Circles Of Tension: Dancing between two languages
Dance is often both an affirmation of voice and the embodiment of a struggle with forces which attempt to silence them
By Karen Ann Mozingo
Ich spreche
Ich spreche, ich sage, ich singe
Kannst Du hören?
Meine Hände verdammt mich,
mein Geist schon verrückt
Zwischen zwei Sprachen nach
Deutschland ich falle
Durch Wasser mein Mund gebärt eine
Langeschlangeflucht
When I arrived in Germany on July 26, 1999,I anticipated two journeys. The first was a journey through history, an outward movement through the locations of modern dance in Germany, from its beginnings in Hellerau and Dresden through the crowded Opernhaus and Schillertheater in Wuppertal, to the independent
dance scenes in Berlin and Köln. The second was a dance of fantasy, an inward journey into the coveted hours in the studio
spaces of Wachsfabrik and Multi-Art Theater in Köln and the endless hours of journaling as I sat at my desk in my tiny apartment. Between these two journeys, I had not realized that
finding my voice as an artist would occur somewhere in-between... between German and English, history and fantasy, past and present. Between Two Languages, as a dance and a concept became a new "speaking place" for me, influenced by my studies of solo female dance artists in Germany and my own experience as a solo dance artist navigating the unknown waters of a new language and
culture.
Dear Ivan,
I work intuitively, and my idea would be that
I'd give you examples of the images I'm working
with, movement sections (on video) and
examples of text. You could run with these
things and see what you come up with. We
could keep the conversation going throughout
the spring. Maybe I'd come to Berlin a
few times to talk and have rehearsals together
as things take shape and we need it.
Otherwise you could mail me your sketches.
In Zwischen Zwei Sprachen, I collaborated with American scholar and pianist Ivan Raykoff, who arranged, composed and performed the music for the work. As the dance developed, he also became integral in the arranging of German and English
texts, the ideas for staging, and the final performance. Since Ivan was living in Berlin and I was in Köln, we worked between our two cities, only coming together at key stages in order to structure and rehearse the material. Throughout this process, I was continuing my research and study of women artists in German dance, traveling to historical locations related to dance in
Germany, watching video footage which had not been available to me in the States, continuing my daily dance training, and
becoming involved in Kölner Tanzinitiative, a group of professional dancers and choreographers working in Köln.
The information and experience I was collecting and my struggles with learning German fueled my creative work, both dancing around each other as if partners in some seductive choreography. From my
own frustration of not being able to communicate clearly and my readings of women artists, I wrote a poem in German
which became the central text for the dance. As Wigman describes, "Creative ability belongs to the sphere of reality as much as
to the realms of fantasy. And, there are always two currents, two circles of tension, which magnetically attract one another,
flash up and oscillate together until, completely attuned, they penetrate one another."(1) The poem became my fantasy of a woman artist refusing to be silent. Through my creative explorations in the studio and my forays across the landscape of female dance artists within Germany, I began to find common themes in our biographies, journals and art which reappeared and acquired a significance of their own - themes of language, voice, space, and demons. These themes coupled with the
German poem became the guiding forces for Between Two Languages.
Voice Box
Dear Ivan,
I've reached a place with my German
where sometimes I get stuck between
it and English. I'll find I'm
thinking in one, then skip to the
other, and sometimes can't quite put
together where I was going with my
thoughts. I think it's because I have
different experiences of myself in
each language... and perhaps at
times access to different memories
and knowledge.
She collides with the table edge, long blonde hair a canopy over her face, her feet stuttering, stumbling backward only to propel her against the table again. She splays her body across its brown surface, opening her mouth silently as if calling a name she cannot remember. She sits on its edge, her feet dangling in pendulous boots, head slinging in circles as she scoots along the
edge... Later she breaks through the table, running through the space made at its hinges. She runs toward the audience, raises her hand and with mouth stretched open hungrily, she traces letters in the air... In "Schritte verfolgen (1985)," Susanne Linke created a solo based on her experiences with language and speech as a child. Lacking the ability to translate her thoughts into words, she felt trapped, unable to communicate with the outside world. After years of speech therapy, she learned to speak and associate meaning with words. The drive to communicate led her to dance, studying at the Mary Wigman School in Berlin and later at the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen. She has become known in Tanztheater for her use of the solo form, conjuring images of the Ausdruckstänzerinnen of the 1920's and '30's. The
association became reality when she reconstructed Affektos Humanos, the solo work of Dore Hoyer from 1962.
Dear Ivan,
I'm still thinking of changing the names of the
solo. The old titles don't fit anymore. Maybe
the idea is that we move from dance/instrument
into the complex worlds of spoken
language and arrive back at the simple
combination of music and movement. That in
the end, perhaps these two mediums say
something that words cannot express at all.
Sprachraum
The foundational principles of Ausdruckstanz, as it came into being during the 1920's, were defined by the choreographer
and dancer, Mary Wigman, as space, time, and strength. Of these elements, the definition of space is particular to the genres of
Ausdruckstanz and Tanztheater. Wigman defined space not only as
the space in which the dance is created or performed such as the studio or stage, but also as the space which the dancer creates: "It is not the tangible and limiting space of concrete reality, but the imaginary, irrational space of the danced dimension...
Height and depth, width and breadth, forward, sideward, and
backward, the horizontal and the diagonal - they become his living experience because through them he celebrates his union with space." (2) As my own work developed, I began to think of language as a space in which identity is forged, and the space between two languages as yet another identity-forming place. Traveling throughout Germany, I also began to question the impact between the space of language and the space of history.
Gingerly, I touched the top rung of
the stall bars, marveling at the fine
layer of dust which turned the rusted metal
into a speckled white. After WWII, Hellerau
was used as a gym for the Russian soldiers,
Hedwig tells me. That's why you can still see
the paintings of athletes on the walls. The
large room, which served as the theater for
Jacques Dalcroze's rhythmic gymnastics
school during the early 1900's, stood now as
an empty, concrete ghost of its past. In the
lobby, Communist paintings depicting indomitable
soldiers and ghastly war scenes
dominated the landings leading to the second
floor. The only suggestion that a dancer like
Mary Wigman may have studied here was the
voice of one lonely flute player, whose melancholy
song echoed against the concrete walls.
Sirenengesang
Meine Zähne deine Knochen festhalten
und nagen
Zwischen zwei Sprachen meine
Schlangebauchendflucht
Ich fresse dich aus,
meine Zunge wie eine Viper
Meine Augen regnen Lügen,
meine Ohren Sehnsucht
Dear Ivan,
I had envisioned that the text would be
recorded and/or woven into the music. I
think it should be spoken and not sung... or
if you have a good idea, you might be able to
persuade me on the singing. I do think it
should be spoken by someone whose mother
tongue is English, and I had planned on it
being me... unless the singing idea takes
over, of course.
One winter night in Köln, as I was thinking about the connections between German women artists, and the relation between
their creativity and their voices, I read a story about an American woman whose husband attempted to kill her by holding a gun to her head and making her handle his rattlesnakes...
she was bitten but survived. She describes how the snakebite confused her senses... some sounds became more intensified,
but language became disordered. As the poison took hold of her body, she also lost her ability to speak. Later that night, I
remembered Bible verses from my childhood, "A woman who can be silent is a Gift of God." (3)
Dear Ivan,
Would you be okay if I am in physical contact
with you at the beginning of the piece? I
have some specific images...perhaps a
feeling of being trapped in or under the
piano, a frustration of wanting to stop you
from speaking, but being unable to.
In their writings, Wigman and other Ausdruckstänzerinnen describe different aspects of dance as a struggle with a demon. For
Wigman, it often took the form of space: "There it was, an opposite pole, a point in space, arresting eye and foot...Now it
hovered over me, this power, and widened into an immense shadow which permitted no escape." (4) Dore Hoyer writes, "My life is a ghost dance. A demon holds watch at the
door that leads to people. He will not let me through." (5) In their writings, dance is often both an affirmation of voice and the embodiment of a struggle with forces
which attempt to silence them. In 1967, when she could no longer dance and perform, Dore Hoyer gave up the struggle and
ended her life.
Dear Ivan,
I had an idea yesterday that my voice should
be heard as the last sound of the piece... not
an audible word, but some sort of sound,
perhaps as the lights go out.
Zwischen zwei Sprachen
Ich spreche, ich sage, ich singe
Kannst Du hören?
Ich rede in neu Züngen,
mein Kraft in meinem Mund
Gegabelt meine Wörter zersplittern deine
Ohren
Sirene, Bastardin, eine Englisch-Deutsche
Sünd'
Dear Ivan,
You know that place in a composition where
you have to let your original preoccupations
go and see what identity the work is
claiming for itself? That place where it
seems to claim a voice of its own?
Afterward
As I reflect on my process in creating Zwischen Zwei Sprachen and my time in Germany, I sit in my study in Columbus, Ohio on a cold winter night. When I left
Germany on August 31, 2000, I returned east to settle in Columbus and begin working as an independent choreographer, dancer and scholar. Here I discovered a myriad of connections to Germany, the most uncanny being the sister city relationship between Columbus and Dresden. The city of Mary Wigman's beginnings as an
independent artist is intertwined with the city of my own. I have found a new speaking place, dancing between two languages.
(1) Wigman, Mary. The Language of Dance.
Translated by Walter Sorell. (Middletown, CT:
Wesleyan University Press, 1966), p.11. Original
edition, Die Sprache des Tanzes was published
in 1963 by Ernst Battenberg Verlag , Stuttgart. back to text
(2) Wigman, Mary, p.12. back to text
(3) Sirach 26:17. back to text
(4) Wigman, Mary, p . 18. back to text
(5) Müller, Hedwig, Frank-Manuel Peter and
Garnet Schuldt. Dore Hoyer: Tänzerin. (Berlin:
Verlag Edition Hentrich, 1992) , pp. 11-12. back to text
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