BAUHAUSBUCH 04
OSKAR SCHLEMMER
DIE BÜHNE IM BAUHAUS
1925
schriftleitung
walter gropius
l. moholy-nagy
THE TRIADIC BALLET
The laws of cubical space are the invisible linear network of planimetric and stereometric relationships.
Die Bühne im Bauhaus Download
Source: University of Heidelberg
Originated 1912 in Stuttgart in cooperation with the dance team
Albert Burger and Elsa Hötzel and the master craftsman Carl
Schlemmer. First performance of parts of the ballet in 1915. First
performance of the entire ballet September, 1922, in the
Stuttgart Landestheater. Also performed in 1923 during the
Bauhaus Week at the Nationaltheater, Weimar, and at the Annual
Exhibition of German Crafts, Dresden.
The Triadic Ballet consists of three parts which form a structure
of stylized dance scenes, developing from the humorous to the
serious. The first is a gay burlesque with lemon yellow drop
curtains. The second, ceremonious and solemn, is on a rose-
colored stage. And the third is a mystical fantasy on a black stage.
The twelve different dances in eighteen different costumes are
danced alternately by three persons, two male and onefemale.
The costumes are partly of padded cloth and partly of stiff
papier-maché forms, coated with metallic or colored paint.
OSKAR SCHLEMMER
MAN AND ART FIGURE
The history of the theater is the history of the transfiguration of the human form.
It is the history of man as the actor of physical and spiritual events, ranging from
naivety to reflection, from naturalness to artifice. The materials involved in this
transfiguration are form and color, the materials of the painter and sculptor. The
arena for this transfiguration is found in the constructive fusion of space and
building, the realm of the architect. Through the manipulation of these materials
the role of the artist, the synthesizer of these elements, is determined.
One of the emblems of our time is abstraction. It functions, on the one hand, to
disconnect components from an existing and persisting whole, either to lead them
individually ad absurdum or to elevate them to their greatest potential. On the
other hand, abstraction can result in generalization and summation, in the
construction in bold outline of a new totality
A further emblem of our time is mechanization, the inexorable process which now
lays claim to every sphere of life and art. Everything which can be mechanized is
mechanized. The result: our recognition of that which can not be mechanized. And
last, but not the least, among the emblems of our time are the new potentials of
technology and invention which we can use to create altogether new hypotheses
and which can thus engender, or at least give promise of, the boldest fantasies.
Stage (Buhne), taken in its general sense, is what we may call the entire realm
lying between religious cult and naive popular entertainment. Neither of these
things, however, is really the same thing as stage. Stage is representation
abstracted from the natural and directing its effect at the human being. [...]
The question as to the origin of life and the cosmos, that is, whether in the
beginning there was Word, Deed, or Form - Spirit, Act, or Shape - Mind,
Happening, or Manifestation - pertains also to the world of the stage, and leads us
to a differentiation of: the oral or sound stage of a literary or musical event; the
play stage of a physical-mimetic event; the visual stage of an optical event.
Poster for the bauhaus dancing,
Marcel Breuer Fiction of a stage for the inn "Ilmschlösschen 15"
Farkas Molnar U-THEATER
Kurt Schmidt, set design for the »Mechanische Ballett«
Bauhaus band with Hans Hoffmann, Heinrich Koch, Rudolph Paris, Andreas Weininger
oskar schlemmer
why this »triadisches ballett«?
because the number three is an eminently important dominant
figure with which the monomane self along with the dualistic
contrast have been overcome and the collective starts. it is
closely followed by the five, the seven and so on. Taken from the
trias triad the ballet could be called the dance of three analogues,
the change between one, two and three. a danseuse and two
dancers: twelve dances and eighteen costumes. Similar triforms
are: form, colour, space; the three dimensions of space: height,
depth, width; the basic forms: sphere, cube, pyramid, the basic
colours: red, blue, yellow. the tri-unity of dance, costume, music.
Diary 5 July 1926
Source: exhibition catalog 50 years of Bauhaus Stuttgart 1968
Cover: Oskar Schlemmer
The Theater of the Bauhaus Download
BAUHAUS BOOK 04
OSKAR SCHLEMMER
THE THEATER OF THE BAUHAUS
1925
ed: walter gropius
tr: arthur wensinger
wesleyan university press, 1961
Source: monoskop.org PDF 7 MB
