Mary Wigman
Samantha Stratton
October 31, 2013
DAN 382
MARY WIGMAN
Born to Herr and Frau Wigman on November 13, 1886 (died September 18, 1973) in Hannover, Germany, Mary Wigman was a pioneer of the modern expressive dance developed in central Europe. Expressionist dance is a European dance form that is part of the German Expressionist movement. Mary Wigman did not began to study dance until she was almost twenty-four years old, being a pupil or Emile Jaques-Dalcroze and Rudolf Von Laban. She was one of the leading proponents of German Expressionist modern dance, which was known as Ausdruekstanz, and she subsequently formulated her own theories of movement often dancing without music or to percussion only (Encyclopedia Britannica ). Mary Wigman had very little formal dance training before she attended the Dalcroze School at Hellerau when she was twenty-three and studied there for two years, and absorbed much of his teaching, although she rejected his primary emphasis on musical elements (Kraus, Chapman Hilsendager and Dixon). She next studied under Laban and was his teaching assistant in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I. While she absorbed much of his intellectual viewpoint toward movement, her own approach was less systematic (Kraus, Chapman Hilsendager and Dixon). Her ideas about the liberation of dance from traditional, predetermined steps by the utilization and the honoring of an internal sense of motion, rhythm and expressive gesture grew in depth and sophistication, as Wigman studied and collaborated with Rudolf Von Laban from 1913-1919. Laban envisioned dance moving beyond the balletic narrative and past the confines of paralleling musical structures to a stage where “dance discovers its own terms of expression,” a juncture Wigman exemplified (Garcia-Snyder and Van Dorren). Germany had never had as strong a ballet movement as other European countries, like France, and was receptive to new forms of art that were revolutionary in their approach in the
October 31, 2013
DAN 382
MARY WIGMAN
Born to Herr and Frau Wigman on November 13, 1886 (died September 18, 1973) in Hannover, Germany, Mary Wigman was a pioneer of the modern expressive dance developed in central Europe. Expressionist dance is a European dance form that is part of the German Expressionist movement. Mary Wigman did not began to study dance until she was almost twenty-four years old, being a pupil or Emile Jaques-Dalcroze and Rudolf Von Laban. She was one of the leading proponents of German Expressionist modern dance, which was known as Ausdruekstanz, and she subsequently formulated her own theories of movement often dancing without music or to percussion only (Encyclopedia Britannica ). Mary Wigman had very little formal dance training before she attended the Dalcroze School at Hellerau when she was twenty-three and studied there for two years, and absorbed much of his teaching, although she rejected his primary emphasis on musical elements (Kraus, Chapman Hilsendager and Dixon). She next studied under Laban and was his teaching assistant in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I. While she absorbed much of his intellectual viewpoint toward movement, her own approach was less systematic (Kraus, Chapman Hilsendager and Dixon). Her ideas about the liberation of dance from traditional, predetermined steps by the utilization and the honoring of an internal sense of motion, rhythm and expressive gesture grew in depth and sophistication, as Wigman studied and collaborated with Rudolf Von Laban from 1913-1919. Laban envisioned dance moving beyond the balletic narrative and past the confines of paralleling musical structures to a stage where “dance discovers its own terms of expression,” a juncture Wigman exemplified (Garcia-Snyder and Van Dorren). Germany had never had as strong a ballet movement as other European countries, like France, and was receptive to new forms of art that were revolutionary in their approach in the
Cited: Abbema, Jim Van. "The Wigman Experience ." Bearnstow Journal (2012). contemporary-dance.org. Mary Wigman. 2010. 29 October 2013. Encyclopedia Britannica . 2013. 29 October 2013. Garcia-Snyder, Diana and Thomas Van Dorren. Mary Wigman. 2007. 29 October 2013. Kraus, Richard, Sarah Chapman Hilsendager and Brenda Dixon. History of the Dance in Art and Education. A Pearson Education Company, 1991. Song, Jiyun. "Mary Wigman and German Modern Dance: A Modernist Witch?" Oxford Journal (2007). Thorton, Anna. ArtsAlive.ca. 2013. 29 October 2013.