Dance is the expression of spirit through the body. It is an empirical expression of an a priori truth of spirit. A bad dance can be literally translated into words, because a bad dance is a dance which is translated from something already expressed in words. A good dance is an extension of language, and it cannot be literally translated into another medium. Language can provide the key to understanding the dance, but nothing more than a key. However, there are so many prejudices associated with dance, that it is perhaps worth spelling these prejudices out clearly and criticizing them carefully.
Vollmond is a collage of different expressions of joy.
『満月』は喜びの表現の断片の集合。英語ではAre you happy?やDid you enjoy?（挙句の果てにはEnjoy!という命令まで）が日常的に発せられる。「喜び」＝joyには、happinessやenjoyにあるような息苦しさがない。
上の断片では、水がたくさん飛んで気持ちよさそうだ。
水の動きまでコントロールされているような、水がただの自然物では全くなくなって、銀の液体となって踊るような―そういう風に水までみせている。岩も、自然界に存在する海辺の岩の再現というよりは、やはり何か金属のような得たいのしれない物体（むしろ舞台）としてそこに置かれている。
高校生の有志がピナの『コンタクトホーフ』を演じる。
楽しそうだ。メインダンサーの名も「ジョイ」。すてきな名前だ。
One (perhaps unresolvable) question haunting all art is the expression of stupidity. It is relatively easy to produce "moving" works of art. They tend to be clean, following the rules of artistic hygiene. This is what leads to escapism.
Pina often inserts sheer nonsense into her choreographs. For instance, Kontakhof opens with all the dancers advancing like this. There is no profound meaning behind this. It is just what it is. It is meant to be funny and meaningless.
This is what I really admire and respect about Pina Bausch's choreographs the most, that stupidity is allowed to freely enter and exist, come and go, throughout a serious piece. Moreover, Pina encourages us to take stupidity seriously. For her, stupidity is not stupid. It is something serious, it has a place in actual life. If Kontakthof is a piece about love, intimacy, and love turning into violence and violence turning into love, then Pina's expression here is that love and violence circle around stupid things. Without looking stupidity in the eye, there is no love. There is only fantasy and escape.
The other great element in Pina's works is the fragility of the human body. In the Fall Dance, this comes out most sharply. In The Rites of Spring, it comes out most intensely. What someone like Michel Foucault would have described in grim terms, Pina expresses in a totally different way. Docility is celebrated.
Also, another big problem with art in general is the representation of happiness. Again, it is very difficult to represent happiness without falling into fantasy, escapism, and wishful thinking. Pina's chreographs stir away clean from all fantasies. Here again, stupidity plays an essential role. Because the movements are essentially stupid, the expressions become real expressions of real happiness. Seasons March is one clear example of this. Importantly, anybody can imitate this (but it does take courage) if he or she can find several others with whom to do it.
