The Last Dance

About the Film

Year: 2002

Duration: 84 minutes

Last Dance goes behind the scenes with the audacious, innovative dance company Pilobolus and legendary author—illustrator Maurice Sendak to reveal a stormy collaboration. Their shared creative venture - to create a work that confronts the Holocaust - appears dubious at the outset of the film. But the intensity of the artists' conflict is equaled by the power of their achievement.

Award-wining filmmaker Mirra Bank spent over a year with Pilobolus and Sendak. Last Dance takes audiences inside a gloves-off collaboration, where each artist's idea of the piece is challenged by an opposing vision of equal authority -- How much narrative is too much? Will anyone want to see another Holocaust story? Can it be both moving and irreverent? From the first day of improvisation in the studio, Bank follows Pilobolus and Sendak as they transform a haunting Holocaust legacy into a stark and provocative dance-theater piece that comes to life onstage as "A Selection."

"A Selection" quickly established itself as one of Pilobolus' most powerful works. Anna Kisselgoff of The New York Times called it "riveting...(with) stunning dramatic edge." The New York Daily News said, "Miraculously succeeds, as mutely eloquent as a monument." And Newsday said the piece was, "dynamic, athletic, chilling dramatic piece."

Bank and her crew had total access to the film's subjects, and her film weaves vérité rehearsal scenes, probing interviews, rare Holocaust footage, and thrilling performance into a uniquely intimate look at the incredible tenacity and wit that drive the creative process when serious artists work together.

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“Watching the Evolution of Choreographic Magic — “an intimate glimpse of how sensibilities as compatible as oil and water forced themselves to blend and create a successful work…One of the thrills of the movie is watching…dancers explore…contorting their graceful, amazingly limber bodies into visual representations of relationships and emotional states…the synergy of movement, lighting, costume, scenic design and music…blend into a moving dance-theater experience.”

— The New York Times

Creative Team

Director

Mirra Bank

Producers

Mirra Bank

Vic Losick

Co-Executive Producers

Richard Brockman

Mike Peters

Executive Producer

Melva Bucksbaum

Associate Producer

Nancy Rosenthal

Cinematography

Vic Losick

Editors

Mirra Bank

Axuve Espinosa

Selected Film Festivals & Awards

Lincoln Center - New York Jewish Film Festival

“A work of rare beauty and power...groundbreaking documentary”

Seattle International Film Festival

“…reserves its deepest awe for the dancers…pure bolts of force and grace.”

San Francisco Jewish Film Festival

“skillful cinematography and editing, never obtrusive…a unique and thrilling revelation of the creative process!”

Full Frame Documentary Festival

“…bruised egos, creative differences and MAGIC!… delights us with an extraordinary look at how a seed of an idea flourished into…a living work of art.”

Hamptons International Film Festival

Palm Springs International Film Festival

Santa Barbara International Film Festival

AFI Silverdocs

Dance Camera West - Los Angeles

Napolidanza, Naples