Like a Moth to the Flame: Modernity and Mary Wigman 1886-1973 Mary Anne Santos Newhall
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University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository History ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 6-28-2010 Like a Moth to the Flame: Modernity and Mary Wigman 1886-1973 Mary Anne Santos Newhall Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hist_etds Recommended Citation Newhall, Mary Anne Santos. "Like a Moth to the Flame: Modernity and Mary Wigman 1886-1973." (2010). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hist_etds/68 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in History ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LIKE A MOTH TO THE FLAME: MODERNITY AND MARY WIGMAN 1886 - 1973 BY MARY ANNE SANTOS NEWHALL B.A., Dance, summa cum laude, University of New Mexico, 1998 M.A., Dance History and Criticism, University of New Mexico, 2000 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy History The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico May, 2010 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Perhaps it is best to begin at the beginning. Work on this dissertation started nearly fifteen years ago, and if anyone had predicted at that time that I would spend the ensuing years researching the life and work of Mary Wigman, I would have shaken my head in disbelief. And curiously, this journey was first inspired by an American modern dance pioneer. Eve Gentry was a quintessential American modern, born to a Jewish immigrant family and finding her way to the New York dance community in 1936 when she became a member of the original Hanya Holm company. What Eve gave to me, a dancer who came of age in the late 1970s, was nothing short of a revelation. The great tradition of the German modern dance was unknown to me before I met Eve and, like most of my contemporaries, I had lived with the myth that the modern dance was uniquely American. I had my own prejudices against things German as an American child of the post-World War II era. That this small Jewish dancer could open my eyes to the monolithic German dance so immediately is a testimony to Eve‘s own power, the strength of her work and the complexities of cultural history. Eve died before I could ask her the many questions that have arisen as I traced her dance lineage back to Mary Wigman. But her papers have revealed much over the past decade and I thank Michele Larsson for making them available to me. It was always the dance that spoke to me, deepening my understanding even as I navigated the scholarly channels in this work. Next, I thank my extraordinary committee: Jane Slaughter, historian and adviser, who has kept me on course along with Melissa Bokovoy and Eliza Ferguson, also of the UNM History Department. From UNM‘s Theatre and Dance Department, I thank Professor Emerita Judith Chazin-Bennahum for her ongoing support. Each member of my committee has added provocative insights that will continue to guide my research and writing. Because of them my work has changed forever. Thanks to a research grant from UNM, I have many archives to acknowledge. I am especially grateful to Frank-Manuel Peter and Garnet Schuldt-Hiddemann at the Tanzarchiv in Köln and Inge Baxmann, Melanie Gruss and Gabriela Ruiz at the Tanzarchiv in Leipzig, where the hospitality of Barbara and Dieter Wellner made my extended stay possible. Many thanks especially to Stephan Dörschel at the Archiv iv Darstellende Kunst in Berlin who remains helpful in my ongoing research. Norbert Busè and Christof Debler of Filmhouse in Berlin helped me to see Wigman‘s history firsthand in Hellerau, Dresden and Berlin. Most importantly, I thank Hedwig Müller, Mary Wigman‘s German biographer, whose telling of Wigman‘s story and deep understanding of Wigman‘s humanity has graced this writing in more ways than I can express. My deepest thanks go to Brigitta Herrmann, whose love for Mary Wigman as a teacher shines through our many hours of discussions and who was the source of so much embodied knowledge of Wigman‘s teaching practices. In part this book is dedicated to Brigitta‘s unique personality and vision and the spirit of Mary Wigman that she keeps alive in her own work. And I also thank those American students of Mary Wigman who shared their memories. I thank my UNM colleague, Falko Steinbach, who introduced me to Herr and Frau Kurt Schwaen, who welcomed me into their home in Marlsdorf and carried me into Mary Wigman‘s life in Leipzig. Their sharing of letters and stories will ever remain etched in my memory. I thank my students at UNM who have been willing to experiment in such an embodied history. And finally, I thank my family, Jesse and Pascale, who have declared our home ―dance Mecca,‖ and most of all my thanks and love to Jim, who has been a diligent copy editor, highly over-qualified research assistant and patient partner. Without his loving help and support, none of this would have been possible. Again, for Mary LIKE A MOTH TO THE FLAME: MODERNITY AND MARY WIGMAN 1886 - 1973 BY MARY ANNE SANTOS NEWHALL ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy History The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico May, 2010 vi LIKE A MOTH TO THE FLAME: MODERNITY AND MARY WIGMAN 1886 - 1973 By Mary Anne Santos Newhall B.A., Dance, summa cum laude, University of New Mexico, 1998 M.A., Dance History and Criticism, University of New Mexico, 2000 Ph. D., History, University of New Mexico, 2010 ABSTRACT From her birth in 1886 to her death in 1973, the life of German dancer Mary Wigman spanned the Wilhelmine Empire, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich and the post-war years. She stands as a seminal figure in what has come to be known as the modern dance. Her Ausdruckstanz or dance of expression was fundamental to the development of dance and theater in Germany and beyond. Her aesthetic ideas were disseminated across the European continent and traveled to the United States through her own touring from 1929-1932 and continued after the establishment of the Mary Wigman School in New York City in 1931. Her former pupil, Hanya Holm, brought Wigman‘s technique west and translated and adapted Wigman‘s ideas to the North American temperament. Wigman‘s work also can be viewed as an assimilation of many of the major artistic innovations of her time, Romantic Symbolism, Primitivism, Expressionism and Dada art, all gathered under the banner of Modernism. As an example of the New Woman of the Twentieth Century, she embraced her own version of modernity, one made complex by the political, economic and social upheavals of her time. Wigman carries many roles in the world of dance and theater. She stands as a trailblazer, a pedagogue and theoretician, an inspiration for many artists who followed, a conflicted figure caught in the political drama of her time, an intellectual, a mystic and the most pragmatic of arts administrators. The complexity of Wigman‘s persona cannot be overstated. vii Fundamentally, though, Wigman was an artist, the consummate soloist for whom performance was the moment of transcendence. This dissertation provides the key facts about Wigman‘s life including new information about her relationship with the Third Reich and her life following World War II. It also contains a detailed discussion of her philosophy and dance aesthetics with a focus on her major works. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF PHOTOS .................................................................................................................. xi PROLOGUE: WHY MARY WIGMAN? ................................................................................ 8 Dancing Through Space and Time ............................................................................. 10 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................. 16 A Word on Process ..................................................................................................... 16 What the Story of Mary Wigman Has to Offer Women‘s History ............................. 16 Methodology/Schema ................................................................................................. 21 A Word About the Body ............................................................................................. 24 Other Words About the Body ..................................................................................... 27 Preliminary Survey of the Literature .......................................................................... 28 Organization/Themes/Chapters................................................................................... 35 CHAPTER ONE: GROWING UP WITH MODERNITY ................................................... 43 Modernity, Modernism, Modernization ...................................................................... 43 The Changing Face of German Nationalism .............................................................. 45 Industrialization, Class and Nation ............................................................................. 49 Wilhelmine Women .................................................................................................... 51 Growing Up a Wilhelmine Woman ............................................................................ 54 The Beginning of a Life in Dance ............................................................................... 58 Hellerau: