Knowra Expressionist dance Expressionist dance Expressionist dance is a modern dance movement that uses stylized, emotionally charged movement to express inner states, especially in early 20th-century Germany.
Ausdruckstanz : A German modern dance tradition emphasizing personal expression and movement freed from classical ballet conventions. The German term names the broader tradition in which Expressionist dance developed.
Mary Wigman : A German dancer and choreographer who became a leading figure in Ausdruckstanz. Her choreography and teaching made Expressionist dance internationally influential.
Modern dance : A broad family of concert dance practices that developed as alternatives to classical ballet. Expressionist dance became one of modern dance's defining European currents.
Hexentanz : Mary Wigman's solo dance depicting a witch through stark, percussive movement and mask. This work distills her use of rhythm, distortion, and unsettling physical presence.
Tanztheater : A German dance-theater tradition combining choreography, spoken text, everyday actions, and theatrical imagery. Expressionist dance helped establish the theatrical openness later central to Tanztheater.
Laban movement analysis : A framework for observing and describing movement through body, effort, shape, and space. Its effort qualities help explain how dancers made inner impulses legible through movement.
Rudolf von Laban : A dance theorist and choreographer whose movement studies shaped modern dance and movement notation. His theories and schools helped provide Expressionist dance with a systematic movement language.
German Expressionism : An early 20th-century German art movement that distorted form to convey subjective experience and emotion. Its visual arts shared the movement's drive to make inner states outwardly visible.
The Green Table : Kurt Jooss's antiwar ballet, first performed in 1932, portraying diplomats and the Dance of Death. It demonstrates how Expressionist dance could turn stylized movement into political satire.
Pina Bausch : A German choreographer who transformed Tanztheater through emotionally charged works built from movement and theater. Her work renewed the expressive, psychologically driven approach associated with German dance.
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