Wigman's Witches: Reformism, Orientalism, Nazism

Kolb, Alexandra

doi:10.1017/s014976771600019x

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Himmler had hoped to regain remnants of ancient German pagan rituals, which he believed had been repressed due to Christianity and the elimination of witches (27). Maintaining an anticlerical and anti-oriental agenda, Nazis claimed that witch trials were an attack on Medieval German society (2016, 28). Kolb claims that the combination of romantic völkisch traditions and Nietzschean thought in Germany profoundly influenced Wigman and Laban, the founders of differing styles of Ausdruckstanz .…”

Section: Surveying the Scene Through Historical Breathing At The Danc...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Breathing Back the History of German Modern Dance through the Horror Film Genre in Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria (2018)

Lim¹

2023

Dance Res. J.

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Director Luca Guadagnino's film Suspiria (2018) depicts the dancer Susie Bannion joining a dance academy secretly run by a coven of witches in Berlin during the German Autumn of 1977. This article analyzes how Mary Wigman's Hexentanz II, contemporary dance, and horror film practices inform Susie's neo-expressionist movement form, which is also steeped in the discourse surrounding the RAF (Red Army Faction), the West German far-left militant organization, and fascism. I argue that “historical breathing”—breaths and sighs—takes on a sensorial mode by surveying the past and current situation of the dance school. By inhaling, Susie embodies the dance Volk (1948) and can feel its vexed choreographic history—its occult origins and Ausdruckstanz practices. Furthermore, her dance futilely attempts to comes to terms with the Nazi past but inevitably replicates the violence of the RAF.

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Section: Surveying the Scene Through Historical Breathing At The Danc...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Breathing Back the History of German Modern Dance through the Horror Film Genre in Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria (2018)

Lim¹

2023

Dance Res. J.

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“…18.Alexandra Kolb discusses the mysticism in Wigman's work in depth in “Wigman's Witches, Reformism, Orientalism, Nazism” (2016). …”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Totenmal to Trend: Wigman, Holm, and Theatricality in Modern Dance

Kattner¹

2018

Dance Res. J.

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This article examines the development of theatricality in modern dance by comparing two dances: Mary Wigman's Totenmal (1930) and Hanya Holm's Trend (1937). By looking at the interplay between group and solo choreography, lighting design and themes, this paper will show how Holm combined the skills she learned codirecting Totenmal at the Dancers’ Congress in Munich to her work with American dance artists at the Bennington School of the Dance to create her first important work. It will examine why Trend was successful as a collaborative project, as well as show how it diverged ideologically from Wigman's work in the 1930s.

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Queer Orientalism and Modernism in Dance Photographs of Harald Kreutzberg and Yvonne Georgi

Lim

2022

The German Quarterly

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this striking photograph features a bald individual with a large round dot on their forehead and a long tassel hanging from the left ear: both elements relay an Orientalist flair (see figure 1). 1 averting their gaze from the camera, the strongjawed figure looks introspectively to our left. the waving and swirling patterns on their feminine costume correspond to the undulating and voluminous draping on the body, while the dancer's wrists, hands, and fingers seem to twist unnaturally. the individual's position suggests dynamism, as if caught in the midst of movement or during a momentary pose to allow for a photograph to be taken. the curious figure does not necessarily exude specifically masculine or feminine qualities but rather a decidedly queer indeterminacy.this image, taken in 1929 by Ortéga in Berlin, features the cisgendered, male, gay, German expressionist dancer Harald Kreutzberg playing the Zeremonienmeister in a staging of Turandot (1929) by the austrian theater director Max reinhardt. in this article, i analyze the following image and a photograph of Kreutzberg and his later dance partner yvonne Georgi, also a highly regarded expressionist dancer, in their duet Persisches lied. While previous scholarship has focused on the style and characteristics of their dances as reflected in reviews, less work has been done in closely analyzing their representation in photographs. yet images like these are crucial to understanding the ways in which dance shaped and disseminated a modernist project in the years before World War ii. certainly these images were intended primarily for promotional material and programs in order to create definitive and indelible images of the dancers for a wider audience and to drum up attendance at performances (including for three tours in the Us from [1929][1930]. But they are also skillfully crafted representations. during photo shoots, dancers and photographers collaboratively staged key moments and exercised their agencies in presenting the moving body. i take a dance studies and cultural studies approach to shed light on the numerous influences of choreography, set design, makeup, and costuming, which filter into these complex images.This is an open access article under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Open access publishing facilitated by australian national University, as part of the Wiley -australian national University agreement via the council of australian University librarians.

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Wigman's Witches: Reformism, Orientalism, Nazism

Cited by 6 publications

References 16 publications

Breathing Back the History of German Modern Dance through the Horror Film Genre in Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria (2018)

Breathing Back the History of German Modern Dance through the Horror Film Genre in Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria (2018)

From Totenmal to Trend: Wigman, Holm, and Theatricality in Modern Dance

Queer Orientalism and Modernism in Dance Photographs of Harald Kreutzberg and Yvonne Georgi

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