Review of The Makers of Modern Dance in Germany (2003)

Partsch-Bergsohn, Isa and Harold Bergsohn. The Makers of Modern Dance in Germany: Rudolf Laban, Mary Wigman, Kurt Jooss. Hightstown, New Jersey: Princeton Book Company, 2003.

September 11, 2024

Of the wife and husband pair who wrote The Makers of Modern Dance in Germany: Rudolf Laban, Mary Wigman, Kurt Jooss, Isa Partsch-Bergsohn studied under Mary Wigman and Kurt Jooss and lived through some of the events covered in this brief history of early- to mid-twentieth century Germany. While Partsch-Bergsohn does include some insightful, autobiographical mini-essays or reflections about her experiences working with Kurt Jooss and Mary Wigman, which are in their own right valuable autobiographical historical accounts, what emerges over the course of the text is a fraught blurring between subjective experience as a participant in the history and rigorous historical scholarship.

The book's approach to history writing is an anachronism reflective of a nearly half-century or so prior wherein history is sufficiently recounted by a detailing of "major figures" who define the period in question and some of the "minor players" who surrounded them. Together they are situated in the context of "major" economic events and political developments carried out by a handful of key actors whose agency appears almost transcendent. It is a style of writing that is reminiscent of political and economic histories of the pre-postmodern period and is otherwise atypical for a history book published in the early 2000s.

There are a number of critical issues with Partsch-Bergsohn and Bergsohn's approach. The authors do not elucidate their methodology, writing in a historiographic style that by and large accepts observers' statements as given, fails to consider the situatedness and political motivations of referenced sources, and does not note competing claims or analysis. The bibliography reveals a dearth of sources and does not exhaustively list all sources referenced—most notably the extensively quoted essay from Hanya Holm on the differences between German and American modern dance that originally appears in the 1935 Modern Dance edited by Virginia Stewart, though the authors do provide reference information in the text proper. The endnotes do not comment upon how sources may corroborate or complicate claims, and the main text is silent on this issue, which seems to suggest that the authors' confidence in the reference materials is unqualified, despite the fact that the book is heavily reliant on diary entries and biographical and autobiographical sources written by the participants themselves or former students and professional collaborators to the figures covered whose proximity to the people and events may introduce biases worthy of comment if not deep reflection.

One of the major flaws in Partsch-Bergsohn and Bergsohn's historiography is that they do not consider source subjectivity and situatedness and how these might impact source reliability and the portrayal of events. This is of critical significance particularly for a book about Nazi Germany, given that those living under the National Socialist regime had incredibly powerful incentives to obscure, recast, or hide their participation in, support of, and collaboration with the regime in the wake of the war. Indeed, to paint Wigman and Laban in particular as either victims or begrudging contributors who had no other choice repeats a pattern of apologism and a strategy of obfuscation that has been widely examined and rightly critiqued in many other historical analyses and professional disciplines regarding this era in German history. Broadly speaking, it is as though the field of dance history, particularly in the hands of Partsch-Bergsohn and Bergsohn, feels uncompelled to reckon with the agency, however circumscribed, that German dance artists did exercise in relation to facilitating the work of the Nazis, a point that Lilian Karina and Marion Kant make quite poignantly in Hitler's Dancers: Germans Modern Dance and the Third Reich.

The Makers of Modern Dance in Germany reveals a concerning lack of familiarity with or awareness about historical methodologies that were contemporary with this book's publication. Partsch-Bergsohn and Bergsohn fail to exercise the level of care, self-awareness, and methodological reflection that is worthy of responsible history writing. The Makers of Modern Dance in Germany serves primarily as a whitewash of and apologia for those whose collaboration otherwise merits critical analysis. This book is most useful for trained historians who wish to analyze problematic accounts of mid-twentieth century German art history or who have a particular interest in dance historiography. A more general reading audience would be far better served by passing over this book in favor of other history writings regarding German modern dance by writers like Lilian Karina and Marion Kant. While I am sympathetic to the intent to contribute to dance history, this does not relieve the authors of their duty of care as history writers or of the rigor that is needed for any historical account intended for a wider audience, particularly given the selection of such a fraught and deeply violent period in European history.