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Mary Wigman (left)

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Mary Wigman (November 13, 1886 – September 18, 1973) was a German dancer, choreographer, and instructor of dance.

She was an innovator of expressionist dance and a pioneer of modern dance in Germany. Her work in the United States is credited to her protegee Hanya Holm, and then to Hanya's students Alwin Nikolais and Joanne Woodbury.

Early days

Karoline Sophie Marie Wiegmann was born in Hannover, Germany. In 1910, she enrolled in School of Rhythmic Gymnastics at Hellerau (outside of Dresden). In 1913, she began studying dance at Monte Verità under Rudolf Laban, an important innovator in contemporary dance at the time. She also studied with Émile Jaques-Dalcroze.

Career

Wigman started a school in Dresden in 1920, which became known as "Dresden Central School", a center for modern dance innovation. Her students and collaborators there included Yvonne Georgi, Hanya Holm, Harald Kreutzberg, Gret Palucca, Max Terpis, Margarethe Wallmann, and Inge Weiss.

Mary Wigman toured the United States in 1930 with her company of dancers; a school was founded by her disciples in New York City in 1931. Her schools in Germany continued to operate under Nazi rule in World War II where she obeyed the rule of government and fired all her Jewish dancers (which was customary at the time). She also taught again in Leipzig in 1948; from 1950 (until her death in 1973), Mary Wigman taught at a studio in West Berlin.

Mary Wigman's choreography often employed non-Western instrumentation: fifes, bells, gongs, and drums from India, Thailand, Africa, and China. However, the primary musical accompaniment for her most well known dances was percussion, which contrasted greatly with her use of silence. Mary would often employ masks in her pieces, influenced again by non-western/tribal motifs, as well as ecstatic spinning. Her choreography was also inspirational to communist dance troupes in the 1930s in New York City^[1] Some of Wigman's works include Summer Dance, Dream Image, Witch Dance, Dance of Sorrow, Visions, Cycles, and the Way, Festive Rhythm and Dance of Summer.

Death

Mary Wigman died on September 18, 1973 in Berlin, aged 86.

References

Sources

• Manning, Susan (1993). Ecstasy and the Demon: Feminism and Nationalism in the Dances of Mary Wigman, University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-08193-5.
• Partsch-Bergsohn, Isa and Harold Bergsohn (2002). The Makers of Modern Dance in Germany: Rudolf Laban, Mary Wigman, Kurt Jooss, Princeton Book Company Publishers. ISBN 0-87127-250-4.
• Toepfer, Karl Eric (1997). Empire of Ecstasy: Nudity and Movement in Germany Body Culture, 1910-1935 (Weimer and Now: German Cultural Criticism, No 13), University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-20663-0.
• Wigman, Mary (1975). The Mary Wigman Book: Her Writings, Olympic Marketing Corp. ISBN 0-8195-4079-X.
• Gilbert, Laure (2000), Danser avec le Troisième Reich, Brussels, Editions Complex, ISBN 2-87027-697-4
• Karina, Lilian & Kant, Marion (2003), German Modern Dance and the Third Reich, Berghahn Books, New York & Oxford, ISBN 1-57181-688-7
• John Martin, Workers League In Group Dances, The New York Times, December 24, 1934

External links

• Traude Schrattenecker, a student of Wigman's.
• Photographs of Mary Wigman