Laban Resources
How Mary Wigman Got to Ascona
How Mary Wigman Got to Ascona
I had been studying at the Dalcroze School in Dresden, Hellerau and was a very good friend of a very famous expressionist painter in Germany, Emile Nolde. I showed him and his wife some of the things I did by myself independent of the Dalcroze method and the sort of business they were doing there: dances without music, so after Nolde had seen them, he was quite enthusiastic about it and then he said, ‘Oh, I have just met the man in Munich who you should meet because he moves exactly like you and works with his students without music, his name is Rudolf von Laban. Don’t forget the name and try to meet him because I think that would be worthwhile.’ So I remembered that name and a few months later, I had been in Italy in between and came back to Hellerau because Dalcroze wanted me for a job he had. Well, I met the first assistant teacher of Dalcroze. That was Suzie Perrottet, and Suzie Perrottet had been my teacher in piano improvisation during the study, the two years of study and I had been quite friendly with her, so I met her again when I came back to Dalcroze. And then I said, ‘What are you going to do?’ ‘I am going to leave Dalcroze.’ I was stunned because they were so close; she was his star. […] She was a lovely girl, beautiful, charming young woman at that time, wonnig, as we say in German. She still is nice.
Suzie told me, ‘I’m leaving Dalcroze.’ I’ve met a wonderful man and he […] has discovered that dance can be done without music. And people later on said, it was a wonderful invention and something perfectly new. And how did I find it, and how did I discover it? I always knew it. I told them even. I said, ‘I didn’t discover anything. I only never had enough money to pay the pianist accompanying me.’ I did it without. And it was self-understood and I [inaudible] and I don’t think it is anything so … it is very different from the close work with music. If there is no music, there is no music. The music is in yourself and is answering to the music the movement produces, the bodily music it produces in … It has its own pattern, its own tune, its own metre. [inaudible] you have only to listen and to [inaudible] and to use it. Well, that’s what happened with me and it was quite a success when I did it. And even my first programmes were full of dances like that. Well, anyhow, there was the name of Laban between Suzie and me. And I found out that she had been living with him already for quite a while. And I said, ‘Where are you going to be this summer?’ ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘we’re going be in Switzerland at Ascona which is a tiny little fisher’s village at the border of the lake Maggiore and he’s going to have a summer course there.’ I said, ‘Ok, I’m coming. I had not a cent of money at that time, it was terrible. I didn’t know what to do. And how to move, and how to get along. I said, ‘I must, I must, I must go. Here is the name of Laban coming towards you in this way, that means you have to see him and have to meet him.’ Well, a very dear old friend of mine came to see other dear old friends of mine and I mentioned the name of Mies van der Rohe. Does this mean anything to you?
I went as quickly as possible and arrived at Locarno at about midday. It was terribly hard. It was June or August, the hottest month there, and I had nothing but a tiny, little bag, thank God, and looked around and said, ‘Where’s Ascona?’ ‘Oh, it’s about an hour if you want to go by foot. It will take you an hour and a half, maybe. And so I came to Ascona. It was a Post Office which is still at the same place, it looks exactly the same as it looked like 60 years ago and asked, ‘Where is the Monté Verità?’ ‘Oh, he said, up there.’ I climbed on and arrived at this so-called Monté Verità which was a queer situation. No hotel, a kiosk, like a little temple, built out of wood and even an office, a lovely looking Italian girl in whom I asked, ‘Can you tell me where I may find Herr von Laban?’ ‘Oh sure, he’s … they are dancing.’ I said, ‘Where?’ ‘In the Damenbad, the ladies bath.’
There was a gardener working and I asked him where is the damenbad? ‘Oh, he said, you just passed it, you pass the men’s bath first.’ So, I pass the men’s path, the garden was a wild wilderness, everywhere you saw built into the earth, baths, flat stone baths. Anyhow, I got more or less into the interior of this mysterious bath and I heard drums, boom, boom, bobadoobaboom. Ta, ta, ta, ta. I said, ‘Well, I can imagine that Laban works with a drum. And I followed the noise and then I arrived at a small little wall, a broken door and came to a lawn, very beautiful, a mean not a beautiful lawn, not an English lawn, but a beautiful place surrounded by high trees but sunny and in one corner I saw a little group.
A painter from Munich he was. So, I watched and Laban… and there was a man, a young man, Laban was young at that time, very beautiful, beautiful, he had a wonderful face and he had a good body, so of course all the women fell in love with him, it was terrible, terrible … and he turned around and saw me standing there and said, ‘Who are you and what do you want?’ I said, ‘I want to meet Mr Rudolf von Laban.’ He said, ‘Well, that’s me. Then what do you want?’ ‘I want to take part in your summer course.’ ‘Aha, he said, well then start! There is a bush. Behind the bush you can undress quickly and come.’ It was always that way. So, I did undress and thank god I had a sort of dance training dress with me in my little Koffer [bag]. And went over and joined the exercises and what they were trying to do and had the feeling I’ve come home, I have never been away from here. That was my first meeting with Laban. It was really fine. Really wonderful.
Laban had installed himself at the Monté Verità and of course we got the food the people got there, that was vegetarian. Not a drop of alcohol, not a drop of real coffee or real tea, very strict. And so they had a hotel, yes, rooms in a stone house which were not even so very bad, and no restaurant, nothing, just a very lovely room in this pavilion I told you of, where there was a tremendous big, wooden table. And that was the dining room for the vegetarian guests and the queer thing was when you ate, you ate at 12 or after 12, there were eating nuts, but about 30 people eating nuts, cracking nuts. You can’t imagine, it was like a Gewehrfeuer [musket shots]. And I stayed with Laban. I did not go, as I should have done, to Dalcroze. I wouldn’t say even that Laban was a good teacher, but he was a marvellous inventor and a marvellous improvisator, everything he did in improvising was just miraculous, beautiful, in every field. And besides all the deep seriousness we had such a lot of fun that it was worth alone the fun, to be with him and see what he was doing.
Laban’s Lessons with a Lady with Kidney Problems
There were some sick people, guests of the hotel in Monté Verità. They took sun baths and there was one lady, driven around in a wheel chair, very sick-looking, very sad-looking and she had a nurse with her who drove her around through the parks and one day Laban called me and said, ‘Wigman, I want you tomorrow morning to help me with this solo lesson.’ I said, ‘Okay, at what time?’ ‘After the dance lesson, after our dance lesson is finished, we’ll have the lesson in that little house on the hill over there,’ where there was sort of a studio, a small one, but you could work there a little bit. And I said, ‘Who is the patient?’ ‘Oh, he said. Die Wanderndenierer, the wandering kidney.’ That was the lady in the arm chair, in the wheel chair, whom we had called like that because we got to know that she was suffering from the kidneys, so we had called her Die Wanderndenierer. So, I said, ‘Laban, you are a murderer.’ He grinned. I said, ‘How can you dare to do that? This death, this suffering woman. No, it’s not right, I’m not coming to help you. Kill alone.’ He said, ‘Tomorrow at twelve, or half-past twelve.’
Of course, I was there. And the nurse the Die Wanderndenierer in, Laban and the nurse helped her out of the chair and Laban who could be a charming gentleman if he wanted, he could be as rough as a workman at the railroad. But he could be as elegant and so he changed it to his loveliest being and [inaudible] into the chair he had prepared for her, he put her on the chair with a gentleness of a mother, and then when she was sat there, ‘Let’s set to work.’ I was standing behind the chair and I was trembling all over my body because I was so afraid something might happen because I knew all the exercises by heart, I had gone and studied them all through. And there were very hard exercises among them which you never, never do with a sick person, not even if she had a little bit of swing, of dizziness in her, not even then, because they were next to acrobatics.
Well, he started and let her move her head, down and up, and down and up and so on. And she moved her head, first it didn’t work, after a while it started and her face changed and then he let her move her head to the side – didn’t work – to the other side – didn’t work. He moved it again up and down, that gave her her courage back, he was very clever, very clever. Anyhow, he got her to move the head without difficulties after about quarter of an hour, then he let her bend it and he let her lift her shoulders, she was sitting comfortably on the chair, some cushions in her back, so nothing would hurt, and she was enjoying it. I have never, never in all my life again, seen the change in the face like that. These moments. The saddest, the most unhappy face, changed into the most happy, the most serene face you could imagine. That happy she was, feeling that she was able to move. From the body, there was not a word said. The damn kidneys were not thought of. Nothing. She was the happiest person in the world. She sat there and looked at Laban like he had been the Lord himself. He was that for her from that moment on. And he has helped her so beautifully are carefully that she could walk, not much, but that she dared to walk with those sick kidneys, could join the parties, could join with the other people’s meetings, and was, I have never seen anybody as happy as that in all my life, really. So, of course, he got a tremendous renown, he got a name, Laban the healer.
Then afterwards she said, ‘I want to pay. What do I have to pay?’ And Laban said, ‘Five francs.’ Well, five francs at that time was a fortune, you must not forget. Silver francs. Today you wouldn’t even give it as a trinkgelt, as a tip, today, but at that time it was, it was as if you pay somebody 50 marks for a lesson. Laban took it and said thank you, merci, thank you, then the ceremony of helping her into the wheelchair started, and she was wheeled out of the room, and Laban looked at the five francs and said, ‘what shall we do with them?’ He threw it into the air, let it fall on the floor. There is [the head of] a hero on the one side and a Swiss cross at the other side. So, he said, ‘What shall we do?’ He said before, ‘Cross would mean that we spend it tonight drinking, go out for a walk in the darkness with the stars out and the fireflies all over the meadows or [if it was Heads] save it and get a decent meal for my family tomorrow.’ Then if the cross came out the joy was great.
From now on we had a five-franc piece every day because Wanderndenierer wanted her solo lesson every day, and we were rich suddenly. No, it was really lovely when I think of these… they were are not only funny when I think of them today, but they were funny at the very moment when they happened. They made you so happy and made you feel so good, so light, so not responsible for anything in the world. We all lived on Laban’s five francs. You got a lot. Big, big, maybe not five litres, but two, three litres of country wine. And the country wine was very good. Anyhow, we did not only drink, but we danced. And we danced, on the table, under the table, over the table, around the table, wherever there was a spot you could put your feet, we danced until late and only when midnight was over did we return home. And I remembered how beautiful these walks were, and you passed or crossed a meadow, you call them Glühwurmchen [glow worms] are these the fireflies, which glow when float, flit, fly in the night? All of them dancing, coloured, the whole meadow vibrating with them in glow, with their glowing bodies, you can think what dancers would feel if they felt like firebirds, fireflies, marvellous. Wonderful, really. Oh, it was a beautiful time.
[From a transcript of an interview with Mary Wigman, pp. 1 - 2]
https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/427466
Emil Nolde (born Emil Hansen; 7 August 1867–13 April 1956) was a German-Danish painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists and a member of the Die Brücke group of painters. His painting was characterized by a very dramatic use of colour.
The Deeper Meaning of Rudolf von Laban (J. A. Meisenbach)
The name Laban is still a controversial problem. Evidently, it will and should remain so, more or less, until the day when he will have been defined and re-defined and labelled, and finally will have been embedded into history. Still, it does seem to be high time that the general public get to see and learn more deeply about the work and the intentions of this contemporary.
What does Rudolf von Laban want – what are the aims of the many schools that build on his life’s work and that have sprung up and continue to proliferate in almost every major city in Germany, as well as in Austria, Switzerland and Italy? First and foremost, Laban is a researcher – and one may be a researcher whether or not one has the authority of a doctorate or of a professorship! From a general point of view in the case of Laban, the matter is further complicated in that there has yet to be a new fancy term for his field of research, such as archaeologist, sinologist or gynaecologist, or maybe even just graphologist, psychoanalyst or art historian; basically all these word creations which are so immensely reassuring the further distanced they appear from actual general public knowledge; whereas it is admittedly painful when one is confronted, from time to time, with a name that is – as it were – naked, and where one is not quite sure how to address the person. Is he a dancer? A gymnastics teacher? A theatre reformer? A tour promoter? All of those are only partially accurate.
It is conceivable that Laban might never have become a dancer, if there had been any other way for him to communicate his thinking, his ideas fully, especially to his pupils, other than by personal physical demonstration. It is the nature of the field that this demonstration cannot take place at an experimental bench in a laboratory. Now who would be presumptuous enough to imagine him as a sort of male prima ballerina? And yet, some people do! The fact that Laban was also a dancer until recently, that he occasionally moved across the planks that signify the world for dance; it might never have happened if there had been someone else, if there had been anyone who was capable of dancing, for example, the role of the jester in Narrenspiegel better than Laban himself, if one of his students had already been at a level of skill surpassing his own.
The same can be said for Laban the gymnastics teacher. Should he find teaching easier than a talented composer would find giving piano lessons? It can only have come about as a matter of expediency, when the urgently forward-yearning spirit is continually held back by having to teach – if not beginners but nevertheless at a mere intermediate level. First and foremost, Laban is a researcher, an explorer of the fundamental laws of movement of the human body, discovering those few most typical movements of the human body which stand apart from the countless possibilities of physical movements in the same way that the seven musical tones are unique within the infinite range of sounds, or the three primary colours emerge from a chaos of possible colours; movements which when combined in harmony, in contrast, in sequences that create movement images, movement sequences, and finally dance. A dance which through the creation of swinging, vibrating movement provokes a resonating experience in the audience, through the movement (or “swings” as Laban calls them) through the awakening of certain emotions that are encoded into the movement. In this way – using the laws of tension governing the human body in space – Laban has defined a set of movements or swings/turns that are not meant to be learnt simply as poses, but that are always tangibly re-discoverable body-inherent tensions, just as the notes on a scale appear to sound “natural” to our ear, without us needing to know the exact vibrational frequency; swings/turns or movements that can be changed like musical notes by placing them in either a major or minor key and in relation to different chords; swing/turns that can be woven into orchestral structures by means of a hundred human bodies, like the sounds of a hundred different instruments, and these movements or swings can be described using a written notation system which is what makes orchestral compositions possible in the same way musical sounds can be described using musical notes.
And this last point is another one of Laban’s discoveries! It is not dance itself that is Laban’s own invention. There was dance before Laban, just as there was music before Bach. But what new paths, what new horizons Bach opened up for European music, with his “well-tempered clavier” and the broadening and deepening that he brought to the teaching of counterpoint!
People today are remarkably presumptuous when it comes to the great minds of our age. Just as the theory of counterpoint is not enough to turn a deaf person into a musical genius, so are Laban’s movement theories not enough to make a dancer of an elephant. The fact that Laban’s theories have produced only one Wigman so far must not be used as proof of the unworthiness of his theories. As we can acknowledge the existence of artists (there have been a few, over the centuries) beyond Beethoven – although the comparison strikes us as rushed and misguided – so there are certainly dancers besides Wigman who are Laban-trained and can hold their own, dancers of a different kind and individuality, certainly. Just as there are individual ways of playing an instrument, after all, the human body is an instrument, too. And why should genius be more prevalent among dancers than in other areas? May you all cherish your talents – but without letting the genius minds among us wither and starve under our addiction to criticism! And furthermore let us not forget, that we urgently need another form of lay art that is accessible to anyone – notwithstanding any notions around “art” – that exist purely for the joy and pleasure it offers, in the same vein that the folk song, folk dance and later, choir singing once formed part of a folk art, an art for all, an art form by and for the people.
This is another ambition of Laban’s; he envisions the creation of many “movement choirs” which – just like ordinary choir societies – are lay organisations that are meant to promote joy and vitality and beyond that can be used to create symphonies of movement and orchestral dance works for the general public, again similar to the work of choirs.
We can rejoice that now finally dance as the art of the moving, swinging body has reached the gateway beyond the solo dance and small group dance towards large choirs; a gateway that is comparable to the one that enabled the development of music from song-like melodic compositions to visually stunning operas and amazing symphonies.
We can rejoice that the genius and vibrancy of great dancers which has always delighted audiences throughout the centuries in future will not sink into the grave with the bodies of its creators but instead through Laban’s work will be able to be preserved and live on in the bodies of thousands, just like Beethoven’s rich sound creations are saved for posterity forever.
But what if Laban is only the beginning? What if what he has begun will only be completed by the students that surpass him in the future? Small-minded questions that only time will be able to answer! But isn’t the seedling in itself already worthy of grateful praise? And who could measure the guilt that the present would invite by preventing Laban from completing his life’s work, by forcing him to continue to shoulder the burden of being manager, school administrator and tour operator at one and the same time?
Will Essen now provide at least a certain amount of security – even if perhaps not the ideal situation yet – so that in future Laban is protected from failing as an organiser and businessman, when his talents lie in a completely different field, and nobody will ever ask of him otherwise again?
It would be bitter, if Laban were to be lured abroad, by better conditions that would enable his full creative development, while we only realise what we had and what we criticised when we have lost it!