CLASS and THE MASSES

“Because I did not love the bourgeoisie, I danced those whom they despised, prostitutes, matchmakers, those who had slipped and who had fallen down.” (17)

“Since I didn’t like the bourgeois, I danced those people dismissed by them, whores, procuresses, cast-offs, those who had slipped…It was from the beginning to the state of being ‘broken.’ In the beginning, energy and youth, and then more and more ‘kaputt.'” (4)

“In theory I am democratic, practically aristocratic—I want to be sure that ordinary people are fine.” (9)

“…into a family that never had anything to do with art.” (13)

“I don’t want to have anything to do with art…Maybe I’m just nothing but a chambermaid. Could be. I only want to be loved on stage; in real life I don’t care much…I’m basically nothing more than just a child of the masses.” (4)

“They have permitted neither individuality nor extravagance. They want everything to be right, as ‘petit bourgeois’ as possible.” (4)

“And because I did not love the bourgeois, I danced those despised by him: prostitutes, matchmakers, the fallen and the outcast.” (11)

“…has the task of frightening the hypocrite [bourgeois] and showing him his ugly face in a distorting mirror and to rouse those willing to collaborate and to vitalize them into action.” (11)

“I am not arrogant like most people. I don’t despise garbage. What are we? Twenty-nine percent flesh and seventy-one percent water, a handful of garbage as soon as the spark of life is extinguished.” (16)

“I danced all of the people that the upright citizen despised: whores, pimps, depraved souls—the ones who slipped through the cracks.” (7)

“Because I despised the burgher, I danced all of the people that the upright citizen despised: whores, pimps, depraved souls—the ones who slipped through the cracks.” (15)

“Only the realistic artist is in truth the real one.” (13)

“[…] modern dance satire was born, without my intention or knowledge. By suddenly putting sweet after cheeky and soft after hard, I created something that was very characteristic of this period, for the first time: imbalance.” (6)

“My dances were short and clear, I didn’t make any variations like the other dancers, for me only a run-up, tragic or comic climax, relaxation were important, nothing else.” (9) 

“I turned and lost all consciousness of myself. The movements came by themselves, they flowed out of my body. I got into ecstasy.” (9)

“The songs have no text and only a primitive melody. You shout your grief, cheer your joy, his love moans. Natural sounds, swelling, decongesting, brought into a simple form.” (9)

“For a moment I felt completely unconscious of what I was doing, like being drunk, and I thought: He will certainly notice that’s a sign that I’m a genius.” (4)

“Why not? Having so many different parts inside yourself, you should be able to express them all. Of course, only if you have the talent.” (4)

“I don’t want to dance these vague movements that have nothing to do with me nor with my time. I want to dance the people and the variegated mixture of gestures and movements of their daily life.” (4)

“But that was only one part. The other part was Death, Birth, Love, Humility; it was abstract, but abstracted from life, not merely bloodless abstractions…Every type had his own rhythm within the succession of very simple movements that clearly expressed the essence and the dramatic development of their destiny.” (4)

“The movements and the sounds both find their impulse in the center of the organism and have to be projected at the same time. I invented sound dances, unity of sound and movement. Again this kind of concentration has been adapted and misunderstood by other dancers. They accompany their dances with recitations. That is duality, not unity…
Sounds give birth to words. If grown out of the same dance impulse, words can skip, jump and balance, glittering like bright colors. I dance words.” (4)

“But that was only one part. The other part was Death, Birth, Love, Humility; it was abstract, but abstracted from life, not merely bloodless abstractions…Every type had his own rhythm within the succession of very simple movements that clearly expressed the essence and the dramatic development of their destiny.” (4)

“I was dancing in 1920 with flickering movements like a film.” (8)

“My main intention for my dances is shortness and simpleness of form. Clear. Short and simple.” (8)

“I performed theater, I longed for the dance; I danced, I longed for the theater. I was in conflict until the idea occurred to me to combine them: I wanted to dance human characters.” (7)

“…physical things from these sentimentalities mistakenly called love.” (11)

“My rhythm became pounding until I stamped like an engine.” (11)

“The nervousness and hurry of the passersby” (11)

“so fast that they looked like a convulsion, like the mad essence of nervousness.” (11)

“I see only…that life is grotesque in every minute, even today, and because of that I can portray it in no other way.” (5)

“exceed all bounds” (5)

“The greatest scandals broke out every evening, huge noise when I took my crazy steps. The people roared, were uninhibited, and threw objects at us. The delicate Sidi [her dance partner] fell half unconscious into the scenery, the noise was an element of life for me, I wanted to get people moving, the more they roared, the bolder I became.
I wanted to go beyond all limits, my face turned into masks, my rhythm pounded until I pounded like an engine.” (9)

“A terribly rich woman invited me to a party. Suddenly my apple-green pants, I don’t know how it came about, opened, slipped down and I was standing in the open because I had nothing under them. No one seemed to have a sense of humor. People say, ‘You have so many relationships.’ But in a week, I was rid of them all.” (9)

“Extraordinary people usually have extremely ordinary children.” (9)

“I called the place Beggar Bar, since everything had been funded by begging.” (1)

“Oh these cabaret bars are so boring.” (8)

“He was cheating me with money so I kicked him out.” (8)

“picture postcards and not humans!” (7)

“too sloppy” (2)

“so sloppy” (18)

“pseudo-classical movements” (12)

“The guests are milked and complain.” (12)

“The guests are like goats! They bleat and get milked.” (3)

“Woe betide the dancer whose mind dares to cut capers. Mind is taken here for intellectualism, intellectualism for mind. A dance performance must smell like sour sweat, be ethical, confused and boring…Because the average German does not have self-confidence, they only deem art grand which they do not understand and which bores them. Mary Wigman is the only dancer who fulfills all the needs of the German educated middle class and has therefore become the national dancer.” (11)

“yelled, clapped, were disinhibited, threw objects at us” (11)

“The audience was crazy and colorful, you couldn’t find it anywhere else, you will never find it again.” (16)

“The Ghetto with all its ancient restrictions has been revived in Germany…No Christian in any capacity is allowed to enter a Jewish theater.” (5)

“Full of exuberance, I popped like a bomb out of the backdrop, I stormed across the podium with giant strides, my arms dangling like a large pendulum, my hands spread apart, my face twisted into cheeky grimaces. The audience exploded, screamed, whistled, cheered. I pulled away, grinning cheekily. The modern dance satire was born without my wanting or knowing it.” (14)

“As I shot onto the stage, I was so high-spirited and so filled with the desire to shake up the audience that I exploded into the atmosphere of loveliness that the others created […] and the same movements that I had previously danced gently and gracefully, I now exaggerated wildly. With mammoth steps I stormed across the podium. Hands splayed, my arms swung like a huge pendulum, and my face distorted itself into daring grimaces. […] There was great turmoil in the audience. Some stamped with enthusiasm; others whistled with rage.” (15)

“ordinary” (15)

“If I couldn’t convince the others of my ideas, I jumped across the table and hit […]. I quickly got on board with Edith, Siegfried Jacobsohn’s wife […] and choked her because she didn’t want to believe me. […] Meckel, the best theater manager in Paris, also managed me. I threw him out of a moving car. It wasn’t easy for me to get another manager, they were afraid of me.” (9)

“The critics write I’m sparkling as champagne, fresh as a forest, clear as glass, poisonous as a toadstool and I rush to their head like heavy wine. I remind them of Rodin, Barlach, George Grosz, Baldung Grien, Toulouse-Lautrec, Daumier, Pascin, Felicien Rops, Thackeray, Balzac and Goya. They find me grotesque, bizarre, tragic, comic, vicious, classic, gothic, expressionistic, surrealistic, dadaistic, baroque. Ivy Litvinoff, the wife of the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, wrote that my dances are so primeval that they have the effect of the most extravagant Modern Art.” (4)

“You write that Mary Wigman is the only living dancer of the 1920s. That’s not true. Only: Wigman was an ‘Aryan’ with a hint of National Socialism and was therefore allowed to stay in Germany. But I am Jewish and had to emigrate. I created expressionist dance, the modern dance pantomime.” (14)

“Well, then I broke it off, like everything that I break off, like everything. I always have some excuse for breaking something off.” (4)

“Not so well remembered? I was totally forgotten!” (2)

“If an artist penetrates deeply into his time he will uncover its underlying significance and he will also create something that is eternal and universal for all mankind. Our works…will appear timeless to future generations only if they are profound enough. They will deliver a message which passes from generation to generation and which reveals that we are all human, we all have to follow the same laws, we all have to fight, we all have to die.” (7)

“To be honest, now yes! Especially when I think today I could work with Andy Warhol.” (16)