Elsa y su ballet (2011)

There are both professional women and house wives; they´re married, widowed, or divorced. They´re all “girls” between 47 and 81 years old joined by their spirit, of course, but mostly united by Elsa, who at 87 is still going through one of the peaks of her artistic life. Inspired by the work of Pina Bausch, Elsa directs the 40/90 Ballet accompanied always by her walking stick. She does almost everything (choreography, costumes, and lighting) in rehearsals that go over for months searching for some kind of perfection, but also something even more vital: passion. Doria´s camera captures the everyday work of Elsa´s sixty dancers, mostly looking from her back, capturing her movements -at times solitary, at times as minimum as vibrations- and searching for an element of expression and musical emotion that cannot be expressed trough words. The film does that with genuine curiosity and lacking no humor -listen to the San Lorenzo March!- and moves towards an opening night at the Empire Theater that promises to leave an unforgettable memory.