Contemporary Dance History: Rudolph Von Laban and Mary Wigman
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Importance of Wigman and Laban
There are many different reasons for why I care about both Laban and Wigman's accomplishments and choreography. Laban is important to me because he has helped me find a body connection to my movement. Before studying Laban, I was very disconnected with my movement and after learning about all his practices and how his mind worked, I found myself opening new doors to my movement and becoming more connected in how I think and move. Wigman, on the other hand, is disinterested in the way that Laban moves and more interested in expressionism. This interests me because expression is something that I play with in my body many times in class. How do you express your emotions without using facial expressions? That is the biggest question I have been trying to figure out.
Most people should care about these two important figures because they bring to the dance world many important connections between connectivity and expression. These two ideas can help a combination look more alive and help a dancer be better rounded. Many people today study Laban in hopes to not only find connectivity, but understand the way they move as a dancer. So many times we get caught up in how we think we move, but once we figure out how we actually move, we can find different ways to improve that movement. Wigman is studied by people who are more interested in expressing themselves through their dancing.
The following are short clips on Laban and Wigman and their importance in the dance world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbnSY3RVTr0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMHodxSyca8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU7R_ylKNVU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oaUpXODS08
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Rudolf Von Laban's Influences and Collaborations
Being a military son Rudolf Von Laban spent much of his time
in Bosnaia and Herzigovina as well as the court circle in Vienna and being
exposed to theatre life of Bratislava. This gave him an early exposure to both
western and eastern cultures.
In 1919 his career skyrocketed as he ran a dance theatre
company as well as opening a main school for movement choir for amateurs. He
also began writing articles, books, and creating dance works. Rudolf was
influenced by the cultural responses of visual artists such as Klimt,
Kockoshka, Shiele, Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso and Kandinsky.
Rudolf Von Laban began his work in an interesting time in
history. His work with analyzing space
and movement happened in Germany during the Weimar Republic (post WWI) and Third
Reich. This time period reveals controversial myths about Laban that many
historians have a difficult time balancing his innovative brilliance for
introducing new spacial and movement analysis concepts and his affiliation as a
dance organizer in the Third Reich. The end of WWI put an end to social
positioning which directly reflected in theatre by discarding the traditional
positioning of actors. Laban began to remove the hierarchiacal system of ballet
companies and replaced it with democratic ensembles. Many of his ideas also
bridged from social and cultural changes of the time such as traditional
constraints against showing feeling and any openness of feeling the freeness of
the body. He believed that he could advocate this freedom by mirroring it in
dance and movement arts. Freud was also uncovering the psyche simultaneously
opening the door to the body’s sexuality no longer needing to be hidden. Coincidentally
movement art is a great medium to express such new freedom so Laban was known
to hold improvisations and movement studies by being barefoot with little or no
clothing.
He was funded by
Josef Goebbels, the Minister of Enlightenment and Propaganda between 1934-1936.
His created works explored social themes similar to his drama counterparts such
as Brecht and visual artists Malevitch. However in 1936 Josef Goebbels pulled
funding and banned Laban’s piece “ Vom Tauwind und der Neuen Freude (Of the
Spring Wind and the New Joy)” when the piece did not reinforce the standards of
the Nazi Regime. Many of his followers and students fled to the United States
to escape.
Rudolf Von Laban extended his work with the celebrated
collaborators such as Mary Wigman, Kurt Joos, and Sigurd Leeder.
Monday, March 24, 2014
Germany at the time of Wigman and Laban's Careers
World War I took
its toll on Germany lasting from 1914 to 1918.
After the war, and leading up to World War II, many different events
took place which caused a lot of pain and struggle for the people living in
Germany at the time. The period between
the two world wars was represented by world-wide tensions and saw the rise of
mass political movements such as communism, fascism, and national
socialism.
In 1918, woman
in Germany got the right to vote because of the universal equal suffrage.
There were many
different territorial changes with different states taking power and others
being thrown out and not considered states anymore and so a lot of power issues
were arising in Germany.
Along with the
territorial power issues were the issues of political power. Up until the end of World War I, the Liberal
and Radical parties in combination with the so-called Majority Social
Democratic Party held most of the power.
After voting, these parties stayed in power but the elections of
different presidents and members caused much turmoil and controversy.
Near the end of
the 1920s, the Great Depression started which really hit Germany hard and
caused a lot of changes to the monetary system.
The big German
election took place in 1930 and later after Adolf Hitler was elected which
began the Nazi Germany and degenerative art.
At this time and many years later, there was a lot of upturn from the
government and the Nazi Party. A big
happening was the thought that art was a waste of time and something that was looked
down upon. Many things were banned from
museums or different places causing no art to be made or shown. Many painters at the time were not even
allowed to touch a paint brush and many dancers were not allowed to produce
works. Along with this banning of art,
there was a exhibit that was called Degenerative Art where many of the modern
art was hung on the walls with descriptions underneath that were meant to
provoke the public outlook against modernism.
A few years after Hitler was elected began the start of World War II in Germany.
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Mary Wigman's Influences & Collaborations In Germany
Timeline of Influences In Germany
1909 - Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils Alban Berg and Anton Webern invented atonal music
1913 – Emil Nolde, an expressionist painter, and Mary Wigman became Friends
1923 - Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils Alban Berg and Anton Webern invented twelve-tone music
1923 – Mary Wigman Company and collaborators from Europe consisted of: Yvonne Georgi, Hanya Holm, Harald Kreutzberg, Gret Palucca, Max Terpis, Irena Linn, Elisabet Wiener, Sonia Revid, Margarethe Wallmann, Inge Weiss, and Meta Vidmar.
1923 - Freuds discovery of the Psyche
1927-Collaborated with Opera-dancer Ursula Cain, who at the age of more than 80 years could still be seen on stage and TV dancing in cross-genre projects like Dancing with Time by Heike Hennig, was another student of the Mary Wigman.
1930 - Meta Vidmar established the first school of modern dance in Slovenia
1933 - Hitler's rise to power – Purging Germany of Degenerate Art of all kind. While modern styles of art were prohibited, the Nazis promoted paintings and sculptures that were traditional in manner and that exalted the "blood and soil" values of racial purity, militarism, and obedience. Similarly, music was expected to be tonal and free of any jazz influences; films and plays were censored.
Works Cited:
Works Cited:
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Mary Wigman Lineage & Influences
Mary Wigman Timeline
Timeline of Influences
1886- BORN
1910 – Trains at school of Rhymithic Gymnastics with
Dalcroze
1913 - Age 24 learned how to dance – studied under Rudolf
van Laban. (Laban’s work influenced Wigman to work upon a technique based in
contrasts of movement; expansion and contraction, pulling and pushing)
1913 - Wigman's first public production was the Hexentanz,
performed without music
1914 - Mary Wigman performed her first two solos, Lento and
Witch Dance I, in Munich. This debut performance was positively received by
reviewers who recognized her powerful expressiveness
1918 – Nervous Breakdown, Moved to Switzerland &
Developed Absolute Dance. Wigman believed that art grows out of the basic cause
of existence
1920 – Started School is Dresden (“Dresden Central School”
or “Mary Wigman Schule”)
1923 – Mary Wigman Company’s first appearance in Germany
1926 - Wigman performed a second version of her choreography
in Dresden: Witch Dance II. (Witch Dances Philosophy: the archaic figure of the
witch as the ultimate expression of the choreographer's own artistic identity.
popular association of the image of a witch with the fear and nervousness of
losing control over one's own body and mind, a fear that even extended to the
spectator of a dance performance.)
1928 – Company’s London Debut
1931-1933 – Company Tours America & Hanya Holm opens a
branch of the School in New York City in 1931
1941 – School was considered Degenerate Art by Nazi regime
and lost school in Dresden
1942 – Wigman’s last soloist work that she performed in was
“The Dance of Niobe”
1949 – Moved to West Berlin and continued Teaching
1973 – Died at Age 86
1909 - Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils Alban Berg and Anton
Webern invented atonal music
1913 – Emil Nolde, an expressionist painter, and Mary Wigman
became Friends
1923 - Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils Alban Berg and Anton
Webern invented twelve-tone music
1923 – Mary Wigman Company and collaborators from Eurooe
consisted of: Yvonne Georgi, Hanya Holm, Harald Kreutzberg, Gret Palucca, Max
Terpis, Irena Linn, Elisabet Wiener, Sonia Revid, Margarethe Wallmann, Inge
Weiss, and Meta Vidmar.
1923 - Freuds discovery of the Psyche
1927-Collaborated with Opera-dancer Ursula Cain, who at the
age of more than 80 years could still be seen on stage and TV dancing in
cross-genre projects like Dancing with Time by Heike Hennig, was another
student of the Mary Wigman.
1930 - Meta Vidmar established the first school of modern
dance in Slovenia
1933 - Hitler's rise to power – Purging Germany of
Degenerate Art of all kind. While modern styles of art were prohibited, the
Nazis promoted paintings and sculptures that were traditional in manner and
that exalted the "blood and soil" values of racial purity,
militarism, and obedience. Similarly, music was expected to be tonal and free
of any jazz influences; films and plays were censored.
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