Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T15:38:04.378Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Wigman's Witches: Reformism, Orientalism, Nazism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2016

Alexandra Kolb
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article investigates the three versions of Mary Wigman's Hexentanz (Witch Dance) in the context of the different political regimes in which they were performed. The changing cultural milieus shaped—through Wigman's imagination if not necessarily consciously—the works' forms and iconographies. The witch figure relates to preindustrial, pre-Christian Germanic identity and sparked considerable interest among völkisch and indeed Nazi groups. Wigman's dances present a kaleidoscope of different treatments of the witch motif, encompassing (variously) the life reform movement, an intercultural fusion with oriental performance traditions, and a strand of paganism that also influenced National Socialism. They converge, however, around a unifying critique of modernity.

Keywords

anti-modernismlife reformMary WigmanNazismneo-paganismorientalismromanticismvölkischWitch
Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , August 2016 , pp. 26 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Almond, Ian. 2003. “Nietzsche's Peace with Islam: My Enemy's Enemy is My Friend.” German Life and Letters 56 (1): 43–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banes, Sally. 1998. Dancing Women: Female Bodies on Stage. London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Berliner Morgenpost . 1934. “Review of Women's Dances.” December 13.Google Scholar
Blass, Ernst. 1922. Das Wesen der neuen Tanzkunst. Weimar: Erich Liechtenstein Verlag.Google Scholar
Burt, Ramsay. 1998. Alien Bodies: Representations of Modernity, “Race” and Nation in early Modern Dance. London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Caldwell, Helen. 1977. Michio Ito: The Dancer and his Dances . Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Matthew Isaac. 2010. Performing Otherness: Java and Bali on International Stages, 1905–1952. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Delius, Rudolf von. 1913/14. “Eine neue Tänzerin.” Die Propyläen: Wochenschrift der Münchner Zeitung 11 (29): 454.Google Scholar
Ehrenreich, Barbara, and Deirdre, English. 2010 [1993]. Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers (2nd ed.). New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York.Google Scholar
Franko, Marko. 2014. “Authenticity in Dance.” In Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, vol. 2, second ed., edited by Kelly, Michael, 268–271. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gajda, Agnieszka. 2013. “Romanticism and the Rise of Neopaganism in Nineteenth-Century Central and Eastern Europe: The Polish Case.” In Modern Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Central and Eastern Europe, edited by Aitamurto, Kaarina and Simpson, Scott, 44–61. Durham: Acumen Publishing.Google Scholar
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. 1839. The Faust of Goethe: Part the First. Translated by Talbot, Robert. London: J. Wacey.Google Scholar
Goetze, Willibald. 1936. Studien zur Formbildung der Oper. Frankfurt.Google Scholar
Goodrick-Clarke, . 1992. The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology: The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890–1935. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Grimm, Jacob. 1835. Deutsche Mythologie. Göttingen.Google Scholar
Gründer, René. 2014. “Neo-Pagan Traditions in the 21st Century: Re-inventing Polytheism in a Polyvalent World-Culture.” In Religion, Tradition and the Popular. Transcultural Views from Asia and Europe, edited by Schlehe, Judith and Sandkühler, Evamaria, 261–282. Bielefeld: Transcript.Google Scholar
Hales, Barbara. 2013. “Waking the Dead: Medium as Therapist in Albert Talhoff and Mary Wigman's Totenmal .” Nineteenth-Century Theatre and Film 40 (1): 58–73.Google Scholar
Herf, Jeffrey. 1984. Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Heß-Meining, Ulrike. 2011. “Right-Wing Esotericism in Europe.” In The Extreme Right in Europe: Current Trends and Perspectives, edited by Backes, Uwe and Moreau, Patrick, 383–408. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Himmler, Heinrich. 1935. “Die Schutzstaffel als antibolschewistische Kampforganisation.” In Der 3. Reichsbauerntag in Goslar vom 10–17. November 1935, edited by the Reichsnährstand, Berlin.Google Scholar
Hitler, Adolf. 1945. Mein politisches Testament. https://archive.org/stream/HitlersPolitischesTestament/PTAHG_djvu.txt. Accessed April 9, 2015.Google Scholar
Kant, Marion. 2011. “Death and the Maiden: Mary Wigman in the Weimar Republic.” In Dance and Politics , edited by Kolb, Alexandra, 119–143. Oxford: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Kolb, Alexandra. 2009. Performing Femininity: Dance and Literature in German Modernism. Oxford: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Laban, Rudolf von. 1920. Die Welt des Tänzers: Fünf Gedankenreigen. Stuttgart: Seifert.Google Scholar
Landmann, Robert. 1973. Ascona Monte Verità. Frankfurt/Vienna: Ullstein.Google Scholar
Leszyczyńska, Katarzyna. 2009. Hexen und Germanen: Das Interesse des Nationalsozialismus an der Geschichte der Hexenverfolgung. Bielefeld: Transcript.Google Scholar
Levack, Brian. 2013. “The Decline and End of Witchcraft Prosecutions.” In The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America, edited by Levack, Brian, 429–446. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Linse, Ulrich. 1996. “Völkisch-rassische Siedlungen der Lebensreform.” In Handbuch zur völkischen Bewegung, 1871–1918, edited by Puschner, Uwe, Schmitz, Walter, and Ulbricht, Justus, 397–410. Munich: De Gruyter/Saur.Google Scholar
Manning, Susan. 1993. Ecstasy and the Demon. Feminism and Nationalism in the Dances of Mary Wigman. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Marchand, Suzanne. 2009. German Orientalism in the Age of Empire: Religion, Race and Scholarship. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Marchand, Suzanne. 2013. “Eastern Wisdom in an Era of Western Despair: Orientalism in 1920s Central Europe.” In Weimar Thought: A Contested Legacy, edited by Gordon, Peter, 341–360. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Michel, Artur. 1935. “The Development of the New German Dance.” In The Modern Dance, edited by Stuart, Virginia and Armitage, Merle, 3–17. New York: E. Weyhe.Google Scholar
Michel, Artur. n.d. “The Work of Mary Wigman.” Unpublished manuscript. Harry Ransom Center, W. H. Crain Collection. Mary Wigman Holding.Google Scholar
Müller, Hedwig. 1986. Mary Wigman: Leben und Werk der großen Tänzerin. Weinheim/Berlin: Quadriga.Google Scholar
Müller, Hedwig. 1987. “Wigman and National Socialism.” Ballet Review 15 (1): 65–73.Google Scholar
Newhall, Mary Ann Santos. 2009. Mary Wigman. New York, Abingdon/Oxon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1975–. Briefwechsel: Kritische Gesamtausgabe (KGB) . Edited by Colli, Giorgio and Montinari, Mazzino. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1980. Sämtliche Werke: Kritische Studienausgabe (KSA) . Edited by Colli, Giorgio and Montinari, Mazzino. Munich: DTV/DeGruyter.Google Scholar
Parkes, Graham. 1996. “Nietzsche and East Asian Thought.” In The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche, edited by Magnus, Bernd and Higgins, Kathleen, 356–384. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Polaschegg, Andrea. 2009. Der andere Orientalismus: Regeln deutsch-morgenländischer Imagination im 19. Jahrhundert. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Puschner, Uwe. 2001. Die völkische Bewegung im wilhelminischen Kaiserreich: Sprache-Rasse-Religion. Darmstadt: WBG.Google Scholar
Reynolds, Dee. 2007. Rhythmic Subjects: Uses of Energy in the Dances of Mary Wigman, Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham. Alton, Hampshire: Dance Books.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Alfred. 1931. Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts. Munich.Google Scholar
Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Scheyer, Ernst. 1970. “The Shapes of Space: The Art of Mary Wigman and Oskar Schlemmer.” Dance Perspectives 41.Google Scholar
Schier, Barbara. 1999. “Hexenwahn-Interpretationen im ‘Dritten Reich.’” In Himmlers Hexenkartothek: Das Interesse des Nationalsozialismus an der Hexenverfolgung, edited by Lorenz, Sönke et al. , 1–17. Bielefeld: Verlag für Regionalgeschichte.Google Scholar
Song, Jiyun. 2007. “Mary Wigman and German Modern Dance.” Forum for Modern Language Studies 43 (4): 427–437.Google Scholar
Stephenson, Jill. 2001. Women in Nazi Germany. Harlow: Pearson Education.Google Scholar
Tachibana, Reiko. 1998. Narrative as Counter-Memory: A Half-Century of Postwar Writing in Germany and Japan. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Tsitsou, Lito, and Weir, Lucy. 2013. “Re-reading Mary Wigman's Hexentanz II (1926): The Influence of the Non-Western ‘Other’ on Movement Practice in Early Modern ‘German’ Dance.” Scottish Journal of Performance 1 (1). http://www.scottishjournalofperformance.org/Tsitsou_Weir_re-reading-hexentanz_SJoP0101_DOI_10.14439sjop.2013.0101.04.html. Accessed April 3, 2015.Google Scholar
Völkischer Beobachter . 1934. “Review of Women's Dances.” December 13. Kritiken Akademie der Kunste, Berlin, Mary Wigman Archive, no. 75.Google Scholar
Wegener, Franz. 2010. Kelten, Hexen, Holocaust: Menschenopfer in Deutschland. Gladbeck: KFVR.Google Scholar
Wiedemann, Felix. 2012a. ‘“Altes Wissen’ oder ‘Fremdkörper im deutschen Volksglauben’: Hexendeutungen im Nationalsozialismus zwischen Neuheidentum, Antiklerikalismus und Antisemitismus.” In Die völkisch-religiöse Bewegung im Nationalsozialismus: Eine Beziehungs- und Konfliktgeschichte, edited by Puschner, Uwe and Vollnhals, Clemens, 437–458. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.Google Scholar
Wiedemann, Felix. 2012b. “Orientalismus, Version: 1.0.” In Docupedia-Zeitgeschichte, April 19, http://docupedia.de/zg/Orientalismus?oldid=106462. Accessed August 19, 2015.Google Scholar
Wigman, Mary. 1913. “Der freie Tanz [The Free Dance].” Tagebücher [Diaries] 1913. Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Mary Wigman Archive, no. 439.Google Scholar
Wigman, Mary. 1933–35. Tagebücher [Diaries] 1933–35. Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Mary Wigman Archive, no. 442.Google Scholar
Wigman, Mary. 1934. “Notizen zu Frauentänzen.” Handwritten notes, associations to individual dances including Witch Dance. Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Mary Wigman Archive, no. 1302.Google Scholar
Wigman, Mary. 1966. The Language of Dance. Translated by Sorel, W.. London: MacDonald and Evans.Google Scholar
Wigman, Mary. 1973. The Mary Wigman Book: Her Writings. Edited and translated by Sorell, Walter. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Yoshida, Yukihiko. 2011. “Lee Tsia-oe and Baku Ishii before 1945: Comparing the Origin of Modern Dance in Taiwan and Japan.” Pan-Asian Journal of Sports & Physical Education 3 (2): 56–64.Google Scholar