A tribute to the late German choreographer, Pina Bausch, as her dancers perform her most famous creations.

The dance performance “Kontakthof” bears the unmistakable signature of Pina Bausch: it deals with forms of human contact, encounters between the sexes, and the search for love and tenderness, with all its attendant anxieties, yearnings and doubts. It is a dance about feelings, which always pose a big challenge – particularly for young people. Teenagers from more than eleven schools in Wuppertal went on an emotional journey that lasted almost a year. Every Saturday, forty students aged between fourteen and eighteen years of age took part in rehearsals that were led by Bausch-dancers Jo-Ann Endicott and Bénédicte Billiet and intensely supervised by Pina Bausch herself.

Documentary about German choreographer Pina Bausch.

A making-of of Pina Bausch's ballet piece "Masurca Fogo" (1998), for the EXPO 98, from the first workshop in Lisbon until the avant premiere in Wuppertal, Pina Bausch's city, all moments dated on screen. The ballet master presides behind her work desk to the creation of steps by different dancers, as varied a mix as the African, Latin American, Fado and jazz music to which they swirl, representing the spirit of that world event. Not by chance, the camera shows prominently a photo-book on the gypsies close to Pina's ashtray. The ballet's premiere was in Germany, and the documentary's premiere was at the EXPO 98 in Lisbon.

Chantal Akerman followed famous Choreographer Pina Bausch and her company of dancers, The Tanzteater Wuppertal, for five weeks while they were on tour in Germany, Italy and France. Her objective was to capture Pina Bausch's unparalleled art not only on stage by behind the scenes.