Customer Reviews

Last Dance

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This is a behind the scenes look at the creative process and collaberation behind the "where the wild things are bk''s illustrator (Maurice Sendek) and the Pilobolus dance theaters intrepreation of their 'LAST DANCE' piece.
What you get is footage of alot of rehearsals, and creative studiochoreographic ideas, as well as footage of the effort behind cstmng & stage backdrop.
WHAT IS MISSING is the final completed performance of the LAST DANCE piece, they show a few brief seconds of performance highlights, but not any of the performance from start to finish. I FEEL VERY DECEIVED & MISLEAD by the packaging on the DVD, YOU DO NOT GET 'LAST DANCE' as a filmed choreogrphic piece, you only see the work that goes into creating the entire mis en scene and choreogrphy. THIS DVD IS NOT WORTH THE FULL PRICE, BE WARNED, you are not receiving what the title and packaging leads you to beleive you will see.

This dvd gives us a very complete view of the creation and rehearsal of the dance theater piece entitled "A Selection". This is a dance piece about a very difficult subject to handle in dance: the Holocaust. The original idea for this was developed by Maurice Sendak who collaborates with the modern dance company known as Pilobolus Dance Theatre. To make this clear, please understand that the name of this documentary dvd is "Last Dance" and the name of the dance piece they develop about the Holocaust is "A Selection". The entire performance of "A Selection" is not included, but at the end of the documentary, highlights from one of the actual performances are included. The style of dance is a somewhat acrobatic modern dance. The dancing itself is very exciting, but we are exposed to quite a bit of excitment from the very emotional and vocal verbal exchanges that take place over all the creative differences, not the least being how to portray such gut-wrenching subject matter in dance. The rehearsal scenes are very exciting, taking place in a dance room with great camera work. This is a very lively documentary! In terms of artistry and dance technique, I highly recommend this, but I should warn viewers of some features that might influence whether they want to buy this: first, there is quite a bit of nudity of both men and women(the reason for this is explained as being artistically necessary and it was something they argued about quite a bit); with all the arguing, there is a lot af adult language; finally, the dance rehearsals include, as all dance rehearsals do, light hearted moments and humor and the use of humor as part of the artistic vehicle is also disscussed; because of the seriousness of the subject(the Holocaust) this might offend some viewers(and it has!). The dvd also includes plenty of bonus interviews and background on all the dancers, so the total running time is about two hours. If you are not sensitive to the drawbacks mentioned, you should enjoy this greatly.

I feel very sorry NOT to have read the reviews... having seen Pilobolus team live a few months ago I did the unthinkable and purchased without checking reviews...

Don't get me wrong I LOVED the documentary, it was very interesting to see how this unique troupe forms their dances... what I wasn't expecting was after having watched for over an hour the story behind the birth of "Last Dance" get to the end of the dvd and see only GLIMPSES of the actual performance...
I felt let down, disappointed... cheated!

A no holds insider's view of how the unique dance Company Pilobolus creates. No other company in America uses the group approach for creating spectacular dances.It works for them but Sendak appears to have found the process very stressful.