Mary Wigman

n a soft, blurry black and white photo, dancer Mary Wigman performs in Idolatry (Götzendienst), part of the solo cycle from Ecstatic Dances as revised for her first solo tour in 1919. She wears opaque black tights, shoeless, and a thick fringed black dress that covers her entire torso. It’s difficult to tell, but the shadowy form looks to be throwing her head back. Photograph Courtesy of the Mary Wigman Archive, Academy of Arts, Berlin.
Photo: Hugo Erfurth

The Rear-View Mirror: Hindsight from a Dance Scholar

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How does the lens switch as time passes? Susan Manning's essays are collected in Dancing on the Fault Lines of History.

Photographer Unknown

Power from the Past

Lisa Kraus

A work like Mary Wigman’s Hexentanz provides a jolting reminder of the power and intensity of early modern dance.