with scoliosis, his early efforts were focused on journalism. His writings explored the human condition; a documentation series won him an award by the age of 24. For the weekly Die Zeit, he portrayed personalities, the well-to-do, the less fortunate, and those shunned by society. After meeting Pina Bausch while profiling her, he served as dramaturge and chronicler of her Tanztheater from 1980 to 1990. He made his choreographic debut in 1989, then worked independently. His first solo production, Meinwärts in 1994, was about the Jewish tenor and actor Josef Schmidt, but also Hoghe's nonormative body. He was awarded the Deutscher Tanzpreis in 2020, and is regarded as "one of the protagonists of German contemporary dance theatre".
Jochen Schmidt was a German journalist and book author, especially as a dance theatre expert. He became known through more than 30 years as a critic in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, reviewing also non-fiction books on dance and crime novels, and working for other papers and broadcasters. He closely watched Pina Bausch's Tanztheater Wuppertal, and published a biography of her. He wrote a book about the history of dance in the 20th century, observing mainly European, but also international innovations.
Daniel Proietto is a dancer, choreographer, director, and writer. His works encompass dance, theater, and film and have been featured and supported by various international dance companies.
