Gertrud Bodenwieser, continued
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Exotisches (Exzentrisches) Orchester; Vienna, 1926; Photographer unknown. |
Profile
In the brief history of modern dance, Bodenwieser acquired a reputation as the source of a particular lineage of dance, the Viennese school of Ausdruckstanz. Emerging in the period between the two world wars in Central Europe as a radically modern and innovative genre, Ausdruckstanz is generally regarded as a drive towards a more personal form of expression in dance, literally dance of expression. Bodenwieser in Vienna was regarded as a key personality in this field but, being an Austrian Jew, she was largely erased from the official canon of Central European Dance, which emphasizes the triumvirate of Mary Wigman, Rudolf von Laban, and Kurt Jooss. (8)
Gertrude Bodenwieser was born in Vienna, Austria in 1890 and died in Sydney, Australia in 1959. She was strongly influenced by contemporary thinking on movement and the body and cites François Delsarte, Jacques Dalcroze, Bess Mensendieck, and Rudolf von Laban as major influences. (9) In keeping with contemporary modes of representation, she viewed the dancing body as a vehicle for the expression of the sensory and psychic realms. Later in her career, and through her dance dramas, she also recognized the power of the dancing figure as an instrument of social critique. (10)
Images of Bodenwieser’s dances from the period before the Second World War reveal a strongly sculptural line together with an acuity of expressive intent not unlike the sculptures of Rodin. But she was also strongly influenced by expressionism in painting and had ties to the Viennese Secessionist movement. Artists she collaborated with included Franz von Bayros and Felix Albrecht Harta, who was a member of the Hagenbund group and under whose auspices she performed her first solo recital in 1919. (11) In an evening titled "Dances-Grotesque," she performed Silhouette, Hysterie, Spanishcer Tanz, Cakewalk, Burletta, and Groteske. This diversity of subject matter, which included impressionist works, dances derived from popular culture, Freudian themes, the burlesque, and the parodic was to characterize much of her oeuvre. The critic Alfons Torok reviewed this performance within the context of the expressionist movement in the arts. He wrote:
Everything that the artist offered us was new, unquestionably new. We saw here for the first time what dance shows to advantage, what has been characteristic of the painting, poetry and music of the young for some time: the unconditional rejection of everything handed down and the honest search for new, purely personal expressive values. (12)
Working with a range of modern and romantic composers including Rachmaninov, Debussy, Reger, and Rubinstein in her first production, it was evident that for her, music and dance were inextricably entwined. This was a key difference between her work and that of Wigman and Laban, for whom the Absolute Dance meant a liberation from the requirement of music. Bodenwieser’s musicality was clearly influenced by the ideas of Jacques Dalcroze, whose movement scales corresponded to musical forms and structures in a closely symbiotic way.
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