Bauhaus stage

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Painting dancer (gesture) , by Oskar Schlemmer , 1922/23
The stage at the Bauhaus (1925)
Oskar Schlemmer The stage at the Bauhaus, scheme (1925)

The Bauhaus stage was a Bauhaus project for experiments in a new modern theater. Walter Gropius founded the stage workshop in 1921 on the premises of the former University of Fine Arts in Weimar. In the new Dessau building it was given a generous, variable space for performances and workshops as a central location in the architecture. The stage should also be based on fun, overcoming genre boundaries and developing into a total work of art. It was dissolved for political reasons in 1930. But its influence on modern theater continues to this day.

History and background

The stage workshop began its work in Weimar in 1921 and was supposed to experimentally investigate the basic phenomena "space and body, movement, sound, music, light and color". As an architect, Gropius attached particular importance to the spatial aspects of such a future-oriented facility. On the Bauhaus stage - also known as the “stage laboratory” - new, especially technical possibilities for the theater were to be worked out and tried out, but this was only practicable in an appropriate framework in the new Dessau building from 1926 onwards. According to the construction plans of Walter Gropius, this new stage in the Dessau Bauhaus was initially intended as a lecture hall with modest technical equipment and only for small performances, but together with the cafeteria behind it , which was separated by folding sliding walls, it had a large two-sided auditorium that offered various possibilities. According to Gropius, the cafeteria side was the "cheerful" side, the one facing the auditorium the "serious" side. The center of the stage was given a meaning that Oskar Schlemmer described in lower case letters typical of the Bauhaus as follows: “The fact that the two fronts have no back cover gives the center of the stage greater significance and forces a three-dimensional play that is both in terms of body movement and Word and sound acoustics result in new effects. ”The stage workshop only had a small budget. After April 1928, Schlemmer had less time for the practical Bauhaus stage, he concentrated increasingly on life drawing and, in addition to his stage theory, established the new holistic subject with the title “Man” in the curriculum. During that time, a group of students called the “Young Group” formed at the Bauhaus stage, which was politically part of the communist ideology and had different ideas from Schlemmer. Their goal was the political agitation theater . Schlemmer left the Bauhaus in the summer of 1929 and moved to Breslau. In the summer of 1930, with the politically motivated dismissal of Hannes Meyer as director of the Bauhaus, the Bauhaus stage was also closed for political reasons.

Artistic theory and practice

In 1922, in an essay for the first and only newsletter of the Weimar Bauhausbühne, Walter Gropius described the task of a stage workshop as “cleaning and renewing today's stage, which […] lost its deepest relationship with the human world of sensation.” He was of the opinion that this was only those who are “free from personal gain and the inhibitions of business theater” can succeed. The Bauhaus stage is to explore the individual problems of space, the body (organic and mechanical), movement, form, light and the color of sound (language and music). For this purpose, the laws of mechanics, optics and acoustics should be applied decisively. The Bauhaus statutes also provided for a presentation of the work. They should take place in public performances in the form of dance, puppet and shadow plays, light compositions and stage works. This stage workshop work should be designed in a simple way so that it could be performed in every hall, including as part of guest performances.

The first director of the stage workshop was the expressionist painter, poet and dramaturge Lothar Schreyer , whose concept was unsuccessful at the Bauhaus. With his full-body masks that covered the figures, he focused on exploring the formal language and staged his own pieces with titles such as "Moon Play" and "Crucifixion". Schreyer understood the stage as a “place of purification and redemption for man”. In 1923 he was replaced by Oskar Schlemmer, who put the emphasis on modern dance and made the Bauhaus stage very important. The reason for the replacement of Schreyer was his too expressionistic and cultic view of the theater. Schlemmer's stage theory focused on the relationship between people and space, which was also explored with his own puppets . The years 1926 to 29, until his departure, were the most productive of the Bauhaus stage. With the ballet master Manda von Kreibig from the Landestheater Darmstadt and Oskar Schlemmer, the Bauhaus stage was able to perfect the Bauhaus-specific dance. On April 29, 1927, Gret Palucca had a highly acclaimed dance performance on the Bauhaus stage. A concert with Béla Bartók took place on October 12th that same year. Schlemmer divided the theater work into an internal and external department; the inner one dealt with the investigation of the basic phenomena “space and body, movement, sound, music, light and color”, the outer one with the practical theater elements such as stage design, technology, masks, costumes, staging and performance. Aesthetic and dramaturgical models from the Bauhaus stage were provided by films, skits and satires by Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton , the French vaudeville music theater, and the puppet theater based on El Lissitzky and Sophie Taeuber-Arp . The actions of Dadaism , the modern Ballets Russes , Suédois and pantomime also had an influence on teaching and theater work at the Bauhaus stage. But also important was the idea of ​​a “machine theater”, experimenting with electric light reflections, avant-garde stage sets, architectural elements and geometric costumes, as exemplified in Schlemmer's Triadic Ballet . The stage workshop was also responsible for the organization of the famous Bauhaus festivals with costumes, masks and light effects.

Performances (selection)

As part of the Bauhaus Week 1923, the stage play " The mechanical ballet " was premiered in the evening of the mechanical cabaret . (Photo from the reconstruction of the Theater of Sounds .)

Although the well-known Bauhaus masters also dealt in part with theater theory, music, the writing of plays and stage design, the Bauhaus stage was never a completely equal subject of research with regard to the subjects of fine arts, design and architecture. This was due both to the modest material and personal equipment, which was not comparable to regular theaters, and to the Bauhaus's claim not to prepare its graduates for a professional theater career, for example with acting lessons or set design, but to give them the opportunity to give them theater-specific elements To try out shapes and spaces experimentally. Nevertheless, some productions are still remarkable in their avant-garde substance and influential up to the present day.

  • In 1923 the first real performance took place with the play Mondspiel by Lothar Schreyer, which, however, met with strong rejection already in the rehearsal phase. Schreyer then left the Bauhaus. Two people appeared in the piece: the immobile Maria in the moon and a dancer who circled her in the style of "minimal dance" but did not dance
  • In the same year the German National Theater in Weimar next to a music program of works by Paul Hindemith , Ferruccio Busoni , Stravinsky and Ernst Krenek and Oskar Schlemmer's already known, Triadic Ballet on two evenings offered, as well as a Mechanical Cabaret ( kinetic art ) with works by Bauhaus students .

Above all, the Bauhaus stage developed theories and visions for a future theater, known as “machine theater”, which as a central point called for the involvement of the audience. These projects of a flexible theater space with modern theater technology were represented by László Moholy-Nagy and Farkas Molnár in addition to Schlemmer . In the Bauhaus Book 4, published in 1925 , these theories and demands on a new theater, which were then understood as avant-garde, were published, whereby, as is typical of the Bauhaus, the focus was on architecture. Walter Gropius and Erwin Piscator tried to put this concept of total theater into practice, but failed because of the funding.

  • On March 20, 1926, before moving into the new house, one of the well-known Bauhaus festivals took place in the Dessau Volks- und Jugendheim, to which the members of the Bauhaus stage contributed performances. Schlemmer presented a parodic salon piece and the set designer Alexander Schawinsky , who was a student at the Bauhaus from 1924 and later Schlemmer's assistant, showed a dance performance entitled Step Eccentric , which, as a duet with a specially constructed step machine , provided amusement . The whole thing was musically accompanied by the Bauhaus band.

The Bauhaus stage only became really active when it moved to Dessau, where there was more space and rehearsal opportunities. But there was no regular theater operation in the new rooms either, as the equipment was too small for that. In addition, participation in the stage workshop was optional and did not bring a Bauhaus diploma, but only a certificate for participation.

  • The opening of its new home on 4 December 1926, the members of the leading babü (abbreviation of students for the Bauhaus stage) before 1500 guests the first version of the Bauhaus dances on.
  • A continuation of these dances took place on March 16, 1927, albeit with considerable extensions, with titles such as curtain play, floor geometry and unleashing the formal stage elements .

However, it also began to become clear during this time that certain claims could not be enforced. Schlemmer complained increasingly that the students often viewed his theories as paternalism and were thus more difficult to control. The idea of machine theater began to fade.

  • There was a threat of escalation in the direction of “Schlemmerbühne or Bauhausbühne?”, Which was to be prevented in 1927 with a new project that was ultimately not implemented and that included language and the title haus π or das sternheim .
  • On March 3, 1928, a matinee of the tried and tested Bauhaus dances in the Berlin Volksbühne was a great success. The subsequent guest performances in Breslau, Frankfurt / M., Stuttgart and Basel also consolidated the Bauhaus stage. Schlemmer named the stage in the Bauhaus magazine of July 1927, which was entirely dedicated to the Bauhaus stage, in view of the high fluctuation as the flying troupe .
  • In 1928 Schlemmer brought Darmstadt ballet master Manda von Kreibig to the Bauhaus to work with her on the so-called illusion and limb dances . Other dances were Stäbe- and tires dance , by the sports and gymnastics teacher at the Bauhaus, Karla Grosch , have been developed. (Blume / Duhm: p. 26 ff.)

Aftermath to the present

In 1968 the documentary film Mensch und Kunstfigur - Oskar Schlemmer and the Bauhausbühne was produced under the direction of Margarete Hasting in collaboration with Bavaria Film , which was classified as "particularly valuable" in the same year and was awarded the German Film Prize in 1969 (film band in silver).

In 1976 the first fundamental reconstruction of the Bauhaus building in Dessau-Roßlau took place, during which the stage hall was also rebuilt. Experimental performing arts have been performed at irregular intervals to this day. For the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation founded in 1994, the old Bauhaus stage is no longer a theater in the traditional sense, as it was in the GDR era, but a laboratory for the performing arts, in keeping with the Bauhaus tradition. Since 1998 it has also been used for urban research, design and teaching and is supplemented with thematic guest performances, performances , concerts and art installations , also as part of Bauhaus festivals, openings and other occasions.

Since 1977 the Dessau Bauhaus has housed the "Scientific and Cultural Center Bauhaus Dessau" alongside other GDR institutions. The former Landestheater Dessau used the rooms of the former Bauhaus stage as a secondary theater called “theater im bauhaus”. Initially, songs by Kurt Weill were performed and then the play Das Nest by Franz Xaver Kroetz as the theater's first production. Ballet productions and cabaret performances were added later. The jazz concerts were remarkable. By 1989 there were 76 of them. Jazz as a "niche art" in the GDR always fluctuated between prohibition, tolerance and promotion. Numerous stars of the GDR and also the FRG performed at the Bauhaus during that time. From 1983 to 1988, attempts were made to revive the legendary Bauhaus festivals of the twenties, but they were intended more for the GDR creative scene. Since 1997 this tradition has been carried on for the whole population under the name “Bauhaus Color Festival”. A multimedia project based on Herakles 2 or the Hydra by Heiner Müller was also presented on the Bauhaus stage in 1981.

In 1987 the Düsseldorf “ Theater der Klänge ” gave a guest performance with its play The mechanical Bauhaus stage , a reconstruction of the 1923 model for the first time in the Dessau house. Several re-performances followed in Dessau. In 2015 it staged a new version of the triadic ballet by Oskar Schlemmer under the name “Trias - the triadic ballet” .

Numerous other projects have emerged since the political change (selection until 2007):

  • 1990: Sound-color-movement , expressive dance, intuitive music and projection
  • 1992: Theater today: Theater tomorrow: Bauhaus stage !!! , international semester studio of the Dessau Bauhaus stage class with non-verbal theater on the meaning of color, light, music, movement, gestures and space (according to Schlemmer)
  • 1993: Reconstruction of the famous Bauhaus dances with Debra McCall & Company, New York
  • 1996: Pictures at an exhibition , abstract stage composition by Wassily Kandinsky based on music by Modest Petrowitsch Mussorgski , a reconstruction that is almost true to the original, well supported by sources
  • 1990 to 1999: Fallow and landscape theater , on the subject of redesigning the industrial area Dessau-Bitterfeld-Wittenberg with artistic use of disused power plants, opencast mines and locations in the Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm
  • 2001 to 2003: Bill's Ballhaus - the Bauhaus trembles! / Well, goodbye! / Dreigroschenball , music and theater festival that takes place throughout the Dessau house on the occasion of the annual Kurt Weill Festival
  • 2002: tristan and isolde. do not touch. a multimedia event with audience participation, which enabled the audience to control the dancers located in a showcase via computer keyboard, whereby letters, characters, sentences and questions led to certain dance movements of the actors, by Jo Fabian and ensemble
  • 2003: Urban_Lab , festival for experimental theater, performance and new media in the Dessau urban space, mainly for media artists from Eastern Europe
  • 2007: In_Out_City , dance theater installation on the subject of the shrinking city that is being abandoned by the residents; a topic that at the Bauhaus is dealt with in a more researching, scientific and planning manner; the stage as an imaginary urban space, by Michael Ihnow
  • 2007: yellow diced , 10th Bauhaus color festival with yellow cube-shaped decorations and costumes, several music stages, performances by the State Theater Dessau and a parade with around 10,000 people through the city to the festival

See also

literature

  • Oskar Schlemmer: the stage at the bauhaus. In: bauhaus 1. 1926, as well as: bühne. In: bauhaus 3. 1927.
    • Oskar Schlemmer: The stage in the Bauhaus (=  Bauhaus books . No. 4 ). Facs.-repr. after d. Edition from 1925, 3rd edition. Kupferberg, Mainz 1974, ISBN 3-7837-0009-4 , urn : nbn: de: bsz: 16-diglit-294779 (first edition: Albert Langen, Munich 1925).
  • Kunstgewerbemuseum Zurich (Ed.): Oskar Schlemmer and the abstract stage: Kunstgewerbemuseum Zurich June 18 to August 23, 1961 . Kunstgewerbemuseum, Zurich 1961 (exhibition catalog).
  • Tut Schlemmer: Oskar Schlemmer and the Bauhaus stage: Lecture by Ms. Tut Schlemmer on July 8, 1961 at the Zurich School of Applied Arts . School of Applied Arts, Zurich 1962, OCLC 637737700 .
  • Dirk Scheper: Oskar Schlemmer - the Triadic Ballet and the Bauhaus Stage . Akademie der Künste, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-88331-955-4 .
  • Wulf Herzogenrath , Stefan Kraus (Ed.): Erich Consemüller. Photographs Bauhaus-Dessau. Schirmer / Mosel, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-88814-310-1 (catalog of photographs from the estate of Erich Consemüller , the Bauhaus Archive, Berlin, and the Busch-Reisinger Museum of Harvard University, Cambridge / Mass., 9 pictures - photo documentation of the Weimar and Dessau times ( tagesschau.de).
  • Gisela Barche: The photographic image staging - On the stage photography of the Bauhaus. In: Jeannine Fiedler (Ed.): Photography at the Bauhaus. Nishen, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-88940-045-0 , pp. 238-254 (catalog for the exhibition in the Bauhaus Archive Berlin, February 2 to April 22, 1990 and other locations).
  • Lena Grottendieck: Bauhaus stage . Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, Dessau 1998, ISBN 3-910022-26-X .
  • Torsten Blume, Burghard Duhm (ed.): Bauhaus. Stage. Dessau. Change of scene. Jovis, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-936314-81-6 (with DVD).
  • Ronald Berg: Theater at the Bauhaus Dessau: We are looking for the new person . In: The daily newspaper . 2014 ( taz.de ).
  • Andi Schoon: The order of the sounds. The interplay of the arts - from the Bauhaus to the Black Mountain College . Transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2015, ISBN 978-3-8394-0450-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Bauhaus Stage, Dessau bauhaus100.de.
  2. ↑ stage bauhaus100.de.
  3. ↑ Dirk Scheper: Oskar Schlemmer-the Triadic Ballet and the Bauhaus Stage. Series of publications by the Academy of Arts, Volume 20. Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-88331-955-4 , p. 64 f.
  4. ^ Sigrid Pawelke : Influences of the Bauhaus stage in the USA. An investigation into the connection between the Bauhaus stage and American stage performance and postmodern dance under aesthetic and educational aspects . Roderer, Regensburg 2005, ISBN 3-89783-459-6 , p. 35 ff .
  5. ^ Stage - Bauhaus-Archiv bauhaus.de.
  6. ↑ Torsten Blume, Burghard Duhm (ed.): Bauhaus. Stage. Dessau. Change of scene. Jovis, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-936314-81-6 , p. 22 ff.
  7. ↑ Andi Schoon: The Striving for Control - Music at the Bauhaus - 2.1 Utopias of a time of crisis. In: The order of sounds…. ISBN 978-3-8394-0450-8 , p. 62 (in PDF, p. 32 degruyter.com ).
  8. ↑ Documentary film approx. 25 minutes bundesarchiv.de
    German Film Prize 1969: (PDF; 908 kB, p. 29).
  9. ↑ Man and Art Figure - Oskar Schlemmer and the Bauhaus stage at filmportal.deTemplate: Filmportal.de Title / Maintenance / ID is missing in Wikidata
  10. ↑ Torsten Blume, Burghard Duhm (ed.): Bauhaus. Stage. Dessau. Change of scene. Jovis, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-936314-81-6 , p. 12 f.
  11. ↑ Torsten Blume, Burghard Duhm (ed.): Bauhaus. Stage. Dessau. Change of scene. Jovis, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-936314-81-6 , p. 66 ff.