Tag: Elsa von Carlberg

December 2017

Authors: Hermann and Marianne Aubel

Publisher: Karl Robert Langewiesche Vlg. Königstein, 1928. 112 pages, numerous illustrations. Pictures of Isadora Duncan, Nijinski, Anna Pavlova, Alexander Sacharoff, Clotilde von Derp-Sacharoff, Die Schwestern Wiesenthal, Tamara Karsavina, La Argentina, Ellen Petz, Niddy Impekoven, Rudolf von Laban, Mary Wigman, Palucca, Harald Kreutzberg, Javanische Tanzgruppe.
Language: German

 

 

A performance by the Natural Dance Movement in silk robes, England
c. 2000
Photograph taken by my mother

 

 

I have always loved dancing… it comes from the soul. I have danced since 1975 – pre-disco, through disco, high energy, new romantics, soul, trance, techno and more. I still go out dancing today. While this is a different kind of dance, notably free dance, all forms of dance are a connection to music, earth, cosmos. A connection to the earliest of human beings dancing round an open fire.

This is a book I bought on the Internet for $12. I have scanned the photographs and given them a digital clean. The costumes are fabulous, the poses exquisite, exotic, and joyous. The silhouettes and shapes created are just glorious. The photographs usually have low depth of field, the figures “caught” in front of contextless backgrounds. But as Grete Wiesenthal’s assistant Maria Josefa Schaffgotsch observes, the time freeze of the photograph is the antithesis of free dance:
.

“Grete Wiesnethal’s primary concern was to overcome as far as possible the unavoidable static element of classical dance and to dissolve everything that smacked of a pose in a never-ending stream of movement. The flowing, swinging, wavelike three-four rhythm, transforming Strauss’s waltzes into movement – that was her particular art, that was what made her world famous.”1

Many of the photographs work against the nature of the medium, and the idea of posing for the camera, to capture the fleeting expressiveness of dance. Just look at the ecstatic shape created in Hugo Erfurth’s Schwestern Wiesenthal (Wiesenthal sisters) (c. 1928, below). Indeed, the language of spiritual revelation!

My favourites are the photographs of Sent M’Ahesa and Nijinski. But honestly, they are all glorious. The photographs in this book, “The Artistic Dance of Our Time,” represent the cutting edge of dance, art, and photography in 1928. It is so nice to seem them now.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

 

1/ Andrea Amort. “Free Dance in Interwar Vienna,” in Deborah Holmes and Lisa Silverman (eds.,). Interwar Vienna: Culture Between Tradition and Modernity. Rochester, New York: Camden House, 2009, p. 123.

 

 

Free dance

Free dance is a 20th-century dance form that preceded modern dance. Rebelling against the rigid constraints of classical ballet, Loie Fuller, Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis (with her work in theatre) developed their own styles of free dance and laid the foundations of American modern dance with their choreography and teaching. In Europe Rudolf Laban, Emile Jaques-Dalcroze and François Delsarte developed their own theories of human movement and methods of instruction that led to the development of European modern and Expressionist dance.

Free dance was prolific in Central and Eastern Europe, where national schools were created, such as the School of Musical Movement (Heptachor), in Russia, and the Orkesztika School, in Hungary.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

 

Hermann and Marianne Aubel (authors)
Karl Robert Langewiesche (publisher)
Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit [The Artistic Dance of Our Time]
1928
Book front cover

 

 

Elvira (Munich)
Isadora Duncan
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit [The Artistic Dance of Our Time] p. 1
Published 1928

 

 

“Wir sehen das Ziel der Tanzkunst und jeder Kunst darin, eine Sprache geistiger Offenbarung zu sein, aus der Natur heraus sich äubernd und mit ihr verbunden.”

“We see the goal of dance and every art as being a language of spiritual revelation, external to and connected with it.”

Hermann and Marianne Aubel

 

 

Vielleicht auf keinem Gebiet kunstlerischer Entfaltung haben die letzten Jahrsehute ein solches Strebennach Weiterentwicklung gebracht, wie auf dem Gebiete der Tanzkunst. Sie ist, als letztes Zile der Arbeit an der menschilchen Bewegung, mehr und mehr mit in den Mittelpunkt des allgeneinen Interesses gerückt und übt so eine gröbere Wirkung auf breitere Kreis aus, als sie es noch vor 20, ja vor 10 Jahen vermochte. Eine neue Form des bewegten Ausdrucks will sich bilden.

Perhaps in no field of artistic development, the last years have brought about such a development as in the field of dance art. It is, as the last part of the work on the human movement, more and more pushed into the centre of general interest, and thus exerts a greater effect on a wider circle than it did 20 or even 10 years ago. A new form of moving expression wants to form itself. (Introduction, V)

 

 

Rudolf Jobst (Vienna)
Schwestern Wiesenthal [Wiesenthal sisters]
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit [The Artistic Dance of Our Time] p. 4
Published 1928

 

 

Hugo Erfurth (Dresden)
Schwestern Wiesenthal (Wiesenthal sisters)
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 5
Published 1928

 

 

Hugo Erfurth (Dresden)
Grete Wiesenthal
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 6
Published 1928

 

Grete Wiesenthal (1885-1970)

Austrian dancer and choreographer. She and her sister Elsa (1887-1967) were both dancers with the Vienna Court Opera Ballet but she left in 1904 to choreograph and perform her own work, which was accompanied primarily by waltz music (Chopin and J. Strauss). She proved so popular that her sisters Elsa and Berta joined her in works that communicated a (then) revolutionarily ecstatic response to waltz rhythms. The sisters moved to Berlin where they performed together until 1910, after which Grete worked independently, choreographing and performing in vaudeville, film, and opera around Europe and the US. The Grete Wiesenthal Dance group (1945-1956) toured the world and two of its members subsequently staged her dances for the Vienna State Opera Ballet. …

The “ambassador of waltz,” began life as a dancer within the traditions of ballet; entered the corps (1901) and advanced to coryphée (1902); with sister Elsa, began choreographing new ways of movement and expression through dance and allied with Secession circle of innovators; with Elsa and sister Berta, came to prominence as the Wiesenthal sisters at Vienna’s Cabaret Fledermaus (1908); in Berlin, danced with sisters at Max Reinhardt’s Deutsches Theater; danced role of 1st elf in Reinhardt’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Munich’s Artist’s Theater (1909); with sisters, performed at London’s Hippodrome and at Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris (1909).

Made solo debut in Berlin in pantomime Sumurùn, produced by Reinhardt (1910); made US debut at Winter Garden in NY (1912); created role of Kitchen Boy in Reinhardt’s Stuttgart production of Der Bürger als Edelmann, with music by Richard Strauss; appeared in “Grete Wiesenthal Series” of films (1913-1914): Kadra Sâfa, Erlkönigs Tochter and Die goldne Fliege; following WWI, opened dancing school (1919); returned to Vienna stage at Staatsoper (State Opera House), in lead role of her ballet Der Taugenichts in Wien (The Ne’er-Do-Well in Vienna, 1927); remained active professionally, appearing in solo dance concerts and tours, including a return to NY (1933); appointed professor of dance at Vienna’s Academy for Music and the Performing Arts (1934), then served as director of artistic dance section (1945-1952).

After WWII, her work enjoyed a renaissance in Austria, especially the dances she created for various Salzburg Festival productions; wrote autobiography, Der Aufstieg (The Way Upwards, 1919), which appeared as Die ersten Schritte (The First Steps, 1947); also published a novel, Iffi: Roman einer Tänzerin (Iffi: Novel of a Dancer, 1951); best remembered for having transformed the Viennese waltz from a monotonous one-two-three movement, performed by smiling dancers laced into corsets, into an ecstatic experience, performed by dancers with unbound hair and swinging dresses.

Text from the Gustav Mahler website Nd [Online] Cited 13/12/2017. No longer available online

 

 

Rudolf Jobst (Vienna)
Else Wiesenthal
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 7
Published 1928

 

 

Hanns Holdt (Munich)
Sent M’Ahesa
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 10
Published 1928

 

 

Franz Löwy (Vienna)
Sent M’Ahesa
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 11
Published 1928

 

Sent M’Ahesa (born August 17, 1883 in Riga as Else von Carlberg – November 19, 1970 in Stockholm ) was a expressive dancer, who worked in Germany until the 1920s. She also wrote articles for newspapers and magazines.

She was portrayed by Max Beckmann, Bernhard Hoetger, Dietz Edzard and Adolf Münzer. The Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis saw her dance in Berlin in 1923 (“She danced only once and then returned to her Munich villa”) and wrote to his wife: “Since I saw Sent M’Ahesa dancing I do not want any other kind of dance, I saw its highest form.”

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

 

Hugo Erfurth (Dresden)
Sent M’Ahesa
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 12
Published 1928

 

 

d’Ora (Arthur Benda) (Vienna)
Sent M’Ahesa
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 13
Published 1928

 

 

Hugo Erfurth (Dresden)
Sent M’Ahesa
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 14
Published 1928

 

 

Hanns Holdt (Munich)
Sent M’Ahesa
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 15
Published 1928

 

 

Hanns Holdt (Munich)
Sent M’Ahesa
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 16
Published 1928

 

 

Franz Löwy (Vienna)
Sent M’Ahesa
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 17
Published 1928

 

Sent M’Ahesa (Elsa von Carlberg, German 1883-1970)

“Such confusion of identity did not apply in the case of Sent M’Ahesa (Elsa von Carlberg 1883-1970), whom audiences persisted in identifying with Egyptian dances (though her dance aesthetic  included images from other ancient o exotic cultures). She performed all her dances solo. Born in Latvia, she went to Berlin in 1907 with her sister to study Egyptology but became so enchanted with ancient Egyptian art and artifacts that she decided to pursue her interest through dance rather than scholarship… Under he name of Sent M’Ahesa, she presented a program of Egyptian dances in Munich in December 1909 (Ettlinger). From then until the mid-1920s, she achieved fame for her exceptionally dramatic dances dominated by motifs from ancient Egyptian iconography. …

Her dances always functioned in relation to intricate, highly decorative costumes of her own design, so that it appeared as if she chose movements for their effect upon her costume.  In her moon goddess (or Isis) dance, she attached large, diaphanous cloth wings to her black-sleeved arms… Sent M’Ahesa often exposed her flesh below the navel, but I have yet to find a picture of her in which she exposed her hair, so keen was she on the use of wigs, helmets, caps, scarves, kerchiefs, tiaras, masks, and crowns. In her peacock dance, she attached a large fan of white feather plumes to her spine. In other dances, she draped herself with tassels, decorative aprons, double sashes, layers of jeweled necklaces, and arm, wrist, and ankle bracelets. Only in her Indian dances did she wear anything resembling pants. …

… her body was wonderfully svelte, and her face displayed a cool, chiseled beauty, I think, rather, that she sought to decontextualise female beauty and erotic feeling from archetypal images of them originating in cultures other than her own or her audience’s; she sought to dramatse a tension between a modern female body and old images of female desire and desirability. Ettlinger, in 1910, was perhaps more accurate when he remarked that

“Sent M’Ahesa’s dance has nothing to do with what one commonly understands as dance. She does not produce “beautiful,” “sensually titillating” effects. She does not represent feelings, “fear,” “horror,” “lust,” “despair,” as “lovely.” Her are requires its own style. Her movements are angular, geometrically uncircular, just as we find them in old Egyptian paintings and reliefs. Neither softness of line nor playful grace are the weapons with which she puts us under her spell. On the contrary: her body constructs hard, quite unnaturally broken lines. Arms and legs take on nearly doll-like attitudes. But precisely this deliberate limiting of gestures gives her the possibility of until now unknown, utterly minute intensities, the most exquisite of refinements of bodily expression. With a sinking of the arm of only a few millimeters, she calls forth effects which all the tricks of the ballet school cannot teach.”

…

Sent M’Ahesa was similar to Schrenck in one respect, even though Schrenck never performed exotic dances: both project and intensely erotic aura while moving within a very confined space. They showed persuasively that convincing signification of erotic desire or pleasure did not depend on a feeling of  freedom in space, as exemplified in the convention of ballet and modern dance, with their cliched use of runs, leaps, pirouettes, and aerial acrobatics. These dancers revealed that erotic aura intensifies in relation to an acute sense of bodily confinement, of the body imploding, turning in on itself, riddled with tensions and contradictory pressures. They adopted movements to portray the body being squeezed and twisted, drifting in to a repertoire of squirms, spasms, angular thrusts, muscular suspensions. Contortionist dancing is perhaps the most extreme expression of this aesthetic. But Sent M’Ahesa complicated the matter by doing exotic dances – that is, she confined her body within a remote cultural-historical context, as if to suggest that the ecstatic body imploded metaphorical as well as physical space.”

Karl Eric Toepfer, “Solo Dancing,” in Karl Eric Toepfer. Empire of Ecstasy: Nudity and Movement in German Body Culture, 1910-1935. University of California Press, 1997, pp. 175-179.

 

 

Hanns Holdt (Munich)
Sent M’Ahesa
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 18
Published 1928

 

 

Minya Diez-Dührkoop (Hamburg)
Clotilde von Derp-Sacharoff
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 19
Published 1928

 

 

Hugo Erfurth (Dresden)
Clotilde von Derp-Sacharoff
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 20
Published 1928

 

 

Hugo Erfurth (Dresden)
Clotilde von Derp-Sacharoff
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 21
Published 1928

 

 

Hugo Erfurth (Dresden)
Clotilde von Derp-Sacharoff
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 23
Published 1928

 

Clotilde von Derp-Sacharoff (German, 1892-1974)

Clotilde von Derp, stage name of Clotilde Margarete Anna Edle von der Planitz (5 November 1892 – 11 January 1974), was a German expressionist dancer, an early exponent of modern dance. Her career was spent essentially dancing together with her husband Alexander Sakharoff with whom she enjoyed a long-lasting relationship. …

As a child in Munich, Clotilde dreamt of becoming a violinist but from an early age she revealed how talented she was as a dancer. After receiving ballet lessons from Julie Bergmann and Anna Ornelli from the Munich Opera, she gave her first performance on 25 April 1910 at the Hotel Union, using the stage name Clotilde von Derp. The audience were enthralled by her striking beauty and youthful grace. Max Reinhardt presented her in the title role in his pantomime Sumurûn which proved a great success while on tour in London. A photo by Rudolf Dührkoop of her was exhibited in 1913 at the Royal Photographic Society. Clotilde was a member of the radical Blaue Reiter Circle which had been started by Wassily Kandinsky in 1911.

Among her admirers were artists such as Rainer Maria Rilke and Yvan Goll. For his Swiss dance presentations, Alexej von Jawlensky gave her make-up resembling his abstract portraits. From 1913, Clotilde appeared with the Russian dancer Alexander Sacharoff with whom she moved to Switzerland during the First World War. Both Sacharoff and Clotilde were known for their transvestite costumes. Clotilde’s femininity was said to be accentuated by the male attire. Her costumes took on an ancient Greek look which she used in Danseuse de Delphes in 1916. Her style was said to be elegant and more modern than that achieved by Isadora Duncan. Their outrageous costumes included wigs made from silver and gold coloured metal, with hats and outfits decorated with flowers and wax fruit.

They married in 1919 and, with the financial support of Edith Rockefeller, appeared at the Metropolitan Opera in New York but without any great success. They lived in Paris until the Second World War. Using the name “Les Sakharoff.” Their 1921 poster by George Barbier to advertise their work was seen as showing a “mutually complementary androgynous couple” “united in dance” joined together in an act of “artistic creation.”

They toured widely visiting China and Japan which was so successful that they returned again in 1934. They and their extravagant costumes visited both North and South America. They found themselves in Spain when France was invaded by Germany. They returned to South America making a new base in Buenos Aires until 1949. They toured Italy the following year and they took up an invitation to teach in Rome by Guido Chigi Saracini. They taught at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena for Saracini and they also opened their own dance school in Rome. She and Sakharoff stopped dancing together in 1956. They both continued to live in Rome until their deaths. Clotilde gave and sold many of their writings and costumes, that still remained, to museums and auctions. She eventually sold the iconic 1909 painting of her husband by Alexander Jawlensky. In 1997 the German Dance Archive Cologne purchased many remaining items and they have 65 costumes, hundreds of set and costume designs and 500 photographs.

Unlike her husband, Clotilde had a taste for modern music, frequently choosing melancholic music by contemporaries such as Max Reger, Florent Schmitt and Stravinsky. Her haunting eyes and delicate smiles gave the impression she took pleasure in displaying her finely-costumed voluptuous body, even when she reached her forties. She was particularly effective in interpreting Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. Hans Brandenbourg maintained her ballet technique was superior to that of Alexander although he did not consider her a virtuoso. Clotilde also moved more independently of the music, dancing to the impression it created in her mind rather than to the rhythm.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

 

Hugo Erfurth (Dresden)
Clotilde von Derp-Sacharoff
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 26
Published 1928

 

 

Veritas (Stephanie Held) (Munich)
Clotilde von Derp-Sacharoff
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 27
Published 1928

 

 

Nijinski
Aus dem werke “Das Russische Theater”, Amalthea-Verlag, Wien (From the works “The Russian Theater”, Amalthea-Verlag, Vienna)
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 28
Published 1928

 

 

Nijinski
Porträt karten verlag Leiser, Berlin – Wilmersdorf
Portrait cards Verlag Leiser, Berlin – Wilmersdorf
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 29
Published 1928

 

 

E. O. Hoppé (London)
Nijinski
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 30
Published 1928

 

 

Nijinski
Aus dem werke “Das Russische Theater”, Amalthea-Verlag, Wien (From the works “The Russian Theater”, Amalthea-Verlag, Vienna)
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 31
Published 1928

 

 

Nijinski
Porträt karten verlag Leiser, Berlin – Wilmersdorf
Portrait cards Verlag Leiser, Berlin – Wilmersdorf
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 32
Published 1928

 

 

Nijinski
Aus dem werke “Das Russische Theater”, Amalthea-Verlag, Wien (From the works “The Russian Theater”, Amalthea-Verlag, Vienna)
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 33
Published 1928

 

 

Nijinski
Aus dem werke “Das Russische Theater”, Amalthea-Verlag, Wien (From the works “The Russian Theater”, Amalthea-Verlag, Vienna)
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 35
Published 1928

 

 

d’Ora (Arthur Benda) (Vienna)
Anna Pavlova
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 36
Published 1928

 

 

Hänse Herrmann (Berlin)
Anna Pavlova
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 37
Published 1928

 

 

Hänse Herrmann (Berlin)
Anna Pavlova
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 38
Published 1928

 

 

Hänse Herrmann (Berlin)
Anna Pavlova
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 39
Published 1928

 

 

Hänse Herrmann (Berlin)
Anna Pavlova
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 40
Published 1928

 

 

Hänse Herrmann (Berlin)
Anna Pavlova
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 41
Published 1928

 

 

Hänse Herrmann (Berlin)
Anna Pavolva
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 42
Published 1928

 

 

Hänse Herrmann (Berlin)
Anna Pavlova
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 43
Published 1928

 

 

Ernst Schneider (Berlin)
Anna Pavlova
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 44
Published 1928

 

 

E. O. Hoppé (London)
Anna Pavlova
From Der Kunstlerische Tanz Unserer Zeit (The Artistic Dance of Our Time) p. 45
Published 1928

 

 

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