Finding Aid for Mary Wigman letters to Walter Sorell, 1964-1973.

• Descriptive Summary
• Biographical History
• Scope and Content Note
• Container List

Source

Gift. Gift of Walter Sorell. Material received: 1974.

Access

The collection is open to research.

Restrictions on Use

For permission to publish, contact the Curator, Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Library for the Performing Arts.

Preferred Citation

Wigman, Mary, 1886-1973. Letters to Walter Sorell, (S) *MGZMC-Res. 29, Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Mary Wigman, German modern dancer and choreographer, was born Mary Wiegmann, November 13, 1886 in Hanover. She trained first with Emile Jaques-Dalcroze in Hellerau and Dresden and later with Rudolf von Laban in Anscona, Switzerland and in Munich. Her debut as a concert dancer and choreographer occurred in 1919. Successful performances encouraged her to open her own school in Dresden, where among her first students were Yvonne Georgi, Gert Palucca, and Harald Kreutzberg. By 1925, her students included Ruth Abrahamowitsch, Hanya Holm, and Tilly Losch. Her students performed as a company, touring Western Europe throughout the 1930's. Wigman performed at the Berlin Olympics of 1936, but the National Socialists closed her school, and she became a teacher at the Leipzig Music Academy. After World War II, she returned to Berlin, re-opening her school in 1948, which became the center for the German modern dance movement. She choreographed over one hundred dances for herself and her dancers but also worked in various German opera houses, staging productions of Gluck in Leipzig and Mannheim and a famous joint performance of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana and Catulli Carmina in 1955. She died in Berlin September 18, 1973.

A collection of letters written by Mary Wigman, in German, to Walter Sorell, translator of her book Die Sprache des Tanzes. Also included are: letters to Mr. Sorell from other correspondents including Hanya Holm, John Martin, Juana de Laban and Margherita Wallmann discussing Mary Wigman, her book and Mr. Sorell's projected biography of Hanya Holm; a letter to Mary Wigman from Frederica T. Gibbon; an essay by Mary Wigman, “Dance pedagogy: letter to a young dancer,” in English.