The early years of Mary Wigman's career as a dancer involved a search for a new dance form. She found no medium for communication in the dance styles of the early 20th century. The prevailing techniques of ballet and popular stage dancing concerned themselves with unreality and illusion. Isadora Duncan was startling the world by dancing barefoot to the music of the great composers, but her inspiration derived from a bygone era. Mary Wigman's dance was a deeply personal message of its time, and neither the form, the music nor the subject matter of any existing dance style could completely and satisfactorily express this message.

Wigman returned to the fundamentals of dance as she examined the expressivity of movement and the function of movement in space with an awareness that was remarkable for its time.