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Gesture, Interruption, Vibration: Rethinking Early Twentieth-Century Gestural Theory and Practice in Walter Benjamin, Rudolf von Laban, and Mary Wigman

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2015

Lucia Ruprecht
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Abstract

This article compares Rudolf von Laban's and Mary Wigman's practices and theories of gestural flow with Walter Benjamin's theory of gesture as interruption. For Laban and Wigman, gesture mirrors a vitalist understanding of life that is based on the rediscovery of transhistorical continuities between human and cosmic energy. Benjamin's Brechtian gestures address inscriptions and manipulations of bodies, which provide comment on the conditions of society by subjecting to critique the essentializing aspects of historical and vitalist flow. Addressing in particular forms of vibration as both enriching and destabilizing the gestural from its margins, my article explores how vibratory energy indicates a self-reflexive theory of media, but also a revolutionary charge, in Benjamin; how it engenders a politically ambivalent process of transmission between dancers and audience in Laban; and how it becomes an actual mode of movement in Wigman. The historical inquiry contributes to a genealogy of vibration in contemporary dance.

Keywords

1957 Le Sacre du PrintempsastonishmentAusdruckstanzBertolt Brechtcontemporary danceflowgestureintellectual distanceinterruptionMary WigmanMeg Stuartmovement choirsRudolf von LabanSocialist revolutionvibrationvibratovitalismWalter Benjamin
Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , August 2015 , pp. 23 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 2015 

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