tanzerbe bauhaustänze

The project looked at the movement and stage studies Oskar Schlemmer developed as director of the stage workshop of the Bauhaus Dessau. The name Schlemmer gave to these works, which were created from 1926–29 with students and guest dancers, was Bauhaustänze (Bauhaus Dances).

These dances manifest an approach to a spatially orientated movement art beyond ballet and Ausdruckstanz (expressionist dance) that has largely been forgotten today. They are also seen as being part of the pre-history of performance and action art, as well as conceptual dance.

With Dancing Bauhaus (German title Bauhaus tanzen) the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation initiated a choreographic and scenographic re-interpretation of Schlemmer’s works.

Whereas earlier reconstructions generally attempted to ‘perfect’ Schlemmer’s fragmentary studies, the Dancing Bauhaus project, under the direction of Prof. Ingo Reulecke, focused on the research-based, improvisational, playful and pedagogic character of the Bauhaus Dances in order to generate further developments within a contemporary context.

Dancers and choreographers from the Anhaltisches Theater Dessau and the Inter-university Center for Dance (HZT) Berlin, as well as scenographers from the TU Berlin, looked into the Bauhaus Dances in a further training programme that focused on choreography and dance history, and, inspired by historic images, films and texts, created their own interpretations.

Ingo Reulecke, artistic director / Burghard Duhm, historian of Stiftung Bauhaus, advisor / Doris Dziersk, mentor scenography / KJ, mentor music, sound

Bauhaus Tanzen Ausstellung from DIEHL+RITTER on Vimeo.