By Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau
Bauhaus Festival 2016, "Circus, Circus - from black to white", Bauhaus Building, 2./3.9.2016 (2016) by Doreen Ritzau (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
The setting’s like a huge playground.
The whole house as a stage – colourful and a bit wacky. Space laboratory and research workshop – inventing a whole new world by playing; that goes at the Bauhaus in Dessau today just as much as it did around a century ago when Oskar Schlemmer was head of the stage workshop here.
Bauhaus stage, box game by Oskar Schlemmer, scene photo with Werner Siedhoff (1927) by Ruth Hollos-Consemüller (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
A brief look back …
… at the historic Bauhaus stage. It was founded in 1921 at the Bauhaus in Weimar and was initially headed by the painter and stage artist Lothar Schreyer. Multi-talent Oskar Schlemmer took it over in 1923. When the Bauhaus moved to Dessau in 1925 Director Gropius wanted to abolish the stage workshop at first because there wasn’t enough money, but then changed his mind and decided to give it a firm place in the curriculum after all, since it was in the end one of the pillars of his Bauhaus idea of bringing together the avant-garde community of living and working together.
The future designers and architects were not merely to be able to build spaces and objects, but also to experience them through movement and physical interaction. Such a performative learning space existed at no other school of art and architecture.
Tap to explore
In line with the visionary search for the total artwork, the stage was then even accorded its own, central, place in the new Bauhaus building on the festive area between the auditorium and the canteen. This is where the legendary parties were held and experimental theatre rehearsals took place.
Exhibition "Human Space Machine, Stage Experiments at the Bauhaus", Bauhaus Dessau, 2013/14 (2013) by Doreen Ritzau (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
“Stage! Music! My passion! ... Free rein for the imagination. Here I can be new, abstract, everything!” was Schlemmer’s credo ...
... the man who had made a name for himself with his Triadic Ballet, a performative dance show without a plot. (Pictured here: replicas of his historical costumes.)
Exhibition "Human Space Machine, Stage Experiments at the Bauhaus", Bauhaus Dessau, 2013/14 (2013) by Doreen Ritzau (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
His trademark – he reduced the human figure to basic geometric forms …
Oskar Schlemmer, musical clown from the work 'Treppenwitz', danced by Andor Weininger (1927) by Erich ConsemüllerBauhaus Dessau Foundation
… and dressed it on the stage in abstract, stiff costumes.
Abstract Figure, Facing Left: Figure S, from the Masters' Portfolio of the Staatliches Bauhaus, 1923, (1923) by Oskar SchlemmerBauhaus Dessau Foundation
He had a particular interest in the human body, drawing it and painting it and literally dissecting it on the stage. His concept was “The study of the fundamental elements of stage creation and design – space, form, colour, movement, light.”
Stage monolith (or 'sense and nonsense from the stage workshop'), display panel for the biology section of the subject 'The human being' from Oskar Schlemmer's class) (1928/1929) by unknownBauhaus Dessau Foundation
In class, the Bauhäusler took a thoroughly humorous approach to this task, as the overview panel about the sense and nonsense of the stage workshop shows.
Untitled (Study of a female dancer) (undated (1929/1931)) by Reinhold RossigBauhaus Dessau Foundation
Schlemmer then tested the fundamental elements with them in all kinds of dance:
Untitled (Study of a female dancer) (undated (1929/1931)) by Reinhold RossigBauhaus Dessau Foundation
forms and gestures dance,
space and hoops dance,
rods and discs dance.
What this was about was the human being in the age of the machine, about the synthesis of human and puppet, nature and artificial figure. In the dances human beings do not appear as individuals …
Choric Pantomime: Concentric group (1927) by Erich Consemüller (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
… but are, as here, “made uniform by tricots and masks”.
Bauhaus stage. Pantomime 'Treppenwitz' by Oskar Schlemmer (1927) by Erich Consemüller (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
Architecture as a stage: the whole building served as an experimental space and a testing ground for manufacturing – for prototypes in architecture. And so, even on the roof terrace of the studio building Oskar Schlemmer explored the relationship between body, form, movement and space.
When Hannes Meyer became Director of the Bauhaus in 1928, he tried to push the stage in a more political direction. But Oskar Schlemmer left the Bauhaus in 1929 – and the stage workshop was closed down for financial reasons.
Play Bauhaus, today
The present-day stage work at the Bauhaus takes its lead from Oskar Schlemmer’s learning space. Today, too, architects and designers learn through playful exploration on the stage using methods and experiments from the historic Bauhaus stage workshop. In the space laboratory ‘Bauhaus Open Stage: Performative Architectonics’ participants from art and design schools around the world develop contemporary performative studies, making costumes, designing props and dancing themselves.
Dance in Paper Preparation (2018)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
In the beginning is a sheet of paper …
Dance in Paper (2018)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
… that is formed into abstract spatial structures.
Dance in Paper on stage (2018)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
The Dance in Paper – a contemporary exercise for designers at the Dessau Bauhaus stage in cooperation with the Anni and Josef Albers Foundation Bethany USA. Human bodies transform themselves into architectural "art figures" and explore the relationship between body and space.
Bauhaus Open Stage | Performative Architectonics (2018)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
Thorsten Blume, research assistant at the Bauhaus Dessau, wants to revive the idea of pedagogy of the Bauhaus stage. He developed the project "Paper Club. Performance Space and Performance Material " in cooperation with the Kunsthochschule Bern.
Bauhaus Open Studio Tokio, Bauhaus Building Dessau, 23.3. – 25.3.2017 (2017) by Yvonne Tenchert (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
Raumerfahrungen à la Bauhaus auch für die Studierenden der Kuwasawa Design School Tokyo, Japan …
Bauhaus Open Studio Tokio, Bauhaus Building Dessau, 23.3. – 25.3.2017 (2017) by Anne Schneider (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
… they are trying to get through Oskar Schlemmer’s 1929 ‘Glass Dance’ and exploring the metaphorical dimensions of glass as a medium.
Typodance Bauhaus Open Stage.1 (2015)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
The young designers at the Paju Typography Institute of Seoul, Korea, too, are attempting the play of forms and light anew …
Typodance Bauhaus Open Stage.2 (2015)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
… and experiencing in their ‘Typodance’ …
Typodance Bauhaus Open Stage.3 (2015)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
… “the animated, lively artistic space“ quite in the spirit of Walter Gropius “with all the organs of the body”. For the founder of the Bauhaus what was then standing on the stage was “not the depicted human being but the formed and educated human being”.
The avant-garde stage of the 1920s was a unique place for revolutionary experiments with the body and with space.
Performance on "Doors open! The museum plays: The Stage", series of events on the Bauhaus Museum Dessau, Bauhaus Building, Stage, 20.9.2018 (2018) by Thomas Meyer (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
It is set to continue – experimentally and collectively. ‘Play Bauhaus’, in collaboration with higher education institutions, will continue investigating the methods of Bauhaus modernism in dance, theatre, music and performance projects into the future. In addition to the historic stage in the Bauhaus building, the new Open Stage on the ground floor of the Bauhaus Museum in Dessau has been added as a space for contemporary adaptations.
Text / Concept / Realisation: Astrid Alexander
Editing: Astrid Alexander, Cornelia Jeske
Translation: Catherine Hales, Stephan Schmidt
© Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau
www.bauhaus-dessau.de
