Schlemmer

            I found Goldberg’s description of Bauhaus, particularly of Schlemmer’s “theory of performance,” as puzzling. Goldberg identifies a central problem, which Schlemmer means to address, as a conflict within the dialectic of the rational and the emotional. A variety of words are utilized in the chapter to evoke the sense of both: rational – rigorously intellectual, abstract, geometric, painting-oriented, philosophical-artistic, Apollo; emotional – practice, theatrical, impulse, unadulterated pleasure, Dionysian. (102-4, 112)

It seems to me that Schlemmer experimented with both the two-dimensional plane and three-dimensional space for the purpose, of which there were others, of constituting a stronger bond, or bridge, between the two opposing forces of rational and emotional. This is how I see the Bauhaus notion of Raumempfindung (‘felt volume’). Goldberg even defines the phases through which the dancers passed, from the ‘mathematical’ to the ‘gestur[al]’, in Schlemmer’s performances, including Figure in Space. (104)

Goldberg identifies the ‘Man and Machine’ theme, which existed in both the “Bauhaus analysis of art and technology” and the performances by the Italian Futurists and Russian Constructivists. According to Goldberg, costumes became the transformative element from man to machine, often constricting the movements of the performer (106-7). My initial question is: What of Schlemmer’s stage performances actually emits emotional impulse, let alone Dionysian passion?