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| Lake Maggiore 1913 |
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| Lake Maggiore 1913 |
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| Traumgestalt 1927 |
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| Edmund Kesting 1935 |
Mary Wigman
Interested in the relationship between human being and
cosmic forces, she describes her creative experience as the
transformation into movement of the invisible forces
that give her life. The dancer is a medium for her;
dance functions as a trance, accomplishing its cathartic
function recognized by archaic societies; dance is first of all
an expression of ecstasy (or emotional impulses) that creates
forms of movement as a consequence.
Following these ideas, Mary Wigman gives the first steps
and opens the doors of a trend that influences many generations
of choreographic artists in the search for new expressive means.
Her way of dancing is given the name of Ausdruckstanz
(dance of expression or expressionist dance), and states that no
movement is considered as ‘bad’ or ‘ugly’ as far as it is executed
from a true feeling or is evocative.
In consequence, Wigman aesthetics are made up of very
different elements compared to ballet. She dances without music,
uses non attractive costumes, works over subjects like death,
desperation, the war or social riots, and experiments with masks,
among other things. She also opposes to the notion of
‘representing’ something while dancing, in a search for a truthful
experience: dance should not represent; dance should be.
“We don’t dance histories, we dance feelings”, she says.
A great example of this is a document that consists of more than
70 pages of labanotation scores of exercises of her method.
The title of the text is Die Frankfurter Seminarreihe in
Wigman-Technique mit Prof. Gundel Eplinius (Frankfurt, 1990)
by notator Anja Hirvikallio.
M. Hirvikallio explains that M. Eplinius divides Wigman’s
technique in five main groups, like this:
- Striding and sliding
- Springs, vibrations and bouncing
- Momentums and oscillations
- Falling and dropping (floor technique)
- Tensions: relaxed, sustained and motor tensions
excerpt taken from www.contemporary-dance.org
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| TanzMarchen 1926 |
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| Mary Wigman Troupe |
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| Mary Wigman Troupe |
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| Laban and Mary Wigman |
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| Mary Wigman Troupe |
