Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T03:30:46.576Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Gesture, Interruption, Vibration: Rethinking Early Twentieth-Century Gestural Theory and Practice in Walter Benjamin, Rudolf von Laban, and Mary Wigman

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2015

Lucia Ruprecht
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article compares Rudolf von Laban's and Mary Wigman's practices and theories of gestural flow with Walter Benjamin's theory of gesture as interruption. For Laban and Wigman, gesture mirrors a vitalist understanding of life that is based on the rediscovery of transhistorical continuities between human and cosmic energy. Benjamin's Brechtian gestures address inscriptions and manipulations of bodies, which provide comment on the conditions of society by subjecting to critique the essentializing aspects of historical and vitalist flow. Addressing in particular forms of vibration as both enriching and destabilizing the gestural from its margins, my article explores how vibratory energy indicates a self-reflexive theory of media, but also a revolutionary charge, in Benjamin; how it engenders a politically ambivalent process of transmission between dancers and audience in Laban; and how it becomes an actual mode of movement in Wigman. The historical inquiry contributes to a genealogy of vibration in contemporary dance.

Keywords

1957 Le Sacre du PrintempsastonishmentAusdruckstanzBertolt Brechtcontemporary danceflowgestureintellectual distanceinterruptionMary WigmanMeg Stuartmovement choirsRudolf von LabanSocialist revolutionvibrationvibratovitalismWalter Benjamin
Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , August 2015 , pp. 23 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 2015 

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

Agamben, Giorgio. 1999. “Kommerell, or On Gesture.” In Potentialities, edited by Heller-Roazen, Daniel, 77–88. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Agamben, Giorgio. 2000. “Notes on Gesture.” In Means Without End: Notes on Politics, 49–60. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Bach, Rudolf. 1933. Das Mary Wigman Werk. Dresden, Germany: Carl Reissner Verlag.Google Scholar
Baxmann, Inge. 2000. Mythos: Gemeinschaft. Körper- und Tanzkulturen in der Moderne. München, Germany: Wilhelm Fink Verlag.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter. 1991. “Was ist das epische Theater? (I).” In Aufsätze, Essays, Vorträge. Gesammelte Schriften, Volume 2, Part 2, 519–31. Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Suhrkamp Verlag.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter. 2005. “Notes on a Theory of Gambling.” In Selected Writings, Volume 2, Part 1, 297–8. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter. 2005a. “Surrealism.” In Selected Writings, Volume 2, Part 1, 207–21. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter. 2005b. “Franz Kafka.” In Selected Writings, Volume 2, Part 2, 794–818. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter. 2006. “What Is the Epic Theater? (II).” In Selected Writings, Volume 4, 302–9. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter. 2006a. “The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire.” In Selected Writings, Volume 4, 3–92. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter. 2006b. “Central Park.” In Selected Writings, Volume 4, 161–99. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter. 2006c. “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility: Second Version.” In Selected Writings, Volume 3, 101–33. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter. 2006d. “The Formula in Which the Dialectical Structure of Film Finds Expression.” In Selected Writings, Volume 3, 94–5. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Böhme, Fritz. 1926. Tanzkunst. Dessau, Germany: C. Dünnhaupt Verlag.Google Scholar
Brandstetter, Gabriele. 2015. Poetics of Dance: Body, Image, and Space in the Historical Avant-Gardes. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandstetter, Gabriele. 1998. “Grenzgänge II: Auflösungen und Umschreibungen zwischen Ritual und Theater.” In Grenzgänge: Das Theater und die anderen Künste, edited by Brandstetter, Gabriele, Finter, Helga, and Weßendorf, Markus, 13–22. Tübingen, Germany: Gunter Narr Verlag.Google Scholar
Breton, André. 1987. Mad Love. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Burkhalter, Sarah. 2011. “L'espace danse. De l'onde à la kinésphère.” Faces. Journal d'Architecture 69: 12–7.Google Scholar
Burt, Ramsay. 1998. Alien Bodies: Representations of Modernity, “Race” and Nation in Early Modern Dance. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Casalonga, Marguerite. 1913. “Nijinsky et le Sacre du Printemps.” Comœdia Illustré June: 472–4.Google Scholar
Dalrymple-Henderson, Linda. 2002. “Vibratory Modernism: Boccioni, Kupka, and the Ether of Space.” In From Energy to Information: Representation in Science and Technology, Art, and Literature, edited by Clarke, Bruce and Dalrymple-Henderson, Linda, 126–50. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deuber-Mankowsky, Astrid. 2015. “Spiel und zweite Technik. Walter Benjamins Entwurf einer Medienanthropologie des Spiels.” In Mediale Anthropologie, edited by Engell, Lorenz and Voss, Christiane, 35–62. München, Germany: Fink.Google Scholar
Didi-Huberman, Georges. 2009. Quand les images prennent position. L’œil de l'histoire, Vol. 1. Paris: Éditions de Minuit.Google Scholar
Doerr, Evelyn. 2008. Rudolf Laban: The Dancer of the Crystal. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.Google Scholar
Elswit, Kate. 2012. “Back Again? Valeska Gert's Exiles.” In New German Dance Studies, edited by Manning, Susan and Ruprecht, Lucia, 113–29. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Elswit, Kate. 2014. Watching Weimar Dance. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foellmer, Susanne. 2006. Valeska Gert. Fragmente einer Avantgardistin in Tanz und Schauspiel der 1920er Jahre. Bielefeld, Germany: Transcript.Google Scholar
Foellmer, Susanne. 2009. Am Rand der Körper. Inventuren des Unabgeschlossenen im zeitgenössischen Tanz. Bielefeld, Germany: Transcript.Google Scholar
Foster, Susan Leigh. 1996. Choreography and Narrative: Ballet's Staging of Story and Desire. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Franco, Susanne. 2007. “Ausdruckstanz: Traditions, Translations, Transmissions.” In Dance Discourses: Keywords in Dance Research, edited by Franco, Susanne and Nordera, Marina, 80–98. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Franco, Susanne. 2012. “Rudolf Laban's Dance Film Projects.” In New German Dance Studies, edited by Manning, Susan and Ruprecht, Lucia, 63–78. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Franko, Mark. 1995. Dancing Modernism/Performing Politics. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Giersdorf, Jens Richard. 2013. The Body of the People: East German Dance Since 1945. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Guilbert, Laure. 2000. Danser avec le IIIe Reich: les danseurs modernes sous le nazisme. Paris: Edition Complexe.Google Scholar
Hansen, Miriam Bratu. 2004. “Room-for-Play: Benjamin's Gamble with Cinema.” October 109: 3–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardt, Yvonne. 2004. Politische Körper: Ausdruckstanz, Choreographien des Protests und die Arbeiterkulturbewegung in der Weimarer Republik. Münster, Germany: Lit Verlag.Google Scholar
Huschka, Sabine. 2002. Moderner Tanz. Konzepte, Stile, Utopien. Hamburg, Germany: Rowohlt Verlag.Google Scholar
Huschka, Sabine. 2012. “Pina Bausch, Mary Wigman, and the Aesthetic of ‘Being Moved'.” In New German Dance Studies, edited by Manning, Susan and Ruprecht, Lucia, 182–99. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Jones, Susan. 2013. Literature, Modernism, and Dance. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kandinsky, Wassily. 1946. On the Spiritual in Art. New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.Google Scholar
Kant, Marion, and Karina, Lillian. 2003. Hitler's Dancers: German Modern Dance and the Third Reich. New York: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Köhler, Kristina. 2014. “Tango Mad and Affected by Cinematographitis: Rhythmic ‘Contagions’ Between Screens and Audiences in the 1910s.” In Performing New Media 1890–1915, edited by Curtis, Scott, Gray, Frank, and Williams, Tami, 203–13. New Barnet, UK: John Libbey Publishing.Google Scholar
Laban, Rudolf von. 1920. Die Welt des Tänzers. Stuttgart, Germany: Verlag von Walter Seiffert.Google Scholar
Laban, Rudolf von. 1926. Gymnastik und Tanz. Oldenburg, Germany: Verlag Gerhard Stalling.Google Scholar
Laban, Rudolf von, and Lawrence, F. C.. 1947. Effort. London, UK: Macdonald and Evans.Google Scholar
Launay, Isabelle. 1996. A la recherche d'une danse moderne: Rudolf Laban, Mary Wigman. Paris: Chiron.Google Scholar
Lepecki, André. 2000. “Still. On the Vibratile Microscopy of Dance.” In ReMembering the Body, edited by Brandstetter, Gabriele and Völckers, Hortensia, 334–63. Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany: Hatje Cantz.Google Scholar
M-L., 1926. “Blüthnersaal. Mary Wigman tanzt.” Der Tag, November 9, 11.Google Scholar
Manning, Susan. 2006. Ecstasy and the Demon: The Dances of Mary Wigman. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Stanley. 1998. “Introduction.” In Walter Benjamin: Understanding Brecht, vii–xix. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Mozingo, Karen. 2012. “Lotte Goslar's Clowns.” In New German Dance Studies, edited by Manning, Susan and Ruprecht, Lucia, 99–112. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Müller, Hedwig. 2013. “Real ist nur die Ewigkeit. Die Fotografien der Valeska Gert.” In Valeska Gert Tanz Fotografien, edited by Müller, Hedwig, 7–25. Köln, Germany: Wienand Verlag.Google Scholar
Müller-Schöll, Nikolaus. 2002. Das Theater des “konstruktiven Defaitismus”. Lektüren zur Theorie eines Theaters der A-Identität bei Walter Benjamin, Bertolt Brecht und Heiner Müller. Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Stroemfeld Verlag.Google Scholar
Ness, Sally Ann. 2008. “The Inscription of Gesture: Inward Migrations in Dance.” In Migrations of Gesture, edited by Noland, Carrie and Ness, Sally Ann, 1–30. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Noland, Carrie. 2008. “Introduction.” In Migrations of Gesture, edited by Noland, Carrie and Ness, Sally Ann, ix–xxviii. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Noland, Carrie. 2009. Agency and Embodiment: Performing Gestures/Producing Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rambert, Marie. 1972. Quicksilver: An Autobiography. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Reynolds, Dee. 2007. Rhythmic Subjects: Uses of Energy in the Dances of Mary Wigman, Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham. Alton, UK: Dance Books.Google Scholar
Rivière, Jacques. 1983. “Le Sacre du Printemps.” In What Is Dance? Readings in Theory and Criticism, edited by Copeland, Roger and Cohen, Marshall, 115–23. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ruprecht, Lucia. 2010. “Ambivalent Agency: Gestural Performances of Hands in Weimar Dance and Film.” Seminar 46(3): 255–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Santos Newhall, Mary Anne. 2009. Mary Wigman. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Schumann, Gerhard. 1982. “Gespräche und Fragen: Mary Wigman.” Arbeitshefte 36: 36–50.Google Scholar
Siegmund, Gerald. 2006. Abwesenheit. Eine performative Ästhetik des Tanzes. William Forsythe, Jérôme Bel, Xavier Le Roy, Meg Stuart. Bielefeld, Germany: Transcript.Google Scholar
Smart, Mary Ann. 2004. Mimomania. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Sorell, Walter. 1969. Hanya Holm: The Biography of an Artist. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Stöckemann, Patricia. 2011. “Tanztechniken und Lebenswege—der deutsche Ausdruckstanz im Gespräch. Interviews mit Ann Hutchinson Guest, Anna Markard und Reinhild Hoffmann, Katharine Sehnert.” In Tanztechniken 2010. Tanzplan Deutschland, edited by Diehl, Ingo and Lampert, Friederike, 156–67. Leipzig, Germany: Henschel Verlag.Google Scholar
Thora, Klaus. 1992. “Der Einfluß der Lebenphilosophie Rudolf von Labans auf das tänzerische Weltbild.” In Ausdruckstanz: eine mitteleuropäische Bewegung der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts, edited by Oberzaucher-Schüller, Gunhild, 154–60. Wilhelmshaven, Germany: Florian Noetzel Verlag.Google Scholar
Thurner, Christina. 2012. “Affect, Discourse, and Dance Before 1900.” In New German Dance Studies, edited by Manning, Susan and Ruprecht, Lucia, 17–30. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Weber, Samuel. 2002. “Between a Human Life and a Word: Walter Benjamin and the Citability of Gesture.” In Perception and Experience in Modernity, edited by Geyer-Ryan, Helga, 26–45. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Weigel, Sigrid. 1996. Body- and Image-Space. Re-Reading Walter Benjamin. London, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wigman, Mary. N.d. “On the Staging” (Über die Inszenierung), Akademie der Künste Berlin, Mary Wigman archive, folder 972.Google Scholar
Wigman, Mary. 1933. “Tanz.” In Das Mary Wigman Werk, edited by Bach, Rudolf, 19–20. Dresden, Germany: Carl Reissner Verlag.Google Scholar
Wigman, Mary. 1966. The Language of Dance. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar