Grant Proposal

Researching the Development of Modern Dance in Former East Germany After the Fall of the Berlin Wall

For centuries, dance has been an integral part of German culture, defining its people and voicing their perspectives on political and social issues. After 1945, the Western world’s window into the dance philosophies and practices of East German artists shut suddenly as an iron curtain was drawn across post World War II Europe. Prior to the social unrest and governmental upheaval created by the National Socialist Regime and World War II, German Expressionist dancers, such as Mary Wigman, Kurt Jooss, and Rudolph Laban, greatly influenced American choreographers and laid the groundwork for the upcoming wave of postmodernist dance in America and elsewhere. After the creation of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (East Germany) as a communist state in October of 1949, a dark period began in which East German choreographers had no contact with the Western world. Freed by the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of communism, and the eventual reunification of Germany in 1990, East German choreographers once more shared their work and philosophies with the world.

In the field of dance history, there is an understandable yet unfortunate lack of information concerning the development of East German choreographers from 1949 to 1989. Through the study of East German choreographers who created work after reunification in 1990, not only can we gain invaluable insight into how cultures and societies deal with the aftermaths of devastation, poverty, and the effects of war, but we may also gain the ability to deconstruct the forty-year period of dance in what was formerly communist East Germany. It is imperative that this void in dance history be filled to illuminate the conversation between dance and sociopolitical and cultural tensions. To understand this development, historians must rely on firsthand testimony from East German choreographers that lived and worked in that period. Once that generation has gone, historians will have little hope of ever fully completing a history of East German dance and its lasting influences on modern dance in Germany and around the world.

It is my plan to travel to former East Germany from May 24th to June 14th of the summer of 2007, specifically to three cities: Dresden, Leipzig, and East Berlin for one week each. While in residence, I plan to interact with three major choreographic innovators; due to the lack of historical references, I will use the networking and communication with the European dance field to determine the specific individuals to interview. The qualifications for these three choreographers may include the survival of the turmoil of living and creating work in former East Germany or the experience of artistic freedom that accompanied the fall of the Berlin Wall. I plan to interview these choreographers and merge their firsthand testimonies with my supplementary research (interacting with dancers and researching archival materials such as videos, photographs, and personal memorabilia). I hope to create a comprehensive history of the development of dance in former East Germany. Specifically, I will illustrate the American influences on German modern dance, since this history would be intended for, but not limited to, an American audience. I plan for my work to culminate in a scholarly essay, which I will send out for possible publication in leading dance journals. Because I already have secured lodging with family and friends, this grant will allow me to focus my funding on other aspects of my research, such as train tickets, research materials, tickets to performances, class fees, photocopying fees for materials housed in libraries, and other costs that naturally arise with research travel.

Additionally, I will utilize my academic focus in Dance Technology to create a short and polished video journal summarizing my research findings, including footage of the actual interviews. Ultimately, the thirty minute short film will investigate the development of modern dance in a country that overcame many obstacles, which were translated through dance into expressive, inventive choreography. I will also show how these specific German artists utilized movement as an emotional, political, and social outlet during their time of strife.

Jennifer S.B. Calienes, director of the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (MANCC), has agreed to be my supervising professor. MANCC is one of the first choreographic centers supporting the production and distribution of dance in America and is housed at Florida State University’s Department of Dance. Mrs. Calienes will be a valuable asset to this project because of her ever-expanding networking experience in the United States and Europe. Calienes has already facilitated many international partnerships with choreographers from France, the Netherlands, Australia, and Japan. Her advice will be invaluable in mentoring me on how to develop networking techniques, to review dance aesthetics and approaches, to compose interviewing techniques that best engage German artists, to create materials for dissemination that appeal to artists, dancers, and scholars, and finally, to research dance companies as a basis for my travels. My interest in this topic is rooted in my own personal and cultural background of being a German citizen, being a fluent speaker in German, and being a modern dancer. Through my research, I hope to instigate the completion of filling the void concerning the evolution of contemporary dance in Germany after the social circumstances brought on by the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the correlation this choreographic transformation had with dance in American society.