The Nelken Line is an excerpted dance from Pina Bausch’s 1982 work Nelken. Four simple gestures—set to West End Blues by Louis Armstrong & His Hot Five—evoke the changing of the seasons. Detour Dance’s film rendition features a 26-person cast of drag artists and queers. This historical project is our way to honor our queer legacies.
Director/Editor: Eric Garcia
Cinematographer: Peggy Peralta
Choreographer: Pina Bausch
Cast: Mizz Ellemenohpee Q. Aresteeyuvee, Elizabeth Castaneda, Melissa Castaneda, Glamputee, Gold, Natalie Greene, Major Hammy, JanpiStar, Buka Kay!, Krimm, Ana Leash, Deuce Lee / Melissa Lewis, Jota Mercury, Mira, Wiley Naman Strasser, Rahni NothingMORE., Bhumi B. Patel, pretty plz, Leigh Rondon-Davis, Trixie Salope, Black Betty Towers, Grace Towers, Paige Turner, Vera, Hennessy Williams, Rihanna Wintour
1st Assistant Camera: Luke Lasley
2nd Assistant Camera: Lourdes Figueroa
Production Assistants: Kat Cole, Monica Frangoul, Jana Griffin, Em Kane, Del Medoff, Karla Quintero
Music: "West End Blues" by Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five
“Nourishment looks like many different things. For me, it came in the form of a hilltop regaled with a gorgeously glittery gaggle of drag artists, queers, and trans & gender-nonconforming folks performing Pina Bausch’s work at sunset — a salve on the dry lips and knuckles and hearts of my chosen family. This film, my reimagining of The Nelken Line, wasn’t just an opportunity to add my singular straw of hay to the stack of hundreds that exist in digital archives. It was a reckoning of borrowed movement on borrowed land, a time capsule for the moment we are living through, an act of joy. ”
The Nelken Line is supported by generous individual donors, a FACT/SF Co-Production Grant, and Dancers’ Group with funds by Grants for the Arts.