Mary Wigman

Mary Anne Santos Newhall

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351331807
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Media & Performing Arts
• Categoría: Dance

This book considers dancer, teacher, and choreographer Mary Wigman, a leading innovator in Expressionist dance whose radical explorations of movement and dance theory are credited with expanding the scope of dance as a theatrical art. Now reissued, this book combines:

• a full account of Wigman's life and work
• an analysis of her key ideas
• detailed discussion of her aesthetic theories, including the use of space as an "invisible partner" and the transcendent nature of performance
• a commentary on her key works, including Hexentanz and The Seven Dances of Life
• an extensive collection of practical exercises designed to provide an understanding of Wigman's choreographic principles and her uniquely immersive approach to dance.

As a first step towards critical understanding, and as an initial exploration before going on to further, primary research, Routledge Performance Practitioners are unbeatable value for today's student.

1
Mary Wigman: A Life in Dance

“Strong and convincing art has never arisen from theories.”

Mary Wigman

Prologue: Why Mary Wigman?

Mary Wigman was the best-known ambassador of German dance during the interwar period, as her touring took her across Europe and to the United States. Promotional literature for those tours sought to educate the public about this new art phenomenon, and critics responded with enthusiasm and keen attention, if not always with praise. When US critic John Martin published ‘The Dance’ in 1946 he placed Wigman in the highest constellation of dance artists, in part for her artistic creations and especially for how she widened the range and advanced the underlying theories of the art. Following the Second World War, however, Wigman received only fleeting attention in the English-language historiography of modern dance. In fact, the whole of early German Ausdruckstanz, or dance of expression, was barely discussed in postwar writing on dance modernism, which centered on the American modern dance pioneers and US dance developments. One later exception was the work of Pina Bausch, whose career began in Germany, continued in the United States and then returned to Germany in the form of Tanztheatre.

Don McDonagh’s The Rise and Fall and Rise of Modern Dance (1970) mentions Wigman only in passing. McDonagh’s contention was that modern dance “had been created out of the American experience in the same manner in which jazz had been created” (McDonagh 1970: 1). Anti-German sentiment, which ran high during and after the war, offers one explanation of why scholars failed to acknowledge the enormous impact of early modern German dance, and Wigman’s work in particular. In Time and the Dancing Image, Deborah Jowitt wrote, “quite a few early reviews presuppose some influence from Germany on the major American modernists, if only as a catalyst. … it remains a moot point how directly and to what extent [German dancers] may have [influenced the Americans]” (Jowitt 1988: 167–8). Bronner and Kellner claimed, “The role of dance, both as a motif and as a topic of discussion, has not been dealt with in any systematic way in German literary history” (Bronner and Kellner 1983: 351). Fortunately, Walter Sorell assembled and translated some of Wigman’s writings in the 1960s and 1970s and Horst Koegler wrote comprehensively about the period in English and in German. But no one produced an in-depth Wigman biography until 1986, when Hedwig Müller came forward as Wigman’s primary biographer. The publication of Mary Wigman: Leben und Werk der grossen Tanzerin (Mary Wigman: Life and Work of the Great Dancer) appears definitive and is supported by a great deal of the dancer’s own writings. Müller’s assiduous research and sensitive reading of Wigman’s papers allow insight into her world. Unfortunately, Müller’s book has not been translated into English, but such a translation would be a major contribution to the understanding of Wigman’s story in the English language.

In 1993, the publication of Susan Manning’s Ecstasy and the Demon: Feminism and Nationalism in the Dances of Mary Wigman returned Wigman to the scholarly spotlight. Manning’s writing drew on a wide range of sources, including Müller’s biography. Through analysis of choreographed works, Manning set out to reveal Wigman with a new emphasis. Manning’s book sheds much light on Wigman’s work. In addition, she sought to question Wigman’s accommodations with the National Socialist government. She presents Wigman possibly as a proto-fascist and, if not a willing collaborator, then a less-than-naive participant within the Nazi regime. In Hitler’s Dancers, Lillian Karina and Marion Kant build on Manning’s analysis, citing carefully selected archival evidence to propose reconsidering Wigman, and others, as Nazi sympathizers and thus culpable, particularly in light of her engagement with the Reichskulturkammer from 1933 until 1937 under Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.

Acclaimed and accused, Mary Wigman emerges as a genuinely ori ginal and multi-faceted human being, one who devoted her life to dance in an era remarkable in its artistic innovation as well as its staggering tragedy. There are no simple answers or clear-cut conclu sions in Wigman’s story. From the earliest German articles and cri tiques dedicated to her oeuvre, through the more recent contributions of Karl Toepfer, Michael Huxley, Norbert Servos, Gabriele Fritsch- Vivé, Diane Howe, Valerie Preston-Dunlop and Isa Partsch-Bergshon, many have written about this period in German dance history and Mary Wigman’s place in that history. In 2014, Kate Elswit published Watching Weimar Dance which has contributed a new way of looking at Wigman and her peers in that critical period. Other writings are included in the bibliography accompanying this reissued edition.

In a 2005 review, Marion Kant posed a paradoxical question, “Which modern dancer would not like to trace her training and artistic roots back to Wigman, if only through a summer course?” (Kant 2005: 417). Perhaps, given the ongoing fascination and controversy swirling around Mary Wigman’s life and work, another question should be posed, “Why does Mary Wigman still matter?” Are there elements of her work that remain relevant or revelatory for contemporary artists?

Seemingly forgotten by postmodern dancers of the twenty-first century, Wigman’s life and work are drawing renewed interest among dance and theater artists in Germany and beyond. Even while modernism by its very nature privileges the new over the past, it seems compelling to consider Wigman’s life and work once again. Perhaps enough time has passed since the Second World War to allow objective reflection on the genius and the humanness of Mary Wigman both as an inspiration and as a cautionary tale for our time. Perhaps this reflects an impulse toward a new kind of expressionism for the twenty-first century. And perhaps this is an indication of some commonalities between the Zeitgeist of this new millennium and that of the last century. The human body in dance remains a most immediate barometer of the state of the individual body within the world body. And Mary Wigman’s life and work offer an exceptional reflection of her world.

The purpose of this book is a simple one. It is meant to serve as a general introduction to Wigman and is organized in four sections. The first section tells the story of her life and the times in which she lived, with highlights of the outstanding moments of her long career. The second section analyzes Wigman’s writings with an eye to understanding how her art reveals her philosophy, placing it within related artistic and philosophical movements. The third section focuses on some of her major choreographic works. The final section outlines a series of practical exercises, with particular attention to Wigman’s pedagogy. These exercises are intended to give the experimenter a visceral experience of the performance and training elements that appear most crucial to understanding Mary Wigman’s perspective. They exercises are in no way meant to recreate Wigman’s teaching practice, but are simply intended to provide one contemporary way of experiencing the fundamental elements identified by Wigman as she formulated her deep exploration into the stuff that dance is made of. Certainly, there is much more to analyze, debate and discover about her life and work and this text is written in the hope of encouraging such continued research and creative endeavors.

Introduction

Mary Wigman was born into a middle-class West Prussian family in 1886 and made Germany her home until her death in Berlin in 1973. Her life serves as a prism for viewing the complexity and immense difficulty of her era. She took part in the primary avant-garde art movements of the twentieth century and was eventually a principal founder and transmitter of the Ausdruckstanz or expressive dance movement. Wigman’s remarkable career spanned the era of the Wilhelmine Empire, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich and the years of a divided Germany following the Second World War. Not only was she present for the most cataclysmic political changes of her age, but also, as an artistic innovator, she stands as a seminal figure in the conception of what has come to be known as the modern dance.

Ausdruckstanz (expressive dance)

Absoluter tanz (absolute dance) – defined by Wigman as dancing pure and simple, without lights, dance or costume to decorate an idea or conceal its lack. (The origin of the term is attributed to different sources. Apparently it was introduced by Laban or first used by Wigman in a Dada performance art piece with Sophie Tauber. Historically, Absolute was a Hegelian term first used by Fichte.)

Freier tanz (free dance)

Neuer künstlerischer tanz (new artistic dance)

All these terms were renamed German Dance by the Cultural Ministry under the Third Reich.

Her Ausdruckstanz was fundamental to the development of dance and theater in Germany and beyond. Her aesthetic ideas were disseminated throughout Europe and traveled to the United States through her touring from 1929–32 and continued with the establishment of the Mary Wigman School in New York City in 1931. The myriad, widespread uses of dance improvisation as a tool for movement development, as a vehicle for performance and even as a method for physical and psychological therapy all have their roots deep in the work of Mary Wigman.

Wigman’s work also can be viewed as an assimilation of the major artistic innovations of her time: Romanticism, Symbolism, Primitivism, Expressionism and Dada art, all gathered under the banner of Modernism. Wigman’s life can act as a personal guide to these movements and their primary characters. As a child of the rising bourgeoisie of late nineteenth-century Germany, she used her body as a place of resistance against the expectations of her own family and the larger society. Her early years of training were spent with two great twentieth-century systematizers of movement: Emile Jaques-Dalcroze at the garden city of Hellerau and Rudolf von Laban at the utopian community of Monte Verità in Ascona, Switzerland. She was a muse for the Expressionist painters Emil Nolde, Ernst Kirchner, Oskar Schlemmer and others. And she performed alongside the most radical Dada artists at the Café Voltaire. Her time as a working artist during the rise and fall of the Third Reich offers a lens through which to view those terrible years and what came after. From her own writing, it is possible to deduce what she might most wish to be remembered for. Throughout her life her focus was on one thing: the dance. In the end, it is her passion for dance and her artistic innovations that endure and also offer tools to reinvigorate contemporary dance and theater. Her innovations are many and include:

• her unique concept of space as an invisible and truly sensual part ner in the dance
• her rejection of ballet technique with a fervor equal to that of her fellow dance pioneer Isadora Duncan
• her radical ideas about the relationship between music and the dance
• her use of theatrical elements – notably text – to create a Gesamtkunstwerk
• her development of von Laban’s ideas for solo works, mass movement and group composition
• her fundamental belief in and demand for a modern emphasis on the transcendent nature and spiritual purpose of dance.

Gesamtkunstwerk – literally “total art work” incorporating technical theatrical elements, text, song, music and dance as integral elements of a total performance. The most prominent practitioner was Richard Wagner; however, Emile Jaques-Dalcroze with Adolf Appia and Laban and Wigman aspired to integrate all these elements into a total work.

Thus Wigman holds many titles in the world of dance and theater. She stands as a trailblazer, a stunning soloist and astute choreographer, a pedagogue and theoretician, an inspiration for many artists who followed, a conflicted figure caught in the political drama of her time, an intellectual, a mystic and the most pragmatic of arts administrators. The complexity of Wigman’s persona cannot be overstated, but the real heart of this artist appears in her work as a consummate performer. This, for Wigman, was the moment of transcendence:

But above the consummation of creation and ambition to succeed in a profession, there emerges something quite colossal and wonderful – a climax of achievement, which comes to you as a glorious gift from the gods. These are the rare moments in which, completely carried beyond yourself and removed from reality, you are the vessel of an idea. In these rare moments you carry the blazing torch which emits the spark jumping from the “I” to the “we,” from dancer to spectator. This is the moment of divine consummation, when the fire dances between the two poles, when the personal experience of the creator is communicated to those who watch.

(Wigman 1973: 170)

Childhood

Mary Wigman was born Karoline Sofie Marie Wiegmann on 13 November 1886 in Hanover, Germany. Without a doubt, Mary Wigman was a true child of her age who turned her own body into a canvas for the palette of that Zeitgeist. She was born a Wilhelmine woman whose parents, Amelie and Heinrich Wiegmann, reaped significant benefits from the expansion that was transforming the German economy. With the unification of Germany in 1871 and the sharp rise of industrialization, a burgeoning middle class was riding a wave of new wealth that also carried the Wiegmann family toward the twentieth century. Heinrich and his brothers, August and Dietrich, built a successful family business selling and repairing bicycles and sewing machines, products that represented the incursion of the machine age into the everyday lives of middle-class Germans. Many families had gone from working class to middle class in a single generation. Mary was the first-born. Her brother Heinrich came along four years later and her younger sister Elisabeth was born in 1894. When Mary was nine years old her father died. Three years later her mother married Dietrich Wiegmann and her uncle became her stepfather. Thus her ea...