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  1. Home
  2. Marking Modern Movement: Dance and Gender in the Visual Imagery of the Weimar Republic

Marking Modern Movement: Dance and Gender in the Visual Imagery of the Weimar Republic

Susan Funkenstein 2020
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Imagine yourself in Weimar Germany: you are visually inundated with depictions of dance.  Perusing a women's magazine, you find photograph after photograph of leggy revue starlets, clad in sequins and feathers, coquettishly smiling at you.  When you attend an art exhibition, you encounter Otto Dix's six-foot-tall triptych Metropolis, featuring Charleston dancers in the latest luxurious fashions, or Emil Nolde's watercolors of Mary Wigman, with their luminous blues and purples evoking her choreographies' mystery and expressivity.  Invited to the Bauhaus, you participate in the Metallic Festival, and witness the school's transformation into a humorous, shiny, technological total work of art; you costume yourself by strapping a metal plate to your head, admire your reflection in the tin balls hanging from the ceiling, and dance the Bauhaus' signature step in which you vigorously hop and stomp late into the night.

 

Yet behind the razzle dazzle of these depictions and experiences was one far more complex involving issues of gender and the body during a tumultuous period in history, Germany's first democracy (1918-1933).  Rather than mere titillation, the images copiously illustrated and analyzed in Marking Modern Movement illuminate how visual artists and dancers befriended one another and collaborated together.  In many ways because of these bonds, artists and dancers forged a new path in which images revealed artists' deep understanding of dance, their dynamic engagement with popular culture, and out of that, a possibility of representing women dancers as cultural authorities to be respected.  Through six case studies, Marking Modern Movement explores how and why these complex dynamics occurred in ways specific to their historical moment.

 

Extensively illustrated and with color plates, Marking Modern Movement is a clearly written book accessible to general readers and undergraduates. Coming at a time of a growing number of major art museums showcasing large-scale exhibitions on images of dance, the audience exists for a substantial general-public interest in this topic.  Conversing across German studies, art history, dance studies, gender studies, and popular culture studies, Marking Modern Movement is intended to engage readers coming from a wide range of perspectives and interests.

 
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Series
  • Social History, Popular Culture, and Politics in Germany
ISBN(s)
  • 978-0-472-05461-9 (paper)
  • 978-0-472-07461-7 (hardcover)
  • 978-0-472-12708-5 (ebook)
Subject
  • Dance
  • Theater and Performance
  • German Studies
  • Art
  • Gender Studies
Citable Link

  • Table of Contents

  • Resources

  • Stats

  • Cover
  • Title Page
  • Copyright Page
  • Dedication
  • Contents
  • Introduction
  • One. Dance Like It’s 1919
  • Two. There’s Something About Mary (Wigman)
  • Three. Kicklines for Feminists
  • Four. The Weimar Vogue for Black Dance
  • Five. It Takes Two to Shimmy
  • Six. Designed to Dance
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index

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Sepia photograph from the Bauhaus’s Metallic Festival that focuses on the social dance floor. Five pairs dance in closed couple holds; each couple is costumed in metallic clothes and accessories. Shiny objects hang from the ceiling, and the walls are covered with metallic sheets. There is tinsel scattered over the floor and the room is half-empty.

Metallic Party (Metallisches Fest), about 1929, Gelatin silver print, 8.9 x 13.8 cm (3 ½ x 5 7/16 in). Sheet: 11.4 x 17.4 cm (4 ½ x 6 7/8 in.)

From Chapter 6

Rudolph Binnemann, Metallic Party (Metallisches Fest), ca. 1929. Gelatin silver print. 8.7 × 13.9 cm (3 7/16 × 5½ in). The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Schema for the 1926 Triadic Ballet featuring three acts with eighteen dancers and diagrams of the sequence of the performance. There are three columns of five boxes: the leftmost column features figure mockups in blue, orange, and white atop a yellow background. The center has figure mockups in the top three boxes with more pastel colors atop white background; the bottom two boxes have handwritten text. The rightmost column has mockups in more neutral colors atop a black background, and the bottom-most box is blank.

Costume Designs for the Triadic Ballet, (Das Triadische Ballett)

From Chapter 6

Oskar Schlemmer, costume designs for the Triadic Ballet (Das Triadische Ballett), 1926. Black ink, opaque and transparent watercolor, metallic paint, and graphite on cream wove paper mounted to cream card. Mount; actual: 46.3 × 64 cm (18 1/4 × 25 3/16 in); [paper] actual: 38.6 × 53.7 cm (15 3/16 × 21 1/8 in). Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA, U.S.A. © Harvard Art Museum / Art Resource, NY

Color photograph of a costume for the Triadic Ballet featuring a large reflective golden ball over the torso, and thin metal tubes as stripes for the legs. The skirt and hat are also made of metal.

Costume for the Golden Ball (Goldkugel), from the Triadic Ballet, (Das Triadische Ballett)

From Chapter 6

Oskar Schlemmer, costume for Golden Ball (Goldkugel), from the Triadic Ballet (Das Triadische Ballett), first performed at the Landestheater Stuttgart, 1922 (Costume is a later reconstruction). Wuerttembergisches Landesmuseum, Stuttgart, Germany. Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY

Black-and-white photograph of a costume for the Triadic Ballet, Wire Figure, with spirals of metal wires that create a large abstracted tutu and a large spiraling headdress. The mannequin stands with arms stretched outward and upward, also wearing a black bodysuit lined with metal beads.

Costume for the Wire Figure (Drahtfigur), from the Triadic Ballet, (Das Triadische Ballett)

From Chapter 6

Oskar Schlemmer, costume for Wire Figure (Drahtfigur), from the Triadic Ballet (Das Triadische Ballett), first performed at the Landestheater Stuttgart, 1922 (Costume is a later reconstruction). 205 × 155 × 120 cm. Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany. bpk Bildagentur / Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany / Art Resource, NY

Color photograph of a costume for the Triadic Ballet: an abstracted figure, with clubs and spears for arms and hands, a large white and orange leg that won’t bend, and large circular forms for the torso and head. The head is split: half is white and half is orange.

Costume for The Abstract (Der Abstrakte), from the Triadic Ballet, (Das Triadische Ballett)

From Chapter 6

Oskar Schlemmer, costume for The Abstract (Der Abstrakte), from the Triadic Ballet (Das Triadische Ballett), first performed at the Landestheater Stuttgart, 1922 (Costume is a later reconstruction). Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany. Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY

Painting of a figure in a large, padded, abstracted blue costume stands in a space with an orange-and-white-striped floor. An arm and foot extend to the left of the canvas with the rest of the body retreating back into the painting. The background is blue, grey, and tan.

Female Dancer (Gesture) (Tänzerin [Die Geste])

From Chapter 6

Oskar Schlemmer, Female Dancer (Gesture) (Tänzerin (Die Geste)), 1922–23. Oil and tempera on canvas. Sammlung Moderne Kunst, Pinakothek der Moderne, Bayerische Staatsgemaeldesammlungen, Munich, Germany. bpk Bildagentur / Sammlung Moderne Kunst, Pinakothek der Moderne, Bayerische Staatsgemaeldesammlungen, Munich, Germany / Art Resource, NY

An invitation to the Metallic Festival made of shiny metallic sheet with orange and black stamped over it, the metallic complementing the theme of the festival. Bold black lettering on diagonals names the festival; a big number 9 highlights February 9th, 1929, the date of the event.

Invitation to the Metallic Festival: A Festival of Bells: Bauhaus-Carnival at the Bauhaus in Dessau (Metallisches Fest: Glocken-Schellen-Klingel-Fest: Bauhaus-Fasching im Bauhaus in Dessau, 9. Febr. 1929), February 9, 1929

From Chapter 6

Metallic Festival: A Festival of Bells: Bauhaus-Carnival at the Bauhaus in Dessau, February 9, 1929 (Metallisches Fest: Glocken-Schellen-Klingel-Fest: Bauhaus-Fasching im Bauhaus in Dessau, 9. Febr. 1929), February 9, 1929. 11 × 15 cm. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

Sepia photograph depicting the staircase from its top at the Bauhaus Dessau during the Metallic Festival. The windows are lined with metal sheets, and the partygoers are dressed in metallic costumes. One of the suited men holds two balloons and stares directly at the camera. Most of the other people are focused on socializing or using the stairs.

Metallic Party (Metallisches Fest)

From Chapter 6

Rudolph Binnemann, Metallic Party (Metallisches Fest), about 1929. Gelatin silver print. 8.9 × 13.8 cm (3 ½ × 5 7/16 in). Sheet: 11.4 × 17.4 cm (4 ½ × 6 7/8 in). The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Sepia photograph at the Neue Sachlichkeit festival, showing two women dressed in a costume fashioned like a kickline. A long, oval “skirt” and tube made of papier-mâché connect the two women in a row, and between them is a third fashioned figure’s head; all wear top hats and face the camera.

[Two Female Students in Cylinder Costume], about 1925-1926

From Chapter 6

Irene Bayer-Hecht, [Two Female Students in Cylinder Costume], ca. 1925–26. Gelatin silver print. Image: 8 × 10.1 cm (3 1/8 × 4 in). Sheet: 8.3 × 10.2 cm (3 ¼ × 4 in). The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Black-and-white photograph of Marianne Brandt, acting master of the metal workshop, dressed for the Metallic Festival in her own creations. Shown here in a self-portrait, she wears a metal plate on her head with a strap fastener like a hat, and a ball hangs from a large, thick metal ring on her neck like a necklace. She stands facing our right with her head tilted slightly upward.

Self Portrait with Jewelry for the Metallic Festival (Selbstportrait mit Schmuck zum Metallischen Fest)

From Chapter 6

Marianne Brandt, Self Portrait with Jewelry for the Metallic Festival (Selbstportrait mit Schmuck zum Metallischen Fest), February 1929. Museum Folkwang Essen/ARTOTHEK. © 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn


 Open external resource at https://tanzfonds.de

Schlemmer, Oskar. Triadic Ballet (Das Triadisches Ballett)

From Chapter 6


 Open external resource at http://bauhausdances.org

Schlemmer, Oskar. Bauhaus Dances (Bauhaus Tänze)

From Chapter 6

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