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Mary Wigman Research Paper

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Mary Wigman rejected ballet technique in her dance style, perceiving classical ballet technique as artificial and confining. Wigman believed that the emphasis should be on the transcendent nature and spiritual purpose of the dance, while embodying essentialism (pg. 6, Newhall). She knew she was not the best dancer in the room, but she knew how to be in touch with her emotions while dancing. She drew upon sources from what was going on in the world during the early 1900’s from war to the rebellion against the authoritarian tradition of the church, monarchy, and feudalism (pg. 73, Newhall). Wigman freed dance from its slave like overtone with music and reestablished its independence of an absolute language (pg. 7, Newhall). Wigman choose to look within and present the mind, spirit, and imagination to the audience through essentialism (16). …show more content…

Nolde introduced Wigman to her second teacher- Rudolf Von Laban. Wigman’s goal, as with other expressionist painters and fellow artists, was to reveal a new world of emotion and the mysterious motivation underlying human behavior (pg. 16, Newhall). She took influence from Sigmund Fred’s discovery of the subconscious. Wigman wanted to unsettle the viewer, while taking the dancer and audience to a transcendent, ritualistic inspired place. Mary Anne Santos Newhall went onto to state, “For Wigman and her cohorts, this flight into archaic rituals seemed at once regressive, progressive, and an act of rebellion against their middle class beginnings (pg. 17).” Her dance style was striking, rough, and disturbing all leading to uncover the spirit through the absolute

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