DANZ QUARTERLY No 5 September 2006

A Historic Revisiting - Bodenwieser Remembered
Paris Conference April 1st 2006

By Shona Dunlop MacTavish

When it was suggested by the director of the Centre Nationale of the Danse that I should take part in the forthcoming conference they had planned to research and document the principal choreographies of the Austrian “Ausdruckstanz” (expressive dance), I was intrigued.

This impressive newly completed dance centre also plans to cover a wide canvas of dance offering lectures, discussions and performance from around the world. A massively adventurous undertaking.

Those being featured in the expressive dance period in April include Grete Wiesenthal, Pina Mlakar, Jean Weldt, Rosalia Chladek and my own Viennese teacher, Gertrud Bodenwieser, all well remembered still for their individual dance concepts which became such a “tour de force” at the end of World War One.

The long journey notwithstanding, I found my way to the impressive but unusual looking building in the outer suburb of Patin in Paris. The main interest of this centre is archival research on historical dance. It is a place richly endowed with two capacious studios (though not air conditioned), a fine library and plans to present a diverse programme of dance throughout the year.

On April 1st, several leading dance historians were to present the life and achievements of some of these outstanding personalities of the 1920s and 1930s and these included those who chose to remain working under Hitler and those who did not! Lecture/demonstrations were introduced by critic historian Andrea Amort. She spoke of the tremendous change in the public’s perception of the dance at this time, as indeed of all art. She pointed out how each art form drew one from the other following the collapse of the Hapsburg Empire. She indicated that the theories of Delsarte, Dalcroze and Laban also played a large part in the flowering of the “expressive” dance which now emerged, close to eclipsing the increasingly decadent style of the existing classic school.

New Zealand’s Carol Brown followed Amort, outlining the great contribution made by Bodenwieser – of the long tours she made with her Ballet Company throughout Europe from 1923 to 1948, when she was forced to emigrate to Australia. She also spoke of the ten months touring South America with the company when she learned of the death of her husband and other family members and friends in the horrific death camps, ending in her decision to make a new life in the Antipodes. Certainly Europe’s loss became our gain, for Bodenwieser helped change the face of contemporary dance in both Australia and New Zealand. She was greatly mourned upon her death in Sydney in 1959.

Bodenwieser was also the first Professor of Dance at the Viennese Academy of Music and the Arts. Her pedagogic contribution was wide reaching. As Bodenwieser’s last remaining Viennese trained pupil living in New Zealand, I was able to speak of my time with her and to take questions with Carol in the Forum which followed.

Neither Carol nor I were very happy about the presentation which followed. This was one of her few surviving dances The Demon Machine (1932). It was a prize winner at the Concours Internationale de la Danse and a Grande Prix in 1931 in Florence. The Demon Machine was concerned with the threat of the mounting power of the machine – no longer the servant of the man but its master.

This gripping dance was to be reconstructed from Laban notation by Swiss Laban notater Karin Hermes using five Swiss dancers from Repertory Dance Ensemble. I felt strongly, that helpful and interesting though the Laban notation might be, the precise system of movement shown could not hope to find the true source of each movement – neither from where it comes nor where it should end. I thought the dancers did well but this reproduction of Demon Machine failed to illicit the incredible excitement of synchronized mechanical movement with the sharpness and intensity we had given it under Bodenwieser’s personal supervision sixty years ago! Nor did it have quite the lyrical quality in torso and arms Bodenwieser required in the first Paradise section of the dance.

At breakfast next morning, Carol and I were invited to explain our feelings about the reconstructed Demon Machine. Apart from the above remarks we demonstrated how Bodenwieser’s work also made great play of hair, which frequently swept a body movement into outer space. This was perhaps the quality of her work which stood out from other dancer/choreographers of the time.

“I felt strongly, that helpful and interesting though the Laban notation might be, the precise system of movement shown could not hope to find the true source of each movement”

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