Given the emphasis on the functionality and design of industrial production, the Bauhaus movement is rarely associated with disciplines like dance. But for Oskar Schlemmer (1888-1943), translating its motion and performance principles was as convincing as a well-designed chair or building.
During the last century, the Bauhaus granted indelible way our modern constructed environments and the ways we think of the relationship between form and function (it even inspired conceptual cooking book). The German architect Walter Gropius founded the school in 1919 in Weimar, Germany, with the intention of Union Architecture, Fine Arts and Crafts. The school focused on minimalism and the creation of social good and involved artists and designers like Ludwig Mies Van Rohe, László Moholy-Nagy, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Anni and Josef Albers.
The master's degree in the Bauhaus Theater workshop, Schlemmer was a painter, sculptor and choreographer responsible for the sub-con Triadic balletA striking and fun dance structured around groups of three. Woman in 1922, avant -garde production includes three colors – yellow, pink or white and black – and three costume shapes – the square, the circle and the triangle.
“Based on multiple three,” says An explanation of the MoMA“Transcends the selfishness of the individual and the couple's dualism, emphasizing the collective”.
In the true form of the Bauhaus, the idea was to eliminate the decorative frills associated with the ballet, including tutus which allow bodies to bend, twist and explore a full range of mobility. Instead, Schlemmer's costumes restrict movements and add a modern quality because the dancers seem to be muffled and almost mechanical, a wink to the accent placed on accessibility by mass production and transforming “art into industry”.
Several of Schlemmer's illustrations for the ballet are available online, including its conceptions of bizarre sculptural costumes with wide and sparkling skirts and bright stripe sleeves. MoMA collections contain an impression entitled “Figures in space“, Which reveals one of the most important concerns of performance: how bodies move and interact in space.
As shown in an entirely colorized film of the 1970s dance, the dancers are incredibly deliberate because they sail in sparse with clean lines. Open culture Notes that they seem almost like pantomimes or puppets “with figures in clumsy costumes tracing various forms around the scene and one of the other”.
A few years ago, a big big story created a video visiting the Bavarian junior ballet Because he prepared for a performance. The costumes are faithful to the vision of Schlemmer and keep the rigid geometries and the shiny pallets. As director Ivan Liška noted, the strange outfit combined with the Jilted robotic choreography often leaves the public. “It's very successful because the public cannot believe that it's 100 years,” he says. “There you see the visionary power of Oskar Schlemmer.”
Triadic ballet is rarely reproduced, but Bavarian Junior Ballet will bring the work on stage in June to celebrate his 15th anniversary. And if you are in New York, you can see one of Schlemmer's studies in Live in the machine era at MoMA. It is also worth exploring The Oskar Schlemmer Theater Estate and Archiveswhich has a tracing of archive images and drawings on its website.
