DANCING IN THE CITY: SCENES FROM THE WORKS OF ENDELL, RILKE, DÖBLIN AND LASKER-SCHÜLER By Wesley Ben Lim Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in German May, 2012 Nashville, Tennessee Approved: Professor Meike G. Werner Professor James McFarland Professor Christoph Zeller Professor Helmut Walser Smith i Copyright © 2012 by Wesley Ben Lim All Rights Reserved ii Für Sebastian iii ACKNOWLEGDEMENTS I owe a great amount of gratitude to those institutions and individuals that have either inspired or supported the work on this dissertation. First, I would like to thank the College of Arts & Sciences of Vanderbilt University and the Department of Germanic & Slavic Languages for accepting me into the program and providing support throughout my graduate career. The Gisela Mosig Graduate Research Fellowship from the Department of Germanic & Slavic Languages provided me with my first study abroad experience that instilled a passion and intellectual inquiry concerning Berlin. It helped shape many of the dimensions that my project would assume in the future. Second, the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies Research Fellowship from the Freie Universität provided me with the next vital step in both researching and writing for my project. The program gave me access to a stage upon which to present my preliminary work and a wide network of scholars with which to engage in critical discussion. I would especially like to thank Karin Goihl for all her help during my stay and availing me to all research institutes in Berlin. Third, I would like to thank the Max Kade Center for European and German Studies of Vanderbilt University for the Max Kade Graduate Summer Research Award to help me finish the last portions of my dissertations. I am grateful for the support from all these institutions. To my Doktormutter, Meike G. Werner, I am forever indebted. Her own curiosity with Malte and the “Veitstänzer” provided me with the “kern” which organically grew to shape the rest of my project. Her thorough, thoughtful feedback throughout all phases of the dissertation process—beginning as a seminar paper, progressing to a grant proposal, iv developing into numerous drafts and finally blossoming into the finished product—has been phenomenal. I am also grateful for her always believing in me and supporting me during every point in my graduate career. I am an eternally changed human being as a result. I would also like to thank Christoph Zeller, John A. McCarthy, James McFarland, Gregg Horowitz and Barbara Hahn for exposing me to beautifully strange texts and films which have influenced not only my dissertation and challenged my intellect, but have confirmed my penchant for modernism. To the Dance Department at Emory University, where I learned to move and dance: Anna Leo, Lori Teague, George Staib, Greg Catellier, and Sherri Latham especially. While their technique classes taught me discipline and experimentation, their choreography helped me see beauty. I owe much to my fellow graduate students—past and present—at Vanderbilt who offered me their compassion, intellectual stimulation, mentorship, and wonderful friendship: Jessica Riviere, Brett Sterling, Vivian Finch, Kathrin Seidl-Gomez, Carola Daffner, Rebecca Panter, Mark Looney, Katie McEwen, Robert Kelz, Ingo Kieslich, Nora Bruegmann, Beatrix Brockman, Elizabeth Weber, and Gesa Frömming. I am also thankful for other friends and scholars along the way who have supported me: Michael Taylor, Adam Bisno, Erika Hughes, Maurice Gattis, Lloyd Davidson, Iain Burns, Ange Aow, Marc Wendt, Martha Hoskins, Audrey Gaynor, Lucas Faugère, Stephanie Christiansen, Brandon Tobias, Tobi Grünthal, Johannes Frank, Moody Hussein, the Yangs, Anja Bandas and all the students at McTyeire. I would like to thank my sommelier brother Kenley Lim whose passion for and astute knowledge of wine, chocolate, and suits has showed me that we do indeed have something in common besides the same parents: we are both aesthetes! Also thanks to my v parents, Benny and Sally Lim, for letting me do—at least most of the time—the things I loved doing as a child and young adult: figure skating, singing and dancing. These innocent beginnings have shaped my perception, aesthetic and ultimately dissertation. I thank my parents for all their financial sacrifices—paying $635 for a pair of SP Teri skating boots with a Pattern 99 blade as well as helping with student loans—so their children could have a better life. Lastly to Sebastian Herold, who has graciously suffered through but understands my obsession with Parisian, Belgian and Viennese Jugendstilarchitektur. We both share in a love and desire for the beautiful. vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Berlin Alexanderplatz 1903, Photographer unknown. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Berlin_Alexanderplatz_1903.JPG Cited from Klaus Joachim Lemmer, Alexanderplatz, ein Ort deutscher Geschichte: hundert Bilder aus zweihundert Jahren (Stuttgart: Parkland, 1991)...........................................................................................18 2. The first Litfasssäule in the courtyard of Litfass’ printing shop, Adlerstraβe. Lithograph, 1855. http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Litfass.jpg&filetimestamp= 20050320051933 – Cited from Osborn, Berlin 1870-1929 , 60...................................22 3. “Historical evidence of The Flâneur? Or just man waiting for his wife?” – Photographer unknown http://sketchbloom.wordpress.com/2011/02/26/the-flaneur-a-radical-chic-icon/ .......39 4. Harry Graf Kessler by Edvard Munch, 1907 http://weimarart.blogspot.com/2010/08/edvard-munch-in-germany.html ..................56 5. Loie Fuller Dancing by Samuel Joshua Beckett, ca. 1900 http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/collection_database/photographs/ loie_fuller_dancing_samuel_joshua_beckett/objectview_enlarge.aspx? page=721&sort=1&sortdir=desc&keyword=&fp=721&dd1=19&dd2= 0&vw=1&collID=19&OID=190041580&vT=1&hi=1&ov=0 ..................................72 6. Danse de feu, by Jules Chéret, 1897 http://www.jules-cheret.org/Folies-Bergeres--la-Danse-du-Feu,-France-1897.html ..79 7. Isadora Duncan, by Elvira Studio, 1903 http://www.duncandancers.com/directory.html ...........................................................82 8. Ruth St. Denis in Radha , 1906 http://dance100.yolasite.com/why-ruth-st-denis.php ...................................................90 9. Nijinski in L'après-midi d'un faune by Baron Adolf de Meyer from 1912 http://poeticoneirism.blogspot.com/2009/05/ephemeral-stillness.html .....................102 vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DEDICATION…………………………………………………………………………....iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………vi LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………………...vii INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………...x Chapter I. CITY AS STAGE AND PERFORMER ..........................................................................1 1. Introduction..........................................................................................................1 2. Berlin Cityscape...................................................................................................3 2.1 Perpetual Motion: Transportation and Traffic .....................................15 2.2 Active Bodies: The Litfassäule ............................................................20 3. Berlin City Dwellers as Observers.....................................................................24 3.1 The Modern Individual ........................................................................24 3.2 Fragmented Perception ........................................................................32 3.3 The Flâneur ..........................................................................................38 II. FROM BALLET AND BALLS TO MODERN DANCE: HARRY GRAF KESSLER AS REPRESENTATIVE OF A NEW GENERATION ................................................49 1. Introduction........................................................................................................49 2. “You will write the memoirs of our time:” Kessler as the Prime Observer ......51 3. Balls and Ballets: Kessler’s Boredom................................................................60 4. Varieté Dance: Entertainment or Bridge to Modern Dance?.............................66 5. Loïe Fuller: Kessler’s Intellectual Abstraction..................................................70 5.1 Representations of Fuller on Posters and in Sculpture ........................78 6. Isadora Duncan: Kessler’s Misunderstanding ...................................................80 7. Ruth St. Denis: Kessler’s Fascination................................................................88 8. The Ballets Russes and Josephslegende : Kessler’s Collaboration ....................96 9. Conclusion .......................................................................................................108 III. WRITING THE URBAN SPACE.............................................................................110 1. Introduction: Learning to Read and Write the Dynamic Urban Space............110 2. Programmatic Change: Endell’s “Die Schönheit der großen Stadt” ..............112 2.1 “Wir müssen lernen zu sehen...”: Endell’s Aesthetic Program..........112 2.2 The Square .........................................................................................116 2.3 Endell’s Writing Style........................................................................121