THE MECHANICAL BAUHAUS STAGE

WORLD PREMIERE

November 26, 1987

Junges Theater in der Altstadt (Juta-Düsseldorf)

TWO WORKS OF MECHANICAL STAGE ART

“A dynamic concentration of action presented with the means of form, movement, sound and light design will be named ‘the mechanical eccentricity’.”

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy

“The Mechanical Bauhaus Stage” is the programme title for two stage works created at the Bauhaus in Weimar during the 1920s: Kurt Schmidt’s The Mechanical Ballet (world premiere 1923, Stadttheater Jena) and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s The Mechanical Eccentricity — a theoretically utopian theatre project that remained unrealised until Theater der Klänge staged it in 1987.

Schmidt’s work explores the layering of two-dimensional “spaces” through moving abstract imagery. Coloured geometric dance figurines, roughly human-sized, are moved by dancers concealed behind them — their choreography generating a continuous sequence of images akin to abstract painting. Moholy-Nagy’s score integrates film, a three-dimensional stage, and multiple levels of moving set pieces into a single mechanical whole.

Neither work was reconstructed — both were newly created within the aesthetic framework of the originals. The choreography for the Mechanical Ballet was by Jörg Lensing, the music by Hanno Spelsberg. The figurine designs by Kurt Schmidt and Georg Teltscher were faithfully reconstructed.

The double programme was performed between 1987 and 1992 in 18 cities across Germany and abroad — 62 performances before approximately 15,000 audience members.

IN REPERTOIRE

The Mechanical Ballet remains in the repertoire of Theater der Klänge. Since 2005 it has been performed within the programme The Mecano-Electronic Bauhaus Stage, most recently in 2017 as part of the double programme “bauhaus ballette”.

THE MECHANICAL BALLET