Vintage gelatin silver print
11 3/4 x 9 1/4 inches (30 x 23.9 cm)
Stamped verso: Foto Eckelt, Geisenheimer Str, 9a, Berlin Wilmersdorf
Provenance: Galerie Kicken, Berlin

Werner ECKELT (1914-1990)

Marianne VOGELSANG (1912-1973)
Dancer, choreographer and teacher

Marianne Vogelsang was born in 1912 in Dresden, Germany. After finishing high school in 1929 she became one of the first students of Gret Palucca who was one of the leading figures of the expressive dance movement that blossomed in Germany in the 20s and 30s. At Gret Palucca`s school in Dresden Marianne Vogelsang was trained in dancing as well as teaching. After receiving her diploma in 1933 she gained first experiences by performing together with Gret Palucca, as well as being a member of the well known - Palucca Trio (together with Herta Fischer and Charlotte Hölzner). In the 1930s she was one of the few talents which continued the legacy of the first generation of modern expressive dancers like Mary Wigman who had revolutionized the idea of dance before. Marianne Vogelsang became an important exponent of the central European style of modern dance, which came to be known in Germany as "Ausdruckstanz" (expressive dance).

Marianne Vogelsang linked her creative work as a dancer with an intense educational activity. She taught modern dance in various dancing schools in Germany, at the Deutsche Tanzbühne (1935), at the Meisterstätten für Tanz (1936) in Berlin and the Folkwang-School in Essen (1938-1940). During the time of the Nazi regime her activity her influence was severely restrained because of her affinity to the left parties and an idealistic attitude which was based on tolerance and respect for cultural diversity.

After the war she became leader of the department of dance at the conservatory in Rostock and deeply influenced the cultural life of the city. In 1948 she left for Berlin where she joined the Mary Wigman-Studio. In 1950 she opened her own dancing school in Berlin Weissensee. Here she led the department of modern dance until 1958 when she was dismissed because she was not willing to submit to the aesthetic doctrine of the GDR which was dominated by "social realism". Guest performances at various theatres in Berlin as well as performances for television followed, among them choreographies at the "Deutsche Staatsoper Unter den Linden" and a participation at the legendary production of Goethes "Faust“ by Wolfgang Langhoff (with Ernst Busch as "Mephisto").

Concentrating her activity more and more on Western Germany, she gave up performing in Eastern Germany completely after the rising of the Wall in 1961, teaching at the Institut für Bühnentanz in Cologne (1963-1965), and at the conservatory in Hannover. Her last choreographies in the 1970s, among them the "Five Preludes" by Johann Sebastian Bach, are examples for her distinctive style: the fusion of intuition and construction, high musicality and a severe formal logic. Marianne Vogelsang died in 1973 in Dresden.

Vogelsang's portrait was painted by the German expressionist Otto Dix, and she was photographed by Edmund Kesting in a series of dramatic montages in the mid 1930s.