For A Mary Wigman Dance Evening—a program of nine solo dances—Fabian Barba takes as his starting point choreographer Mary Wigman’s celebrated first tour through the United States (1930–31), during which she performed nine dances. Of these, only three were preserved on film, and so, to “reconstruct” the remaining six, Barba has resorted to photographs, hearsay, written records, the historical imaginary, and subjective interpretation. Ultimately, the work proves less focused on recuperating any kind of authentic original, and more engaged in testing the possibility of transporting some of the atmospheric, gestural, and affective qualities of Wigman’s dances—all while acknowledging both the supplement and the loss incurred by translation, and taking pleasure in the fundamental differences between bodies.
Fabián Barba:
For A Mary Wigman Dance Evening, I took as a starting point the performances Wigman offered during her first tour through the United States in 1930-31. Thus, I’ve come to gather a recital composed of nine short soli. Three of those were learned from videos of Wigman dancing herself. For the other dances I had access to three different kinds of sources: photos, texts written by Wigman and newspaper reviews of the period. From these sources it’s not possible to recuperate something such as an 'original', but it's possible to deduce the themes, moods, movement qualities and gestural vocabularies based on which I created new dances myself.
For these new creations, I placed myself on the fictional set-up that I was a student in the Wigman School in the thirties and that I was creating these soli to present them in that school, with that audience. To help me out, I made use of yet two other sources: the work with three ex-students of the Wigman school in the sixties, with their memories and body knowledge, and my former training in modern dance in Quito from which I've derived many technical tools that have helped me to create and perform these dances.
Concept, dance: Fabián BARBA
Mentors: Katharine SEHNERT, Irene SIEBENS, Susanne LINKE
Costumes Sarah-Christine REULEKE
Lights: Geni DIEZ
Composition music for Anruf Pastorale, Seraphisches Lied, Sturmlied and Sommerlicher Tanz: Hanns HASTING
Composition music for Raumgestalt, Zeremonielle Gestalt and Drehmonotonie: Sascha DEMAND
Production: K3 – Zentrum für Choreographie, Tanzplan Hamburg (DE)
Co-production: Fabrik Potsdam (DE) in the frame of Tanzplan Potsdam Artists-in-Residence, Kaaitheater (Brussel, BE), P.A.R.T.S. (Brussel, BE), wp Zimmer (Antwerpen, BE)
Fabián Barba:
For A Mary Wigman Dance Evening, I took as a starting point the performances Wigman offered during her first tour through the United States in 1930-31. Thus, I’ve come to gather a recital composed of nine short soli. Three of those were learned from videos of Wigman dancing herself. For the other dances I had access to three different kinds of sources: photos, texts written by Wigman and newspaper reviews of the period. From these sources it’s not possible to recuperate something such as an 'original', but it's possible to deduce the themes, moods, movement qualities and gestural vocabularies based on which I created new dances myself.
For these new creations, I placed myself on the fictional set-up that I was a student in the Wigman School in the thirties and that I was creating these soli to present them in that school, with that audience. To help me out, I made use of yet two other sources: the work with three ex-students of the Wigman school in the sixties, with their memories and body knowledge, and my former training in modern dance in Quito from which I've derived many technical tools that have helped me to create and perform these dances.
Concept, dance: Fabián BARBA
Mentors: Katharine SEHNERT, Irene SIEBENS, Susanne LINKE
Costumes Sarah-Christine REULEKE
Lights: Geni DIEZ
Composition music for Anruf Pastorale, Seraphisches Lied, Sturmlied and Sommerlicher Tanz: Hanns HASTING
Composition music for Raumgestalt, Zeremonielle Gestalt and Drehmonotonie: Sascha DEMAND
Production: K3 – Zentrum für Choreographie, Tanzplan Hamburg (DE)
Co-production: Fabrik Potsdam (DE) in the frame of Tanzplan Potsdam Artists-in-Residence, Kaaitheater (Brussel, BE), P.A.R.T.S. (Brussel, BE), wp Zimmer (Antwerpen, BE)
Mary Wigman Gesellschaft (Hamburg, Bremen, DE), PACT Zollverein Essen (DE)
