More Archival Traces of Bartenieff

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Irmgard Bartenieff’s letters to Rudolf Laban, as I mentioned in the previous blog, also reveal how she adapted to American culture and redefined herself as a professional – moving beyond dance into physical therapy, dance therapy, and dance anthropology.

More Archival Traces of Bartenieff

In a letter to Laban dated July 21, 1944, Irmgard wrote:

“I went into my work with the sick abnormal body with this curiosity, and I discovered, while always working with the sick as well as with the average untrained working person, how deeply buried the joy and understanding of movement is in most people – to a degree that we really cannot be astonished about the small audiences dancers get.”

Later, in her letter to Laban dated October 12, 1947, Bartenieff added:

“As you probably remember, this ‘insulated’ business of what we used to call ‘Kunsttanz’ [art dance] has never fully given satisfaction to me – I am much rather an artisan with good tools and alert senses to perfect and understand movement in its many manifestations and work with many different people. And for that here in America is ample opportunity.”

The Laban community is very fortunate that so many archival traces are still available for study. There is still much to be learned from the pioneers of our field. Find out more in the next blog.

Archival Traces of Irmgard Bartenieff

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Prior to the Bartenieff Symposium last year, I arranged to peek at a few files in the newly accessible Bartenieff Archive at the University of Maryland. My aim was to look at correspondence between Warren Lamb, Judith Kestenberg, and Irmgard. I think of these three leading figures in the field of movement study as a triumvirate of minds. While they each did their own thing, they also studied and worked closely with one another. There must have been a fascinating cross-fertilization of ideas….

Archival Traces of Irmgard Bartenieff

However, what I discovered among correspondence in the archive had more to do with Bartenieff herself. Among the treasures is a draft or a copy of a letter she wrote to Rudolf Laban in October 1947. By this date, Irmgard had been in the U.S. for over a decade and practicing physical therapy for at least five years.The letter deals with her work rehabilitating victims of the polio epidemic, primarily children.

In writing to Laban about this work, Bartenieff notes that she has also started a dance class for convalescent children, and this work in dance is making her happy. Then, in a moving passage, she writes:

“Once one has experienced with a deepening awe what it does to a human being when the language of the limbs has become blurred or distorted [through acute paralysis] one seems to develop an intensified sense of rhythm and harmony, and the job of rehabilitation seems incomplete unless the elements of play and dance are included in some form.”

What a wonderful expression of the therapeutic value of dance!

Bartenieff Symposium – Many Happy Connections

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On November 10th close to 65 Labanites gathered at the Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland, College Park, to celebrate the opening of the Irmgard Bartenieff Archive.

Bartenieff-Symposium-Happy-Connections

 

Susan Wiesner, a digital humanist, had organized the event. Here is birds’ eye view of the happy gathering.

 

– Forrestine Paulay and Martha Davis in conversation about their respective studies and research with Irmgard

 

– Carol-Lynne Moore – Bartenieff: Icon of Possibilities

 

– Ann Hutchinson Guest and others –  sharing memories of Irmgard

 

– Movement sessions led by Peggy Hackney, Tara Francia Stepenberg, and Karen Studd

 

-Robin Neveu Brown (and husband) – comedic performance piece on giving birth through Laban lenses

 

-Catherine Eliot – Bartenieff’s Legacy and Occupational Therapy

 

-Rachell Palnick Tsachor – Movement and Trauma

 

-Susan Wiesner – film showing of “Schrifftanz Zwei” – a reimagining of Bartenieff’s “Chinese Ballad” choreography, based on archival notes and floor plans

 

The event closed with a movement choir led by Catherine McCoubrey

 

This was one of the most satisfying events I’ve been to – a wonderful reconnecting with old friends and new. Hats off to Susan Wiesner, curator Vincent Novarra, and the whole staff of the Performing Arts Library Special Collections!

Irmgard Bartenieff Archive – A Miracle

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For years after Bartenieff’s death in 1981, the Laban Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies carefully stored her papers but lacked the funds for full preservation and cataloging. The papers remained, untouched and unseen, in a warehouse in Brooklyn. And then there was a fire in the warehouse.

Irmgard Barenieff-Archive-Miracle

 

A cry for help went out to the Laban community, and through crowdfunding, enough money was raised to allow Vincent Novarra, Curator of Special Collections from the University of Maryland Performing Arts Library, to rent a truck, drive to Brooklyn, and see if Bartenieff’s papers had survived. They had!

 

He brought the boxes, along with the Laban Institute papers, back to Maryland. And then the second miracle occurred. The library found funds to hire Dr. Susan Wiesner, digital humanist, to catalog the collection.  

 

None of this would have happened if Professor Karen Bradley had not laid the groundwork for housing these archives in Maryland. Three years later, the Archive is now available for public access.  

 

This means that in the future it will be possible to construct a much fuller portrait of the remarkable woman who has so profoundly influenced Laban training in the U.S.

On Irmgard Bartenieff

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In the summer of 1975, I left the Nikolai-Louis Studio, walked across Union Square to the Dance Notation Bureau, and declared I was interested in the Effort/Shape Program.

Irmgard Bartenieff

I was ushered in to see Irmgard Bartenieff, a delicate elderly German lady who had worked directly with Rudolf Laban. She was guiding spirit of the Effort/Shape program. I don’t remember exactly what we talked about, but Irmgard was open and encouraging. I became her student, then her assistant, and eventually a fellow faculty member.

After her death, when I left New York  and found myself on my own with no Laban colleagues handy, I really missed Irmgard. Then I began to appreciate fully the scope of her knowledge and the positive impact of who she was and her whole way of being in the world.

Consequently, I am delighted that Irmgard Bartenieff’s archives have a home now at the University of Maryland library. I am looking forward to the upcoming Symposium on November 10th, when those influenced by Bartenieff will share their reminiscences. This event, organized by archivist Susan L. Wiesner, launches an exhibit in the Performing Arts Library gallery that follows Irmgard’s path through her professional life. And what a career – dancer, Laban student, Labanotator, physical therapist, dance therapist, Effort/Shape guru, teach, author, and dance ethnographer. She was a living example of the many ways movement study can be applied. Thus the title of my Symposium talk – “Irmgard Bartenieff – Icon of Possibility.”

Constant Change…

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As Irmgard Bartenieff used to observe, “Constant change is here to stay.” This is certainly the case in Berlin, where Bartenieff grew up. When I first taught for Eurolab  — Rotterdam (1988) and Berlin (1993-1996) – the Laban Certificate Programs were Constant-Changemodeled on the American version. And it was an irony of history that these early programs depended heavily on American faculty to teach the Europeans what the Europeans had taught the Americans! 

Two decades later, under the able direction of Antja Kennedy, the Laban programs in Germany have developed a unique format, delivered by European faculty in both German and English.

Recently I had the opportunity to teach in the final session of the Basic Course in Berlin. This part of the German certificate program is delivered over two years, with  monthly taught sessions of several days. It was a real honor to work with the students and the local faculty. They are doing great work together, distinguished by the dedication, seriousness, and thoroughness that are part of the national character.