Lipsi (dance)

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Lipsi
Type: Fashion dance
Music: pop music
Time signature : 6 ⁄ 4 cycle
Origin: GDR
Creation time: 1959
List of dances

The Lipsi (after lipsiens , Latin for Leipzig ) is a fashion dance that was introduced in the GDR in 1959 . It was created to expand ballroom dancing with folk elements. With the spread of American dances such as Rock'n'Roll or the Twist , the GDR leadership propagated the Lipsi as an alternative. This was not well received by the population.

It is in 6 / 4 - stroke . The Lipsi could not assert itself in spite of its quite simple basic step, because as a conventional couple dance it hardly met the requirements of the young dance audience. It therefore disappeared again within a few years.

history

Since 1952, the dance publication "Der Tanz in der Laienkunst" has called for new socialist dances to be created for East Germany. There was a requirement to design this as a ballroom dance. Ballroom dancing was actually considered bourgeois in the GDR, but at that time it was extremely popular with adults and young people and thus appeared as a suitable instrument for propaganda.

The publication described the ballroom dances as degenerate folk dances that had to be returned to their original forms. In particular, this should be achieved by integrating elements of classical folk dances into the couple dance. This was followed by an increasingly dogmatic government campaign that led, among other things, to the invention of the lipsis.

Its inventors were the dance teacher couple Christa and Helmut Seifert. The best-known interpreter of the music was the singer Helga Brauer . All four artists came from Leipzig. It was named after the city of Leipzig. He stood in a number of newly invented GDR dances such as the Berolina .

It was presented in 1959 at the dance music conference in Lauchhammer . The reason for the invention were the western music fashions perceived as a threat by the GDR, such as the twist , which were viewed as an undesirable capitalist influence on one's own youth. A socialist dance music creation should counteract these musical fashions. In anticipation of the hoped-for success, the GDR applied for a patent for the Lipsi worldwide .

The basic step is danced as follows (men’s steps, women are reversed accordingly):

  1. Step left with your left foot
  2. Tap left with your right foot
  3. Step right foot to the right
  4. Tap right with your left foot
  5. Step left with your left foot
  6. Step with your right foot to the left (close feet)

The Lipsi began in a classical dance posture of the couple dance and combined the Chassé steps with half-turns in waltz steps. Here the Lipsi resorted to the classical repertoire of ballroom dancing. These steps were supplemented by turning steps on both feet and steps in the promenade position. These came from the dances Spinnradl and the Länders . Real quotes from folk dance were expressed in figures as the woman stood in front of the man, turned her back and looked over his shoulder. This was a direct takeover from the Spinnradl. The whole dance emphasized the separation of the sexes. The man was assigned control of turns and inclinations, the woman the more powerful stylized movements. Despite the propagated equality of the sexes, the politically sponsored Lipsi also adhered to their strict differences.

The flamingos: Everyone is dancing Lipsi and Martin Möhle Combo: Willibald's Lipsi first recorded the artificial product Lipsi on an Amiga single in 1959. This was followed by a single with Helga Brauer: Today all young people dance and the Leipzig Radio Dance Orchestra , directed by Kurt Henkels : Lipsi Nr 1 . The Messe-Lipsi , again with the Rundfunk-Tanzorchester Leipzig and Kurt Henkels, was the last Amiga title where the name Kurt Henkels was mentioned on the label. Henkels could no longer bear the tutelage and obligation of the SED and fled to the Federal Republic of Germany.

After its invention, the GDR government sponsored the Lipsi, who managed without "foreign material" and relied on a purely traditional movement image as an alternative to rock n 'roll and later to the twist. The couple dance with its uninspiring rhythms and texts did not meet the expectations of young people. In Halle as well as in other cities in the GDR, the young people turned against the state-decreed dance in choirs. Forty young people demonstrated through Leipzig city center on November 2, 1959. Among other things, they chanted: "We are not dancing Lipsi and not according to Alo Koll , we are for Bill Haley and we are dancing rock 'n' roll ." The GDR government had the demonstration dissolved. Fifteen of the participants were sentenced to between six months and four and a half years in prison.

For Hans Bentzien , at the time Secretary for Culture and Education of the SED district leadership in Halle and member of the culture commission at the Politburo of the SED Central Committee, the action with the Lipsi was a reason to smile after 47 years: “The Lipsi was purely a propaganda thing quickly collapsed and is only dug out today because you can laugh about it so wonderfully. "

literature

  • Hans Georg Hofmann: 'Dance music has to break new ground.' Comments on the cultural-theoretical discussion of dance and light music in the GDR in the 1950s and 60s and on their influence on music practice. In: Mathias Spohr (ed.): History and media of upscale popular music. Chronos, Zurich 1999, ISBN 3-905313-39-1 , pp. 147-163.
  • W. Janssen: Today, all young people dance in the lip-step, only in the lip-step. (SED and youth in the fifties.). In: Halle contributions to contemporary history. Issue 6, Martin Luther University, Halle 1999. ISSN  1433-7886

Music samples

  • Helga Brauer: Hear my heart. Helga Brauer - your greatest successes.
    (Among others with: Today all young people dance in the Lipsi step)
    Aelstertal (BuschFunk), 1999
  • Various artists: L'amigamore
    (dance music from the GDR 1963-1970, played by: Sputniks, Theo-Schumann-Combo, Rundfunk-Tanzorchester Leipzig, Alexanders)
    L'Age D'Or (17034), 1995.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Jens Richard Giersdorf: People's own bodies. East German dance since 1945. transcript, 2014, ISBN 978-3-8376-2892-0 , p. 58-62 .
  2. ↑ taz, people, dance the Lipsi! at taz.de, accessed on May 29, 2015.
  3. ↑ Amiga 450 056 at discogs.com, accessed May 29, 2015.
  4. ↑ Amiga 450 067 at discogs.com, accessed on May 29, 2015.
  5. ↑ cit. According to Wiebke Jansen: Youngsters in the GDR: persecution and criminalization of a youth culture. Berlin 2010, p. 108.
  6. ↑ Johanna Metz: The Sound of the Cold War. In: The Parliament. No. 12 / March 20, 2006 webarchiv.bundestag.de