Madame d’ora – photography for Dances of Vice, Horror, & Ecstasy written and danced, by Anita Berber & Sebastian Droste, 1923

Publié par Lapetitemelancolie le 14/09/2015

Présenté ici les scans du livre, Madame d’ora – photography for Dances of Vice, Horror, & Ecstasy written and danced, by Anita Berber & Sebastian Droste, 1923. les photographies ont été prises en 1922. j’y ai ajouté des tirages plus clairs de ce livre.

Anita Berber (1899-1928), and to a lesser extent her husband/dance partner Sebastian Droste (1892-1927), have come to epitomise the decadence within Weimar era Berlin, their colourful personal lives overshadowing to a large extent their careers in dance, film and literature. Yet the couple’s daring and provocative performances are being re-assessed within the history of the development of expressive dance, and their extraordinary book ‘Tänze des Lasters, des Grauens und der Ekstase’ (‘Dances of Vice, Horror and Ecstasy’-1922), is a ‘gesamkunstwerk’ (total work of art) of Expressionist ideology largely unrecognised outside a devoted cult following.

Berber is the better known of the couple. Born in Dresden into a liberal middle class family, her parents separated a year later. Her father remarried and her mother, in pursuit of acting career, left Anita in the care of her grandmother. Berber was partly educated in the newly built Jaques-Dalcroze institute at Hellerau, a progressive utopian experiment which extolled the principles of natural harmony in work and everyday life, and used euthythmics as a teaching method. Eurhythmics aimed « to enable pupils, at the end of their course, to say, not « I know, » but « I have experienced,” « (Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, ‘Rhythm Music & Education’). Mary Wegman (1886-1973), who would develop ‘ausdruckstanz’ (expressive or Expressionist dance) and later become one of the century’s major choreographers, was also a pupil at the same time as Berber, though it is not known if they ever met. Below is a 1921(?) clip of Wigman performing ‘Hexentanz’.

At fourteen Berber rejoined her mother and, moving to Berlin, joining a troupe of performers led by Rita Sachetto initially performing alongside another influential dancer Valeska Gert (1892-1978), much of whose work is now regarded as proto performance-art. Berbers style, formally influenced by Eurythmics, began to incorporate Expressionist sensibilities and this mixture – fused with her dynamism and intense sexuality, gained her press notices which soon led her to be hailed as a new ‘wonder in the art of dance’.

She also began to develop a film career performing in a number of films directed by Richard Oswald (1880-1963). These included the melodrama, ‘Prostitution’ (acting alongside Conrad Veidt) and the equally controversial ‘Different From The Others’ (both made in 1919) the later taking homosexuality as its theme. Berber also appeared briefly in Fritz Langs’ ‘Dr Mabuse’ (1921).

Her personal life also contributed to raising her public profile. Married, in name only, to an Oswald scriptwriter, she conducted numerous lesbian alliances (Marlene Dietrich allegedly among them) and fuelled her polysexual/decadent lifestyle with vast ingestions of cocaine, cognac, opiates and ether.

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Sebastian Drostes background is more obscure. He was born Willy Knobloch into a wealthy manufacturing family in Hamburg where he went to art school emerging as « a classic dandy, acerbic homosexual and art snob » (Mel Gordon: ‘The Seven Addictions and Five Professions of Anita Berber: Weimar Berlin’s Priestess of Decadence’ p. 116).

He was drafted in 1915 and disappears from view, to resurface in 1919 in the major Epressionist journal of the day ‘Die Sturm’ to which he contributed poetry. Later that year he moved to Berlin and as ‘Sebastian Droste’ began work as a dancer for the Celly de Rheidt company which specialised in what were termed ‘schönheitsabende’ (beauty evenings), the ‘beauty’ aspect being the near nakedness of the performers. They specialised in performing ‘artistic’ interpretations of ‘uplifting’ classical works which they hoped would prevent them from attracting police attention. However De Rheidts’ luck expired in 1921 with their interpretation of Philip Calderons’ painting, ‘St. Elizabeth of Hungary’s Great Act of Renunciation’ (1891) probably for its’ blasphemous content rather than obscenity (though the subsequent discovery that some of the performers were underage did not help). As a result of this Droste became unemployed.

With Berber now a film starlet, dancer of note, and already fictionalised in a novel by Vicki Baum entitled ‘Die Tänze der Ina Raffay’ Droste was able to obtain a contract for them to perform material at Viennas Great Konzerthaus-saal. This production was to become the ‘Dances of Vice, Horror and Ecstasy‘. Created in just under five months it was a mixture of old Berber material and new works to be danced by Berber and Droste either together or as solo pieces. The book of the same title was also produced, though this was not published until the following year.

The show received mixed reviews, but was overtaken by scandal when Droste was arrested for attempting to pass a forged credit note for 50 million Kroner in order to partially pay off his own and Berbers’ debts. Drostes’ creditors convinced the court to allow him to continue working until it went to trial. If they could continue to perform, they would make money to pay their debts. However, Droste then signed ‘exclusive’ contracts with three different theatres and although one theatre eventually managed to gain exclusivity, the couple also broke that agreement. The International Actors Union became involved and banned them from performing on any continental variety stage for two years.This was the beginning of the end of their relationship. The publicity generated made them notorious in Germany and Austria, but they had little opportunity to work and drug habits to maintain. Both returned to Berlin. In October 1923 Droste stole what he could of Berbers jewels and furs using the money raised by their sale to leave for New York. They had been married for ten months. Berber had rapidly divorced Droste and managed to pull herself together enough to form ‘Troupe Anita Berber’ performing in various Berlin night-clubs, though once again her volatility resulted in bans and dismissals. She quickly married American dancer Henri-Chátin Hoffman in autumn 1924. He helped to revive Berbers career with shows featuring a mix of old favourites such as ‘Morphine’ (its music, specially composed for her by Mischa Spoliansky was a hit of its day) and new material.

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The book

Berber and Droste chose to express themselves almost exclusively through the Expressionist/Modernist ethos, which was in itself filtered through the angst of Germany during the Weimar period.

Expressionism had been in existence before Weimar and, like many art movements, it had no formal beginnings, as opposed to a ‘school’ of artists who might band together under a common technique. It was fundamentally a reaction against the Impressionists who were seen by the Modernists as merely portrayers of ‘reality’ but who had failed to add anything of the artists own interior processes such as intuition, imagination and dream. This new wave of artists found inspiration in painters such as Van Gogh and Matisse but also drew from writers such as Rimbaud, Baudelaire, and the Symbolists, together with the philosophy of Nietzsche and Freudian psychology.

Expressionists believed the artist should utilise « what he perceives with his innermost senses, it is the expression of his being; all that is transitory for him is only a symbolic image; his own life is his most important consideration. What the outside world imprints on him, he expresses within himself. He conveys his visions, his inner landscape and is conveyed by them ». Herwert Walden: ‘Erster Deutscher Herbstsalaon’ (1913).

The image is the poem as portrayed in the book by D’Ora. Interestingly, it is doubted whether the dance was performed (at least in Vienna) topless. Once again, this would indicate that the book is to be considered as its own specific entity.

The poems cite their inspirations: artists Wassily Kandinsky, Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso and Matthias Grünewald and authors lsuch as Villiers De L’Isle Adam, Edgar Allan Poe, Paul Verlaine, E.T.A. Hoffman and Hanns Heinz Ewers

One Poem from the book
Cocaïne / Danced by Anita Beber/ Music By saint Saëns

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Madame d’ora – photography for Dances of Vice, Horror, & Ecstasy written and danced, by Anita Berber & Sebastian Droste, 1923

Madame d’Ora- Anita Berber und Sebastian Droste, 1922

Madame d’ora – photography for Dances of Vice, Horror, & Ecstasy written and danced, by Anita Berber & Sebastian Droste, 1923

Madame d’Ora- Anita Beber,as a Spanish Dandy in Caprice Espagnol. , 1922

Madame d’ora – photography for Dances of Vice, Horror, & Ecstasy written and danced, by Anita Berber & Sebastian Droste, 1923

Madame d’Ora- Anita Beber, 1922

Madame d’ora – photography for Dances of Vice, Horror, & Ecstasy written and danced, by Anita Berber & Sebastian Droste, 1923

Madame d’Ora- Anita Beber, Tanz Kokain,1922

Madame d’ora – photography for Dances of Vice, Horror, & Ecstasy written and danced, by Anita Berber & Sebastian Droste, 1923

Madame d’Ora- Anita Beber, 1922

Madame d’ora – photography for Dances of Vice, Horror, & Ecstasy written and danced, by Anita Berber & Sebastian Droste, 1923

OTHERS ARTICLES MADAME D’ORA

Hans Robertson ( 1883-1978)

Publié par Lapetitemelancolie le 29/10/2013

“When Lotte Jacobi’s photos were exhibited together for the first time four years ago, reviewers were dazzled by how many of Weimar Germany’s glittering jewels—from Käthe Kollowitz to Martin Buber to the famously vampy Lotte Lenya—had been captured by her lens. She seemed to have single-handedly taken on the task of portraying the immense artistic, psychological, and political fervor of those tumultuous years, which seemed fragile even at the time—an ambitious task for any one photographer, even one as hungry as Jacobi. But her atelier was, in fact, one of 400 in Berlin, and she was just one of the many—mainly Jewish—photographers feverishly recording the dancers, writers, and actors that made this doomed moment in German history so extraordinary. Another photographer who clicked away at an incredible rate and with singular results was Hans Robertson.

To say that an artist has been forgotten is to imply that he was well known in his time. Robertson’s name—like that of Jacobi and most other commercial photographers—was not familiar outside the circle of performers who were his subjects and magazine editors who used his services. But from the evidence of only a fraction of his prolific output, discovered almost by accident and now on display at the Berlinische Galerie in Berlin, his work deserves attention.

Robertson’s specialty was expressionist dance. And expressionist dance was huge in 1920s Germany: the avant-garde innovations that had taken place at the turn of the century in everything from painting to fiction became popularized, and dance was transformed from an aesthetic exercise into an attempt to translate the inner life into movement. The gestures of this modern dance were primitive, dramatic, almost ritualistic, with a fetishistic focus on the human body. Mary Wigman, one of its main innovators, slid across the floor on her knees, eyes closed, fists clenched, performing her Witch Dance. Her school in Dresden became a center of this Ausdruckstanz, producing world-renowned modern dancers like Harald Kreutzberg and Yvonne Georgi.

They all posed for Robertson. His studio on bustling Kurfürstendamm—a boulevard that was both the Fifth Avenue and the 42nd Street of Berlin—saw a steady stream of business in the late 1920s and early ’30s. But the commercial aspect of these photos, which were in demand by popular illustrated journals like the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung, is less important than the artistic vision that guided their creation. Robertson was trying to use his camera in much the same way the dancers he photographed were using their bodies. From the creative way he manipulated light to his innovative use of multiple exposures, he wanted to capture more than just straightforward ornamental shots of the dancers. He was trying to convey their new art form on its own terms.

This is clear in the photographs. The series called “Leaps,” of Gret Palucca, a favorite muse of expressionist painters and the Bauhaus crowd, catches Palucca in mid-air, limbs splayed. Only part of her body is in focus—the ability to photograph sudden movement was itself a recent technological advancement. In one image her naked torso is twisted, in another her back arched. Then there are the soulful photos of Jo Mihaly, performing her one-woman piece, “Mütter.” She stands in front of a black screen wearing a black turtleneck, her pale, emotive face almost floating in the frame and illuminated from above by a single beam of light. On the more abstract end are Robertson’s photos of Harald Kreutzberg performing his “Lunatic Figures.” Robertson overlays three different exposures of the famously shaved headed dancer, capturing the various expressions of madness Kreutzberg is embodying. Even in Robertson’s more straightforward photo of Kreutzberg as a lunatic, holding a flower and posed loose as a marionette puppet, he captures the dancer as a depersonalized body, a trope of Expressionism that would later inspire, among other post-war dance forms, Japanese Butoh.

Of Robertson’s biography, says the curator of the Berlinische Gallerie show, Thomas Friedrich, “there are more questions then answers.” He was born in Hamburg in 1883. After studying engineering—a profession that inspired a few early photos of construction sites and workers—he changed course and headed to St. Mortiz where he apprenticed for the Swiss landscape photographer Albert Steiner. At 28, Robertson’s first photo spread—a pictorial tour through Holland—appeared in Photographische Rundschau. But his photo career would have to wait until 1918, when he arrived in Berlin. There he joined Lili Baruch—one of the disproportionately high number of Jewish women then making her living with a Leica—who set up the studio on Kurfürstendamm, specializing in dance photography, which Robertson took over in 1928.

To produce the thousands of photos he printed over the next five years, Robertson most likely worked long days and weekends. In addition to dance photography, he shot a wide range of portraits of many of the era’s personalities, from the famous—a nude profile of the boxer Max Schmelling—to the forgottn, such as a close up of the publisher Irmgard Klepenheuer, gazing intently at the camera, a cigarette between her fingers.

In 1933, following Hitler’s appointment as chancellor and the subsequent boycott of Jewish businesses, Robertson had an inkling of what was to come. He handed over the studio to his apprentice, Siegfried Enkelmann. One of the few documents Friedrich, the curator, has been able to uncover is a contract signed by Robertson that makes the transfer final, and describes Enkelmann as “reliable.” And he was. The protégé survived the war and continued photographing dancers (including Mary Wigman) until his death in 1978.

Robertson and his coquettishly beautiful wife, the actress and dancer Inger Vera Kyserlinden (born Levin), escaped to her native Denmark. While the avant-garde movement had been taking place in Berlin, Paris, and Prague, most photographers in Copenhagen were stuck in the pictorial style of the 1910s. As a result, in 1963 Robertson established the first modern photography school in Denmark. But eight years later, just before Hitler began deporting Danish Jews, the Robertsons were forced into exile again, this time fleeing to Stockholm. They returned in May of 1945 and Robertson died just five years later at the age of 67. Thousands of his photographs were turned over to the Royal Library of Denmark following his wife’s death in 1969.

Over time, Robertson was reduced to little more than a footnote. And not just proverbially: It was literally in a footnote in 1992 that Friedrich—a charming, slightly disheveled curator who thrives on the detective work involved in resurrecting dead photos and their makers— discovered his name. He was intrigued, but it took another 14 years (after encountering Hans Robertson’s name in another context) for Friedrich to finally take a trip to Copenhagen to peruse the archive at the Royal Library. What he found there astounded him. Not only did Robertson’s photos offer the most comprehensive catalogue of Weimar dance, but his work was also that of an artist with a unique style and vision. Friedrich still marvels that Robertson’s photos manage to look so distinct from one another, even though they were all taken in the same studio.

The building that housed that studio, on Kurfürstendamm, no longer exists. Like it did in much of Berlin, new construction in the 1950s erased what was before. Now two pharmacies, a clothing store, and a nondescript café look out from the ground floor. There is no trace of the glamour and wild experimentation that was once captured there in pictures. But Hans Robertson himself might yet have an afterlife: Friedrich, it seems, is planning a large retrospective for 2011.” BY Deborah Kolben and Gal Beckerman [ freelance writers living in Berlin.]