Cabaret

Anita Berber
Expressionist exotic dancer and actress in German silent
movies, Anita Berber epitomized for many the decadence of
Weimar-era Berlin. he brought flamboyant eroticism, exotic
costuming, and grotesque imagery to performances danced to
the music of composers such as Debussy, Strauss, Delibes,
and Saint-Säens. A pioneer of modern expressive dance,
Berber was at first taken seriously as an artist, but soon
became better known for her scandalous personal and
professional life.
“Anita Berber’s dances are living fervor, nonetheless
cold, unapproachable…Something wild and essentially
solitary surrounds her creations, one feels the
compulsive destiny…and finally she dances alone, still
not with hopeless courage for her passions. In the short
period of time her performance lasts, she has mounted
a revolt.”
-Max Herrmann-Neiße (German writer)
Through sympathetic portrayals of emotion while remaining
cold and solitary, Berber represented human isolation in the
modern world. In “Absinthe” (1925), she performed drinking
the drug, she evoked death and miming a dark and solitary
end to life. Some of the emotional and psychological
underpinnings of her performances described by Herrmann-
Neiße are captured in Dix’s portrait (see pg.17).
New laws allowed for total nudity on stage if the performer
was immobile, in a tableau, or far in the background. For
women who dared to dance, covering the genital region was
required. Most nude dancers performed only bare-breasted.
Berber, dancing completely nude, challenged these laws, a
rebellion some viewers may have interpreted as an indication
of her sexual freedom or scandalousness.
One song exclaimed,
What does the audience want to see?
Starving millions and misery
Thousands in prison going rotten?
Is that what the audience wants to see?
Alas, Anita Berber’s naked bottom
That’s what the audience wants to see.
Anita Berber
Anita Berber most frequently performed
at The Weisse Maus (White Mouse)
which opened in 1919. It is rumored to
have acquired its name as it was across the
street from the cabaret Chat Noir (The
Black Cat.) It is described as a “beautiful
98-seat cabaret venue with a curtained
stage” and was frequented by travelling
salesmen, criminals, alongside elderly
couples from the provinces and a
smattering of Berlin intellectuals.
In addition to the standard cabaret fare,
naked ‘beauty dances’ were staged after
midnight. The proprietor insisting before
each performance that there was no
pornographic content. “We come here
for beauty alone”, though not everyone
complied. Customers who wished to
conceal their lecherous ways were given a
choice of a black or white mask to wear.
Attendees of The White Mouse in mask 12