Mary Wigman

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The German dancer, choreographer, and teacher Mary Wigman (1886-1973) is considered one of the founders of the modern dance movement.

Mary Wigman was born Marie Wiegmann on November 13, 1886, in Hanover, Germany. The daughter of a manufacturer, Wigman obtained her secondary education at schools in Germany, England, and Switzerland. During a visit to Amsterdam she attended a dance performance by students of Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, originator of the system of musical instruction known as eurythmics. The experience instilled in Wigman an awareness of dance as an expression of life.

Despite the objections of her parents, Wigman enrolled in Jaques-Dalcroze's school in Dresden-Hellerau in 1911. The system of rhythmical gymnastics taught there became too rigidly academic and too confining for her because it forced dance to play a secondary role to music. On the advice of the German expressionist painter Emil Nolde she went to Ascona, Switzerland, in 1913 to enroll in the summer course given by Rudolf von Laban, whose theories helped pave the way for the modern dance movement. She remained with the Laban school - through the summer sessions in Switzerland and the winter sessions in Munich - until 1919 and served for a time as Laban's assistant. In 1914 she gave her first student solo performance.

After leaving the Laban school, Wigman went into solitude in the mountains of Switzerland. She worked intensively, creating dances and developing her unique expressionist or "absolute" style of dance, which was independent of any literary or interpretive content. She called this dance style "New German Dance," partly to express its break with the sterility of the prevailing classical ballet and partly to reaffirm ancient principles of the dance as an expression of human passions and aspirations.

In 1919 she gave her first professional solo concert in Berlin, followed by performances in Breman and Hanover. These concerts were poorly received, but later that year she won acclaim from audiences and critics in Hamburg, Zurich, and Dresden, and her reputation began to be established. By the mid-1920s Wigman became known as the leading exponent of the new "Ausdruckstanz," or Expressionist Dance, in Germany.

In 1920 Mary Wigman opened a school in Dresden, which soon became the focal point of German modern dance. At the school she trained dancers and experimented with choreography. Among her pupils were Holm, Georgi, Palucca, Wall, and Kreutzberg. These dancers also appeared in her dance troupe, which made its first public appearance in 1923. During the following years she toured extensively, alone and with her troupe. She made her London debut in 1928 and her triumphant U.S. debut in 1930, followed by two more U.S. tours between 1931 and 1933. Although Wigman's style was often characterized as tense, introspective, and sombre, critics of the time described the quality of ecstasy and radiance to be found beneath even her "darkest" compositions.

In her early performances Wigman danced at times to no music at all or to the accompaniment of flutes or percussion instruments, such as African drums, Oriental gongs, or cymbals. Later she had music composed to accompany the movements of her individual dances - a new approach to dance accompaniment that proved to be widely influential.

Offshoots of her Dresden Central School were set up all over Germany, and in the United States by Hanya Holm. In addition, educational authorities prescribed her dance training for the public schools. She had become the center of a national movement and was honored officially in the early 1930s by the German government.

The Nazi authorities, however, considered her to be a leftist and her dances to be decadent. They took her school away from her, but allowed her to teach in Leipzig during World War II. The last work in which she appeared as a soloist was "The Dance of Niobe" (1942), in which she danced the title role.

After the war ended Wigman continued to work in Leipzig under Soviet occupation until 1949, when she fled to West Berlin. She opened a school there which became a meeting place for modern dance enthusiasts from all over the world well into the 1960s. Her last public appearance as a dancer was in 1953. During the 1950s she also worked as a guest choreographer. Her most important productions for German opera houses include Handel's "Saul" (Mannheim, 1954), Orff's "Carmina Burana" (Mannheim, 1955), and Stravinsky's "Sacre du Printemps" (Municipal Opera, Berlin Festival, 1957).

Mary Wigman was a major influence on American modern dance, largely through the work of Hanya Holm and other disciples who kept alive, developed, and extended her concepts.

Further Reading

Biographical material on Wigman can be found in Hanya Holm, "The Mary Wigman I Know," in Walter Sorell, editor, The Dance Has Many Faces, 2d ed. rev. (1966), and in Ernst Scheyer, "The Shape of Space: The Art of Mary Wigman and Oskar Schlemmer," Dance Perspectives (1970). Wigman's own writing includes The Language of Dance, translated by Walter Sorell (1966); The Mary Wigman Book, edited and translated by Walter Sorell (1975); "The New German Dance," in Virginia Stewart and Merle Armitage, editors, The Modern Dance (1935 and 1970); and "The Philosophy of Modern Dance," in Selma Jeanne Cohen, editor, Dance as a Theatre Art (1974).

Additional Sources

Manning, Susan, Ecstasy and the demon: feminism and nationalism in the dances of Mary Wigman, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

Wigman, Mary (orig. Marie Wiegmann;b Hanover, 13 Nov. 1886, d Berlin, 18 Sept. 1973). German dancer, choreographer, teacher, and leading pioneer of European modern dance. In 1911 she began studying with Dalcroze in Hellerau/Dresden and then from 1913 with Laban in Munich and Zurich, becoming his assistant. She gave her first solo recital in 1914 in the earliest version of her famous solo Witch Dance, whose distorted body shapes and dramatic intensity prefigured the spare expressionism of her mature and extremely influential style. She worked largely without music and her dances had no plot. Further recitals in Zurich and Hamburg (1919) established her reputation and in 1920 she opened her own school in Dresden which became the centre of German modern dance. Holm, Georgi, and Palucca were among her pupils and also appeared in her performing group. She choreographed many solos and group dances and toured widely, making her London debut in 1928. Branches of her school were established throughout Germany, and the one in the US, under Holm's direction, numbered almost 2, 000 pupils. She was condemned by the Nazis, who closed her school, and she gave up performing in 1942. After the war she opened a school in Leipzig and in 1949 moved to W. Berlin where her school again became a focus of European modern dance activity. She also began choreographing for several German opera houses, including Gluck's Orpheus and Euridice (fully choreographed, Leipzig, 1947, and later for Berlin Opera Ballet, 1961), Stravinsky's Sacre du printemps (Municipal Opera, Berlin, 1957), and Gluck's Alcestis (Mannheim, 1958). She was author of Deutsche Tanzkunst (Dresden, 1935), Die Sprache des Tanzes (Stuttgart, 1963, American trans. The Language of the Dance, Middletown, Conn., 1966), and the posthumous Mary Wigman Book (ed. W. Sorrell, Middletown, Conn., 1973).

Mary Wigman (left)

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Mary Wigman (November 13, 1886 – September 18, 1973) (born Karoline Sophie Marie Wiegmann) was a Dancer, choreographer, and instructor of dance. Credited for innovation of expressionist dance, and pioneer of modern dance in Germany. Her work in the United States is credited to her protogee' Hanya Holm, and then to Hanya's students Alwin Nikolais and Joanne Woodbury.

Contents 1 Early days 2 Career 3 References 4 External links

Early days

Karoline Sophie Marie Wiegmann was born in Hannover, Germany. In 1910, she enrolled in School of Rhythmic Gymnastics at Hellerau (outside of Dresden).

At the age of 27 (in 1913), Mary began studying dance at Monte Verità under Rudolf Laban, an important innovator in contemporary dance at the time. Also studied with Émile Jaques-Dalcroze.

Career

Wigman started a school in Dresden in 1920, which became known as "Dresden Central School", a center for modern dance innovation. Her students and collaborators there included Yvonne Georgi, Hanya Holm, Harald Kreutzberg, Gret Palucca, Max Terpis, Margarethe Wallmann, and Inge Weiss.

Mary Wigman toured the United States in 1930 with her company of dancers; a school was founded by her disciples in New York City in 1931.

Her schools in Germany continued to operate under Nazi rule in World War II where she obeyed the rule of government and fired all her Jewish dancers (which was customary at the time). She also taught again in Leipzig in 1948; from 1950 (until her death in 1973), Mary Wigman taught at a studio in West Berlin.

Mary Wigman's choreography often employed non-Western instrumentation: fifes, bells, gongs, and drums from India, Thailand, Africa, and China. However, the primary musical accompaniment for her most well known dances was percussion, which contrasted greatly with her use of silence. Mary would often employ masks in her pieces, influenced again by non-western/tribal motifs, as well as ecstatic spinning. Her choreography was also inspirational to communist dance troupes in the 1930s in New York City^[1].

Mary Wigman was concerned with fundamental human emotions, superstitions or relationships.

Wigman's costuming were simple and somewhat Asian or primitive, the costumes would be made with dark rough fabrics.

Some of Wigman's works include: Summer Dance, Dream Image, Witch Dance, Dance of Sorrow, Visions, Cycles and the Way. Some of her works did, in fact, have a joyous lyrical side, opposing her usual fascination with death, some of her more joyous works include: Festive Rhythm and Dance of Summer.

Critics and audiences did not really accept Wigman's viewpoints, although her impact on dance was tremendous.

Mary Wigman died on September 18, 1973 in Berlin.

References

1. ^ John Martin, Workers League In Group Dances, The New York Times, December 24, 1934

• Manning, Susan (1993). Ecstasy and the Demon: Feminism and Nationalism in the Dances of Mary Wigman, University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-08193-5.
• Partsch-Bergsohn, Isa and Harold Bergsohn (2002). The Makers of Modern Dance in Germany: Rudolf Laban, Mary Wigman, Kurt Jooss, Princeton Book Company Publishers. ISBN 0-87127-250-4.
• Toepfer, Karl Eric (1997). Empire of Ecstasy: Nudity and Movement in Germany Body Culture, 1910-1935 (Weimer and Now: German Cultural Criticism, No 13), University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-20663-0.
• Wigman, Mary (1975). The Mary Wigman Book: Her Writings, Olympic Marketing Corp. ISBN 0-8195-4079-X.
• Gilbert, Laure (2000), Danser avec le Troisième Reich, Brussels, Editions Complex, ISBN 2-87027-697-4
• Karina, Lilian & Kant, Marion (2003), German Modern Dance and the Third Reich, Berghahn Books, New York & Oxford, ISBN 1-57181-688-7
• John Martin, Workers League In Group Dances, The New York Times, December 24, 1934

External links

• Traude Schrattenecker, a student of Wigman's.
• Photographs of Mary Wigman

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