skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Margaret Morris
This body mover was a British dancer, choreographer, and teacher.
It seems that every moment of this womyn's life was centered
around sharing the arts of dance. Margaret had been dancing
from a very young age and by the precocious age
of twelve had
begun to reject the strict nature of classical ballet. In 1909
she met
Raymond Duncan, brother of Isadora Duncan, who taught her the
six Greek positions, adapted from images on ancient Greek vases.
She
elaborated on these to produce her own dance system aiming at
naturalism
and freedom.
In 1922 is when she started the first educational school in England
to combine educational subjects with educational training in
dancing and
acting. John Fergusson Duncan became the
art director of all her schools. The students' curriculum included
acting, dance composition and improvisation, Dance Notation,
design, and painting.
She
was the first proponent of the Isadora Duncan technique
in Great
Britain. She founded the Margaret Morris Movement,
Celtic Ballet, and
two Scottish National Ballets in Glasgow (1947)
and in Pitlochry (1960).
I am in awe of her curriculum for the educational school.
As of 1925, the syllabus included all of the following:
- The Margaret Morris method of physical culture and dancing
- Dance composition
- Theory of movement : Breathing
- Theory of practice of teaching
- Paining, design and sculpture
- Notation of movement
- Property and mask making
- Dressmaking
- Music training
- Class singing
- Musical composition
- Literature; study of words; writing of plays and poems; essays
- Diction and acting
- Lecturing and discussion
- Stage management, including lighting
- Production of play and ballets
- General organisation and business management
- Swimming
- Ballroom dancing
 |
| Lake Maggiore 1913 |
 |
| Lake Maggiore 1913 |
 |
| Traumgestalt 1927 |
 |
| 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
 |
| TanzMarchen 1926 |
 |
| Mary Wigman Troupe |
 |
| Mary Wigman Troupe |
 |
| Laban and Mary Wigman |
 |
| Mary Wigman Troupe |
