26 Facts About Mary Wigman

Mary Wigman is considered one of the most important figures in the history of modern dance.

Mary Wigman spent her youth in Hanover, England, the Netherlands and Lausanne.

The Jaques-Dalcroze school's practice made dance secondary to music, so Mary Wigman decided to take her interests elsewhere.

Mary Wigman enrolled in one of Laban's summer courses and was instructed in his technique.

Mary Wigman continued with the Laban school through the Swiss summer sessions and the Munich winter sessions until 1919.

In Munich, Mary Wigman showed her first public dances Hexentanz I, Lento and Ein Elfentanz.

In 1917 Mary Wigman offered three different programs in Zurich, including Der Tanzer unserer lieben Frau, Das Opfer, Tempeltanz, Gotzendienst and four Hungarian dances according to Johannes Brahms.

Mary Wigman performed this program again in Zurich in 1919 and later in Germany.

In 1920, Mary Wigman was offered the post of ballet mistress at the Saxon State Opera in Dresden, but, after taking up residence in a hotel in Dresden and beginning to teach dance classes while awaiting her anticipated appointment, she learned that the position had been awarded to someone else.

On tour, Mary Wigman travelled throughout Germany and neighbouring countries with her chamber dance group.

In 1928 Mary Wigman performed for the first time in London and in 1930 in the United States.

Mary Wigman ceaselessly created and choreographed new solo dances, including Tanze der Nacht, Der Spuk, Vision, Tanzrhythmen I and II, Tanze des Schweigens, Die abendlichen Tanze, Visionen, Helle Schwingungen, Schwingende Landschaft and Das Opfer.

In 1930 Wigman worked at the Munich Dancers' Congress as a choreographer and dancer in the choir work Das Totenmal created by Albert Talhoff in honour of the dead of World War I By 1927, Wigman had 360 students in Dresden alone, and more than 1,200 students were taught at branches operated by former students in Berlin, Frankfurt, Chemnitz, Riesa, Hamburg, Leipzig, Erfurt, Magdeburg, Munich, and Freiburg, including from 1931 one in New York City by former student Hanya Holm.

Mary Wigman has been photographed dancing and in portraits by many well-known photographers, including Hugo Erfurth, Charlotte Rudolph, Albert Renger-Patzsch and Siegfried Enkelmann.

Mary Wigman toured the United States in 1930 with her dance company, and again in 1931 and 1933.

The Mary Wigman school became a member of the Militant League for German Culture in 1933.

In 1936 Mary Wigman choreographed the Totenklage with a group of 80 dancers for the Olympic Youth festival to mark the opening of the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.

Mary Wigman received a guest teaching contract at the dance department of the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig, where the concert pianist Heinz K Urban accompanied her as a repetiteur.

Mary Wigman's work contributed to dance as a gateway for fascist community-building.

In 1954 Mary Wigman received the Schiller Prize of the City of Mannheim and in 1957 the Great Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Mary Wigman gave her first public performance in Munich in February 1914, performing two of her own dances, including one called Lento and the first version of Hexentanz, which later became one of her most important works.

Mary Wigman had several years' success on the concert stage.

Mary Wigman's dances were often accompanied by world music and non-Western instrumentation, such as fifes and primarily percussion, bells, including the gongs and drums from India, Thailand, Africa, and China, contrasted with silence.

Mary Wigman did not use typical costumes associated with ballet.

In Leipzig, a memorial plaque on the house at Mozartstrasse 17 commemorates Mary Wigman, who lived and taught there from 1942 until she moved to West Berlin in 1949.

The first Mary Wigman Society was founded in Berlin in November 1925 as a society of friends of the Mary Wigman Dance Group.