2/19/2026 - Week 6 / Meeting 12: Expressionist Dance / Ceremonies, Movement, Dance and Word

 

 

 REVIEW

Watch the following video.

Analysis

Students discuss among themselves Mary Wigman's ideas about dance. Using the questions below as prompts, they write about them and post their reflections on Discussion Board.

Mary Wigman

Question 1

Write your response to Wigman's dance performance in this video.

I

 

 Unit: Expressionist Dance

Theme: Ceremonies, Movement, Dance and Word

 

II

Introduction

 

 Kurt Jooss and Mary Wigman were both students of Rudolph Laban. While Wigman left Laban and created her own movement theory, Jooss continued collaborating with Laban until he created his own company.  Kurt's most international piece, The Green Table, was inspired by the medieval artwork “Lubeck’s Dance of Death” and Germany’s collapsed economy. 

 

III

Learning Objectives

 

• Understand the application of the idea of "dance as a ceremony"
• Explain how "naturalistic movement, large-scale unison and characterization" bring to the dancer's new possibilities for expressive movement.
• Gain awareness of the importance that "movement, text and drama combined make a performance as powerful as a real life experience"
• Experience the body's limitations when dancing to develop your own sense of " fallibility of the human condition"
• Reflect on the work done in class

 

IV

Main Lesson 

 1

 

Read the article.

 

Modern Dance: Kurt Jooss 

 https://moderndancepioneer101.weebly.com/kurt-jooss.html

 

2

 

Harald Kreutzberg

Question 2

What qualities of Wigman's movement groups are shown in Harald Kreutzberg's dance?

 

3

 Choose from Wigman's technique, which is structured in five main groups:

1 - Striding and sliding

2 - Springs, vibrations and bouncing

3 - Momentum and oscillations

4 - Falling and dropping (floor technique)

5 - Tensions: relaxed, sustained and motor tensions

 

4

 

Movement, Sound, Word

Question 3

Why is the use movement, sound and word important aspects of expressionist dance?

5

 

Read the Article

 

Converging Movements: Modern Dance and Jewish Culture at the 92 Street Y 

Naomi M. Jackson

Read: Introduction

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Converging_Movements/ZE6tOEj7CXkC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=modern+Dance&printsec=frontcover

Jackson,  Naomi M. (2000). Converging Movements: Modern Dance and Jewish Culture at the 92 Street Y. Wesleyan University Press.

 

Question 4

Summarize the introduction to the book above.

 

 

V

A Note to Remember

 Kurt's most international piece, The Green Table, was inspired by the medieval artwork “Lubeck’s Dance of Death” and Germany’s collapsed economy.  It was a powerful anti-war statement portraying leaders over a conference table declaring war, soldiers, women, profiteers and patriots suffering from war’s horrors, and looming over everything and returning onstage constantly is the figure of death. 

 

VI

 Case Study

Interview with Kurt Jooss

Question 4

What does Jooss mean when he says that The Green Table is a ceremony of death?

VII

Activity

Ceremony: the ritual observances and procedures performed at grand and formal occasions.

The Green Table

After seeing the video clip of The Green Table, which you have seen before, use it as a reference to create your own plot line and turn it into a story/ceremony.

Group Work 

Add to your group's piece the concept of ceremony through an 8 movement phrase.

 

 VIII

Journaling

 

IX

Glossary

 

X

Sources

 

XI

Students' Work