Bauhaus & Dance

On the occasion of 100 years Bauhaus, the Goethe-Institut Cyprus in collaboration with Dance Gate Lefkosia is organizing an evening dedicated to Bauhaus and dance, on Thursday 11th of April at 20:00 at Dancehouse Lefkosia.

Bauhaus was not limited to minimalist and revolutionary design, as it also hosted often themed costume parties and evenings of theatre and dance. At this event, the Bauhaus aspects of costumes and dance are explored through dance performances with specially made costumes and a film screening.

The evening starts with the performance “Homage”, where 3 dancers, in their specially made sculptural body extensions show a new interpretation of Oskar

Schlemmer’s triadic ballet, almost 100 years after its premiere in 1922. The scultpural forms - body extensions, which play a vital role in this dance performance, were created by students under the guidance of Melita Couta at the Fine Art Department (University of Nicosia).

The film Triadic ballet by Oskar Schlemmer leads us directly into the world of Bauhaus and its famous ballet. It premiered in Stuttgart, on 30-31 September 1922, with music composed by Paul Hindemith, after formative performances dating back to 1916. The ballet became the most widely performed avant-garde artistic dance. Oskar Schlemmer began to conceive of the human body as a new artistic medium. He saw ballet and pantomime as free from the historical baggage of theatre and opera and thus able to present his ideas of choreographed geometry, man as dancer, transformed by costume, moving in space.

Following the screening, Arianna Economou shows the choreography “Knot/

Homage” inspired from a gouche by the same title from 1974, by Annie Albers. In

her choreographic interpretation of Albers artwork, she traces the movement of

the 3 strings, in yellow, red and blue “taking them for a walk”.

Dance Gate Lefkosia would like to thank Dancehouse Lefkosia for collaboration.

Dance performance:

Choreography: Arianna Economou

Dancers: Stephanie Pastella, Sotiris Sotiriou, Belinda Papavasileiou, Ianthe Economou

Costume design: Chrysanthos Diamantakis, Kleantis Constantinou, Miriam Gatt, Christina Georgiadou, Elena Hadjigeorgiou, Nafsika Demetriou

Film screening:

Das Triadische Ballett (Triadic ballet) by Oskar Schlemmer (1922)

Screenplay and choreography: Margarete Hasting, Franz Schömbs, Georg Verden

Music: Erich Ferstl

Dancers: Edith Demharter, Ralph Smolik, Hannes Winkler

For the full Bauhaus Open House programme of events, please see: www.goethe.de/cyprus/bauhausimhaus