Wigman

From the start of Wigman’s career in Germany, she had caused controversy by her choreography and style of presentation: audiences found both her dance images and her personal appearance harsh.6 With little regard to appearance, the purpose of her movements focused on evoking new thoughts and ideas. Wigman often avoided adorned costumes and heavy musical accompaniments while performing. With her freedom from the normal theatrical commodities of the time, the audiences had little to fall back on if they found her dancing unrecognizably transformed by modern ideas, as well as the anxieties that were created from the turbulence of the time.6

The dance Totenmal choreographed in 1930 was made to honor the lives lost in WWI. It also was an accurate reflection of Ausdruckstanz, a highly encouraged dance style at the time that attempted to capture the spirit of the people. In Totenmal Wigman combined spoken work, light, dance, and the massed formations of two movement choirs. The choreography acted off of spoken lyrics and the beat of an offstage drum.8 The movements were kept simple in order to eliminate confusion and clutter between the vast number of dancers. Performers would appear from the darkness in rows, arcs, and circles, coming together in kneeling, sitting, and gently rocking formations; then they glided back into the shadows. 8 The two and a half hour performance left the audience to emotionally exhausted to even applaud. Totenmal was an accurate reflection of Wigman’s transformation from the Weimar period to the Third Reich. In doing so, she was anticipating the development of Nazi dramaturgy. But consequently enough, the ambitions and the ultimate failure of Totenmal mirrored the ambitions and ultimate failure of the Congress.9

In the early 1930’s after the production of Totenmal and just before the rise of Hitler, Mary Wigman quickly began captivating audiences outside of Germany. Deemed as “Modern Dance herself,”2 by New York Times dance...