The Lessons of Mary Wigman.

Erika Thimey recalls an icon's pedagogical gifts

Noted dancer, teacher and choreographer Erika Thimey (pronounced tea-my) was born in Germany and studied there, principally with that country's giantess of modern dance, Mary Wigman. Last fall, Thimey, who lives in Virginia and celebrated her 90th birthday in March, published A Life of Dance, A Dance of Life, an autobiography/biography written with Dianne Hunt.

In it she remembers her days as a Wigman student; after that, coming to America and deciding to stay because of the censorship she experienced on returning to a Germany that had become Hitler's. Thimey looks back on choreographing a spectacular motion choir at Chicago's Buckingham Fountain in 1936 that made her name. Thimey writes about her partnership, launched in Boston, with another central European modern dancer: Jan Veen (Hans Wiener), with whom she toured the country. She also remembers the world of a segregated Washington, D.C., where she settled in, teaching on both sides of the color line, performing, and choreographing, especially for audiences of churchgoers and schoolchildren.

Here, Thimey describes the training given at Wigman's main school in Dresden during the late 1920s and early '30s.

--George Jackson

WHEN I CAME TO Dresden to study at Mary Wigman's school, she was already a famous artist. I had seen her perform in 1925 or '26, and that was the performance that drew me in. The lead teachers were Mary's sister Elisabeth Wigman, and Hanya Holm. Elisabeth was not a performer; Hanya was. They had assistants, graduates from the school. Hanns Hastings, Mary's music director, taught subjects related to music, and had assistants also.

For about 100 professional students plus amateurs there were three classrooms, two medium-sized and one huge one--that classroom Mary used for rehearsing, for giving motion choir classes (which involved everyone, including the amateurs), and for technique classes. The two other rooms were for professional classes--like composition, percussion, and pedagogy.

I took two technique classes a day. In these we would work through the whole body, trying not to forget any part--the neck, shoulders, the elbows. Very conscientiously, you tried to train the whole body and not just certain parts.

Then, to make sure that people could move in different styles, we did rigid things, and we did fluid things--to explore different dynamics. To give one example, we did a lot of curves with the hip. When there is a certain tension in the body, a curve with the hip becomes more rigid, an accent, a certain dynamic style, yes? Or you can use the hip curve with a fluid energy, which of course becomes a kind of swing. That again has to do with dynamics.

To take the idea of dynamics further--or more deeply, perhaps--one of Mary's basic ideas was inhaling and exhaling; inhaling, building up tension, bringing it to a climax, and then exhaling, releasing tension, to again bring it to a different climax.

Mary transferred that idea to other movements and enlarged it. She developed her teacher Rudolf von Laban's idea of the active scale--the walk, the run, the rush, the leap; and the passive scale--the walk, the gliding, the floating, the sinking, and, yes, the fall.

Now, at that time, no one emphasized that these were Laban's active and passive scales; it was obvious that it came from inhaling and exhaling. We understood the connection between breathing and tension and relaxation in movement. When I came to America, I was interested to find out that Doris Humphrey had choreographed Water Study in 1928. It is based on a breathing rhythm. I didn't know whether she was aware of Mary Wigman's idea or not, but the idea of a dance based on a breathing rhythm seemed very natural to me.

Sometimes Mary's teachers made use of the scales, but they did not say, "This is Wigman technique." That was not emphasized and the teaching was rather loosely structured. Looking back, that was both a strength and a weakness. If a teacher was particularly interested in the upper part--in doing floating and leaping and so on--fine. If someone got interested in the underworld and hell fire--in doing sinking and so on--fine, too. Of course, I have no idea how much Mary Wigman talked with her teachers. But as far as I know, they had complete freedom.

There was a lot of training for versatility. The teachers tried not to limit but to vary the approach--to help us realize how large dance is, how many-fold. In technique classes, we worked to understand how complicated the human instrument is. It was important not to forget parts of the body, or to limit your approach to moving.

I remember one thing that is extremely interesting, and different from the way dance is approached nowadays. The technique class was a group lesson. It was expected, more or less, that you would practice things that came hard for you. In addition, as part of your studies, once during the month you had to have a private lesson. It was up to you with whom you had that lesson. You didn't have to take the lesson with Elisabeth--if you preferred one of the assistants, that was all right. If you took a lesson with a certain person once, you did not have to do a second lesson with her as well. But, you had to take a private lesson.

From a pedagogical viewpoint, I think that was a very understanding approach. What was done in private lessons was completely up to you and the teacher. Of course, these teachers knew you; you could ask questions of the teacher and the teacher could ask questions of you as well. For example, I remember that some of my friends told me that they had a habit of putting their shoulders up, and the teacher really tried to correct that in the private lesson. To be frank, what I had for problems I no longer remember. I only know that I always thought a private lesson was very exciting. I wouldn't have been surprised if I had asked plenty of questions about composition and choreography. But on the other hand, I too probably had to first gain control in technique.

I always took my private lesson either from Elisabeth or from Hanya. I respected Hanya terrifically. I thought that she was really a wonderful teacher. She taught technique as well as composition and improvisation also. However, Hanya probably did not teach technique classes as often as she taught class lessons. Class lessons included things like improvisation and composition. In a class lesson, the teacher would choose to teach whatever materials she thought were necessary for the students.

I remember that improvisation was considered a first step toward composition. How do you know what you want to say unless you try it first? Of course, it makes a difference whether you improvise by yourself or with somebody else. We improvised in many different ways--in duets, with music, in silence, and so on.

We often improvised in ways to make us more sensitive toward space. To sense the weight of a movement was very important, as well as to sense the space. In fact, this whole idea of Erick Hawkins's, of the sensing of weight in movement, reminds me of what we were working with fifty years ago at the Wigman School.

Improvisation was also a part of sensitivity training. As far as I remember, teachers did not analyze or explain their approach to these ideas in classes. A teacher would have a certain subject matter and structure in mind, certain things she wanted to cover, of course. But the classes were never given that way--first outlined and then done. A class would just evolve, as an experience, without explanation of its structure or goals. It was up to the student to make of it what she wanted. Only later did you realize the underlying structure and subject matter, and think, "Oh, that is what we did!"

And, if the class went in a different direction than what the teacher had in mind, then the teacher would not feel embarrassed! I am joking, yes?

In all, improvisation was a very vital part of the whole Wigman training. The only time improvisation was out of the question was in the technique class. But otherwise, in the class lessons, in the composition classes--sooner or later, improvisation was involved. Very much in contrast to the ballet, improvisation was important in the Wigman School. Yet the Wigman School very much had discipline. Improvisation and discipline are not opposite ideas.

Excerpted from A Life of Dance, A Dance of Life, by Erika Thimey and Dianne Hunt. Copyright [C] October 1999 by Erika Thimey Dance & Theater Company, Washington, D.C.; Sally Carlson Crowell, Director.