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The Mechanical Bauhausstage
' Theater der Klänge
Theater der Klänge
"THE MECHANICAL BAUHAUSSTAGE" Kurt Schmidt:
"Das mechanische Ballett" – "The Mechanical Ballet" (1923)
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy:
"Die mechanische Exzentrik" – "Mechanical Eccentricity" (1924)
JÖRG U. LENSING
THE MECHANICAL BAUHAUSSTAGE What makes a newly founded theater ensemble engage in a project of theater aesthetics of the twenties which has been of little impact in the world of the theater up to now?
Compared to the continued tradition in the sphere of the dance theater which refers deliberately to the expressionist dance of the twenties, or to the immense significance of Bertolt Brecht for drama, the developments of the "Bauhausbühne" – the Bauhaus Stage – have not at all been continued after World War II. With the dismemberment of the Bauhaus through the Nazis in 1933, this promising institution has been dead until today. A renaissance of the Bauhaus in the fifties introduced an adaptation of Bauhaus developments into the field of design and architecture more or less impaired by economic pressure and misinterpretation. Thus public housing developments of the fifties and sixties (satellite towns) are now justly considered inhumane and aesthetic failures, even though architects then referred to the Bauhaus. A parallel can be found in design, which joined a superficial "Bauhaus style" with an aesthetics of the kidney-shaped table and sold it as "beauty of the Wirtschaftswunder – the economic miracle". As to the theater, there had been timid adaptations of Oskar Schlemmer's works for the stage.
Only the end of the seventies, beginning of the eighties witnessed a second renaissance of the Bauhaus and a more intensive exploration of the originals. This led to a reconstruction of originals in the field of design as well as in the field of interior decorating of which a large group of consumers could profit due to industrialized manufacture without impairing the quality.
The great surprise, however, was the intensive interest taken in the work of the Bauhaus Stage. There was a reconstruction not only of the Bauhaus Dances – very impressive artistically – and of the Triadic Ballet by Oskar Schlemmer through the choreographer Gerhard Bohner but also a reconstruction of the piece "Man" by Lothar Schreyer, "Pictures of an Exhibition" by Wassily Kandinsky, and "Blaugrau bleibt Blaugrau" by Andor Weininger. In conjunction with the production of these pieces the Berlin Festival had entire Festival series of isochronous tendencies like futurism and symbolism together with corresponding theater reconstructions.
An interesting aspect of this preoccupation with the theater is that in no case was this work done by theater producers but by choreographers, artists, and composers. Apparently both theater people as well as audiences felt the urge for stagework that crossed the lines.
In all the reconstructive work done, one radical approach of the Bauhaus Stage has not yet been taken up. The utopia of the total theater by means of a "mechanization" of the action on stage. The reason perhaps being that artists today have a basically different attitude towards technology and mechanics than they had in the twenties. The belief in progress prevalent then and right into the sixties has given way to deep scepticism and unease with everything perfected, automated. With very good reason, as the most recent catastrophes have shown at which lethal chasm humankind finds itself due to this faith in technology.
And yet: Can this be an answer to an aesthetic utopia? Or should we not re-examine this approach for its value as to truth, to an intrinsic validity and beauty? And what is the significance of the human being in such a context?
These are questions challenging us to engage artistically. Work with the mechanized total theater, set into motion by individuals and finally counterpointed by individuals is a field of intense artistic and personal cooperation between dancers, actors, musicians, and artists.
It is the moments of discipline in our work, of intercommunication, of sensitivity in creating a character, of dedication to the dramatic composition and the interweaving of heterogenous materials that we feel to be most intense and rewarding for us.
Of major interest for all of us who usually feel bored in the existing theaters is the question: What is the real substance of theater? The mechanical Bauhaus Stage is one first answer in form of a rich and yet reduced theater.
In spite of all the mechanics, it is the human individuals who give the substance of theater to the mechanics. The focus of the next answer, in the form of a poor theater, will be the human being with his/her abundance of creative powers!THE MECHANICAL BALLET, ITS CREATION AND DEVELOPMENT
KURT SCHMIDT Gera, Sept. 14, 1961
I would like to say the following on the essay on "Oskar Schlemmer und die abstrakte Bühne" by Hermann Dannecker.
The "Mechanical Ballet" is now called "Stage Organization with Simple Forms". This new term is more exact, since mechanical is usually taken to mean something purely mechanical, which was not true for the Mechanical Ballet, as the forms were being moved by people. For my purpose here, however, I shall continue to use the original title "Mechanical Ballet".
Stage work was started at the Bauhaus by Lothar Schreyer in 1922. As I did neither witness Schreyer's preparatory work nor attend the performance, I cannot judge this stage work. But upon my return to Weimar I heard that the performance had been rejected. I was told it had been too expressionistic and too mystical.
In 1919 1 saw two performances of the "Kampfbühne" ("Battle Stage") by Lothar Schreyer at the Hamburg Kunstgewerbeschule (school of arts and crafts). All I remember is Hölderlin's "Empedokles". The other performance was a piece by August Stratum. In Schreyer's production of Empedokles the endeavour to realize the musicality of the word and to interrelate word and expressive movement could clearly be felt. In my view, Schreyer had made the mistake of being too expressive and thus hysterical in an exaggeration beyond the natural. I can only remember hearing screams and unintelligible words. During the whole performance I did not understand a single word and yet I had the impression of extremely intense emotional outbursts. Quite different was a performance of Bert Brechts' version of Hölderlin's Antigone which I saw in Gera in a production of director Tikkart's. Even though many passages of the chorus were not to be heard and the words were indistinct, Brecht's Antigone had been staged so that intimate relations were being established between the audience and the stage, and the stage-direction and setting were also impressive. This Greece was not that country of Perikles which Goethe was seeking with his mind, it was rather that of Mykene, gloomy and ominous, in which the kindness and humanness of Antigone was stifled. In Schreyer's production the audience witnessed something incomprehensible. I also want to refer to a TV production by Eduard von Winter: Every single word was intelligible and its expressiveness was fascinating, the ideas had been developed clearly. This, by the way, was the only occasion I had to see Richard Dehmel, he died a short while later.
The next stage event was Oskar Schlemmer's "Figurales Kabinett" in 1922. It was first performed at a fantastic, most artistic Bauhaus festivity. The harmony of the costumes of the spectators and of the events on stage produced an atmosphere of festive serenity and joy. In the "Figural Cabinet", there was Schlemmer himself in a triadic costume, light-footed and perfect in his movements. In the background figures were being moved, they met, they separated and moved together. They were not connected to human movement, however, this only happened in the Mechanical Ballet, for which I then received my first inspiration.
I was engaged at the Bauhaus for mural painting and was working in Berlin in the Haus Otte at Zehlendorf. Two events here made a lasting impression: At an exhibition of the so-called "Juryfreien" – the "juryless" in the station of Lehrte (Lehrter Bahnhof), I met with the Russian constructivists for the first time. I found the same endeavour as at the Bauhaus to find clear and pure forms to represent our age of technology. At the Bauhaus, Oskar Schlemmer had achieved a harmony of forms in his non-figurative sculptures and he appeared to be closest to the constructivists. Having rightly judged this development, Gropius later called Moholy to the Bauhaus. When preparations for the Bauhaus Exhibition started, suddenly there was the idea of the Mechanical Ballet and drafting went quickly. At the same time, I started to work on the sketches that have been printed in the Bauhaus book "Die Bühne im Bauhaus" – "The Bauhaus Stage" and in one hard work day and night – I hardly slept because I was so enthusiastic about this work – they were completed. I had many more drafts for the abstract stage on show at the Bauhaus Exhibition than were included in the book. As it was the time of the inflation, we were often driven by hunger and of money there was none. But it was a time of fantastic enthusiasm and blissful cooperation with students or rather friends, who in an unselfish way contributed to the completion of the Mechanical Ballet, this is why I want to mention Bogler and Teltscher. Bogler was responsible for the technical requirements and Teltscher was an excellent dancer and the costumes he designed (human dancer black, white, grey) were part of the success.
In my work for the Bauhaus Exhibition I was completely on my own, there was no correcting guidance through a teacher. It was the idea of doing one's utmost for the cause of the Bauhaus and its Exhibition which inspired all of us at Weimar at that time. It was the best time of my life. Anyway, the exhibition of the "juryless" was the second stimulus for my stage work at that time.
The Mechanical Ballet had been completed before I saw Schlemmer's Triadic Ballet at the Bauhaus Exhibition. We took the train from Jena to Weimar right after rehearsal. We rushed to the theater so as not to miss the beginning. Standing way back on the gallery I saw the performance. Oskar Schlemmer's Triadic Ballet with his yellow, pink, and black line was art at its best and a memorable event. There are no words to tender this overwhelming impression.
Oskar Schlemmer gave me another suggestion for the Mechanical Ballet. One day he said, "In the Belvedere teahouse (near Weimar) Oser has painted several Chinese men and has set them off against the wall by shading, he has created a plastic, illusionist painting. Why don't we try?"
So I made a draft which having been accepted by Schlemmer was then composed in plastic painting. I am grateful for his suggestion, for the illusionary plastic effect of the painted shadows endowed the forms with a life of their own. They lifted themselves off the wall, as it were, and became independent. In Johannes Itten's introductory course I, like many other members of the Bauhaus, had developed an abstract painting, restricting myself to shapes. Well, I did not paint Chinamen like Oser, I much rather created pure forms derived from the circle and the square that were set off against each other by shading and that had become independent. In the Mechanical Ballet the individual shapes were linked to the possible human movements. Like machines the figurines had to move in a regular rhythm and had to enter into abstract configurations with each other. In a way one might speak of mechanical processes.
The Mechanical Ballet that had been created in the conviction that technical forms of the organs created by humans are endowed with a beauty as are the forms of nature, as was mentioned by national socialism in the Leipzig Newspaper Neueste Nachrichten on the occasion of the exhibition "Entartete Kunst" – "Degenerate Art" in Leipzig. I did not go to see this slanderous exhibition. My prevailing fear of Nazism was only increased.
Another illustration from the book "Bühne im Bauhaus" (scene from Hippopotamo) was reproduced on a printed wall newspaper as an example of degenerate art together with other works of art.
In that scene I had meant to imply that technology is good when it helps humankind, if it serves to annihilate as it does in wars, it turns into a stampeding hippopotamus.
The Zurich exhibition "Oskar Schlemmer und die abstrakte Bühne" – "Oskar Schlemmer and the Abstract Stage" had presented the Mechanical Ballet under the above mentioned title "Stage Organization with Simple Forms".
The Mechanical Ballet was performed in Jena and Weimar in 1923 and in Berlin at a fancy dress ball of the "Juryless" Art Exhibition in Berlin in 1924.
Copy in the Bauhaus archives from a wet copy – Berlin 2-25-1987MECHANICAL ECCENTRICITY
LASZLO MOHOLY-NAGY A synthesis of form, movement, sound, light (colour). Theater up to now has been a communication of events (information) or doctrines (propaganda).
Form, movement, sound, light (colour) were absolutely subordinate to this information or propaganda. The narrative drama of earlier days soon developed into a drama of action and the elements for the creation of a movement-drama gradually manifested themselves. Which is to say, the original purpose of the drama: information, propaganda were slowly eliminated and the attempt was made to present information with primary means.
In the case of August Stratum, for example, drama turned into explosions. Information, propaganda, characters were no longer to be created, but attempts were made at creating movement and sound (language) still receiving their drive from sources of human energy (passion).
With Stramm, the theater did not supply a narrative plot, but action and speed instead, which unpreparedly broke out impelled almost automatically and in abundant sequence by the desire for movement and yet still with a literary charge.
This was outdone by the Dadaist and Futurist Theater of surprises which tried to cut out the literary notion altogether. In these pieces, however, human performance in action and reception is still in the foreground. Theater today is to be produced with the inseparable unity of the dynamically contrasting relation of the phenomena of form, movement, sound, and light.
This implies the end of the playwright and his literature.
A dynamic concentration of action presented with the means of form, movement, sound and light will be the mechanical eccentricity.
Eccentricity today is no more than organized movement in relation to the human mechanism. It usually causes the spectator to be surprised or taken aback by seeing the potentialities of his own organism (material = human being) which means an absolutely subjective effect. As to the intention of objective creation, this material is incredibly limited and in that limitation also joined with secondary (literary) elements, thus having only minimal opportunities to offer. Our time, however, as a period of transition favours this sort of human surprises, on a rather intriguing level which is achieved by a rarely used, over-refined form (American clownery, Chaplin, Fratellini, etc.).
The adequate call of today is: a genuine organization of form and movement to be matched as an equivalent to the acoustic and optical (electrical) phenomena feasible today and not movement abused to carry literary or emotional events.
From a special Bauhaus publication of the same name, around 1924/25
The film which is part of the Mechanical Eccentricity was made from a sketch by Moholy-Nagy dating from the year 1921/22 and bearing the title "Dynamics of the Metropolis".
Dynamics of the Metropolis
The manuscript sketch "Dynamic of the Metropolis" dates from 1921/22. The film of the same name does neither want to indoctrinate, nor to moralize nor to narrate, all it wants is to have a visual, a purely visual effect. The elements of the visual are not necessarily related to each other in a logical sequence, yet their photographic-visual relations join them in a lively interrelation of spatial-temporal events and include the viewer actively in the city dynamics.
Purpose of the film: making full use of the equipment, specific optical action, optical speed structure, and – instead of literary, theatrical action: dynamics of the optical. Much movement occasionally approaching brutality.
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy in "Malerei, Fotografie, Film", "Painting, Photography, Film", Bauhausbücher 8, München 1928THEATER DER KLÄNGE – THEATER OF SOUNDS The production, the cooperation of stage-engineer, costume-designer, composer, choreographer, film-maker, technicians and interpreters, the collective work on the production, the accurate research of originals and an investigation of history and tradition with scientific accuracy by far exceed "directing" a project.
We are not so much interested in self-presentation, self-experience or individual expression and even less in profit-making but in serious commitment to the most challenging form of human cooperation:
Creating together a process functioning as an entity, composed and produced for the purpose of transporting a piece of truth with the intensity inherent in a singular theater night.
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