Mary Wigman

MARY WIGMAN: A LIFE IN DANCE Prologue: why Mary Wigman? Introduction Childhood The beginning of a life in dance Dalcroze and the garden city of Hellerau Return to ritual on the mountain of truth Dancing Dada The crisis year The gilded and tarnished twenties The First Dancers’ Congress The Second Dancers’ Congress The Third Dancers’ Congress Coming to the United States Der Weg (The Path) Returning to the new Germany Dancing in Dresden, 1933–1942 Leaving Dresden To Berlin MARY WIGMAN’S WRITINGS ON THE DANCE: A PHILOSOPHY EMBODIED Introduction The Language of Dance Philosophical context Why a new dance? Primitively modern Spannung and Entspannung Space Time, music, rhythm The Mary Wigman Book What did Wigman mean by ecstasy and form? Apollonian and Dionysian Ideas on composition and the choreographic theme Who has inherited the emotive dance lineage of Mary Wigman? MARY WIGMAN AS CHOREOGRAPHER: CHOOSING THE FOCUS Solo as signature: Hexentanz The mask as doorway Hexentanz: a description Group dance The Seven Dances of Life (1921) Choric dance Totenmal (1930) Final solo concert PRACTICAL EXERCISES Class at the Mary Wigman School Discovering the eloquent body Wigman movement qualities in practice What makes the dance? Space Dance as language Speaking beyond the individual body Composition: improvisation and developing a theme One final theme