Dance Techniques 2010

Dance Techniques and Lives
153
Choreutics and eukinetics are no longer kept up and
taught at the Folkwang, which I see as a real failure..
RH Is it not the case that a talented choreographer is
needed who deals with the technique? Jooss was a
teacher, had established and run a school, but he was at
the same time a creative person, a choreographer.
This is what’s needed so that it is not only carried on in
amateur work.
AM That’s true. It only needs guided teaching of the
qualities and principles that Jooss and Leeder worked
out for dancers, for professionals, so that they have the
opportunity to use these qualities and principles creatively.
Choreutics and eukinetics, as individual subjects,
were scrapped at the Folkwang University and that is a
shame. They could have been kept as courses in the curriculum,
not only for beginners but also for advanced
students. Who now knows that dealing with the three
elements—time, effort, and space—covers everything?
How do you assess the current relevance of the
Jooss–Leeder Technique?
AM Very high, and precisely today as virtuosity and
the ‘higher–faster–further’ motto are so important. One
should return to fine qualities and sensitize—heighten
the awareness of the instrument and spatial correlations.
Katharine Sehnert on
Mary Wigman and her Technique
Cologne, 20 March 2010
How did you come to Mary Wigman’s studio?
As a child, I went to dance–based gymnastics classes in
my hometown, Erfurt. All the teachers were Wigman
students who had trained in Dresden. My parents wanted
to send me to ballet because of my musicality, but there
were only ballet classes for children at the local theater
and the ballet teacher was so strict and terrifying that
I never wanted to go back. When it came to training, I
wanted to go to Wigman. I already knew the name.
I wrote to her and received an invitation to attend an
entrance audition.
I was seventeen when I arrived at the school, very shy
and rather naïve, nothing like seventeen–year–olds
nowadays. After taking many deep breaths, I rang the bell
and a young boy—a real youngster—opened the door:
pale, in make–up and with black–rimmed eyes. I thought,
‘What kind of creature is that?’ He took me to the office,
to Nora, the secretary, who pointed the way into the hall.
Shy in front of people, I didn’t have the confidence
to go into the studio so I stood stiff as a board in the doorway.
Then Mary was suddenly in front of me—she was
so old, she looked like a grandmother—I’d never seen
such a woman. Her face was, of course, very wrinkled.
She wore make–up, had wild red hair, and was dressed
from head to toe in black. My first thought was, ‘I want
to get out of here.’ (laugh) I was really scared. The
students in the room continued improvising while I stood
in the doorway for the entire lesson. No one took any
notice of me. When the class was over, Mary came to me
and said, ‘Are you…’ and everything changed. My first
impression of her disappeared the moment she spoke and
was nice to me. In class, she was still very strict, in fact,
ruthless. And she grew fierce if she thought a student
wasn’t giving his or her all! There were slaps on body
parts where she thought the student could work a bit
harder.
As was common at the time, different improvisation
tasks were given as part of the entrance audition, including
the ‘heroic lament’. Back then, this was something
funny and boisterous. I received a letter a short time later
saying I could start at the beginning of the next school
year. Before the school year began I took part in the annual
summer course at the Wigman Studio in Berlin—the
classes were always full of American students. I began as
an official student in September 1955.
Which teachers and colleagues were important
to you, aside from Wigman? We had another two
teachers at the Wigman Studio and a few guest teachers.
The technique teachers were Til Thiele, who had
worked with Marcel Marceau for a bit, and Manja Chmièl,
who worked more with dynamics and her own temperament.
I had Dore Hoyer as a guest teacher—she was
a friend of Til Thiele and would come to the Wigman
studio when in Berlin in order to be coached by Til. In Til
and Manja, I had two very good technique teachers
with different personalities. Mary taught the artistic and
creative subjects. Because we were normally free after
two o’clock—unless we had rehearsals for études that we
had to show the next day—I always went to ballet in
the afternoon. I used to go with Gerhard Bohner—who
trained as a guest at the Wigman School—to Sabine Ress
in East Berlin before the Wall went up. Once the Wall
was up, I took classes with Tatjana Gsovsky.
You later became one of Wigman’s assistants,
didn’t you? When she needed me, yes, which was very
sporadically. I obviously needed to earn money once I
had finished training, so I took run–of–show contracts in
the theater. But I didn’t really want to work in the
theater. What one had to do as a dancer in the theater
was not consistent with my idea of being a dancer. And
then we founded Group Motion relatively quickly to
try out our own dance ideas—but the Wigman Studio remained
my home. I didn’t have my own rooms, as
I couldn’t afford them—just a bed. I would stay in the
studio from morning to evening and take classes well
after I had finished training. And when required, if someone
was absent, I jumped in.