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.

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.  

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:

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/may/22/mary-wigman-german-modern-dance-pioneer

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/643417/Mary-Wigman

http://fmls.oxfordjournals.org/content/43/4/427.full?sid=18e312ce-b3f1-4a57-aaf3-088f5c4b0b0b

http://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/biography/mary-wigman/

Mary Wigman Lineage & Influences

Mary Wigman Timeline

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EjarjewWnw

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

Timeline of Influences

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.

Rudolf Laban Professional Lineage

Laban did not really have any formal training because his dad wanted him to follow in his foot steps in the military field.  It was not until after he studied architecture in Paris that he really began to follow through with his love of the arts.  In 1909 he moved to Munich to begin studying the arts and went on to open his own studios and work on his own research.

Laban collaborated with many different artists including, but not limited to, Lisa Ullman, who he founded a studio with, Mary Wigman, who was first a student, then an assistant and later broke off to start her own practice, and Kurt Jooss, who was a dancer for Laban and his assistant.  There is not much record of details of who Laban worked with because his research was primarily by himself with little to no help.

Throughout Laban’s life, he had many different “aha” moments and different forms of inspiration from other people and from self-discoveries and nature.  When he was a young child, his grandma used to tell him different stories which sparked his imagination for nature and that there was an alternate reality, something spiritual beyond material form.  Once he began studying with Mary Wigman, he became inspired by German expressionism because it was something Wigman took to heart when she was researching and dancing.  Later, his choreography was inspired by how forms from nature were assembled from abstract elements and brought into harmonious relationships with other elemental forms, similar to the organic-abstract principle.  This could have been a reason why he enjoyed having his students improv outside in nature, naked in their most pure form.  Later, he used functionalism and its abstract-analytical methods as his inspiration and he was concerned with the laws of forms and their metamorphoses.  He also at one point in his life appeared in the role of a founder of a religion, which had an effect on his choreography and his research. 

Rudolf Laban Timeline











1879 - Laban was born
1902 - Studied architecture in Paris
1909 - Moved to Munich to study movement arts
1910 - Founded first center in Munich
1912 - Laban founded summer dance program in Switzerland
1913 - Wigman studied with Laban
1915 - Established training centers in Zurich
1921 - Directed two groups: choreographed and directed them
1927 - Moved to Berlin and initiated dance congress
1930 - Directed Allied State Dance in Berlin
           Uses functionalism and its abstract analytical methods
           Concerned with the laws of forms and their metamorphosis
1933 - Promoted to director of Dentsche Tanzume
1937 - Moved from Germany to Paris to England after Olympic "scandal"
1946 - Founded a studio with Lisa Ullman
1953 - Studio moves to Addleston
1958 - Laban dies