choreography / Folkwang Tanztheater / The Green Table(1901-1979)
Kurt Jooss was an important German modern dancer and choreographer. He began his career in the 1920s, dancing lead roles in the choreography of Rudolf von Laban. Jooss is noted for establishing several dance companies, including, most notably, the Folkwang Tanztheater in Essen.
In 1933, the Nazis ordered Jooss to dismiss all the Jewish people associated with his company. He refused. As a result, he and many of his dancers had to flee Germany. They found refuge in Holland before resettling in England, where Jooss opened a school with the dancer Sigurd Leeder. After the end of World War II, Jooss returned to Essen where he remained until he retired in 1968. One of his students from this period was the choreographer Pina Bausch.
Jooss disliked plot-less dances and preferred themes that addressed moral issues. His most important choreographic work, The Green Table (1932), won first prize at an international competition for new choreography in Paris in 1932. It was a powerful anti-war statement, made just a year before Adolf Hitler became the chancellor of Germany. It is still performed by dance companies around the world. Another work, Pandora (1944), contained disturbing images of human disaster and tragedy, and was later interpreted as foretelling the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan a year later.
Image:
http://rachelstraus.com/2011/08/kurt-jooss-the-founding-father-of-tanztheater/
Text:
Last Updated - 2012
Last Updated - 2012
Date Accessed - 03/02/2012
Image:
http://rachelstraus.com/2011/08/kurt-jooss-the-founding-father-of-tanztheater/
Kurt Jooss was an important choreographer of modern dance and he concentrated on making pieces that were anti-war ballet.
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He was hired by Rudolf as a Ballet Master and performed with his company but then he decided he wanted to choreograph. Therefore he moved to the Essen Opera Company in 1928.
In 1932, Jooss choreographed his most famous piece; The Green Table and won 1st prize in Paris.
His dancers were mainly Jews, and in 1933, he got a warrant for not handing the Jews over to the Nazis so therefore before they arrested Jooss, they all fled to Dartington in England.