Tanztheater

Tanztheater, German for dance theatre, is a form of expressive dance that grew out of German Expressionist dance, known as Ausdruckstanz, in Weimar Germany and 1920s Vienna, and that returned strongly in the 1970s. The term first appears around 1927 for a style emerging from the new expressionist dance of Central Europe, with Mary Wigman, Kurt Jooss and Rudolf Laban among its main exponents. In the 1980s critics used it again for German choreographers who had studied with Jooss, such as Pina Bausch and Reinhild Hoffmann, and with Wigman, such as Susanne Linke, along with the Austrian Johann Kresnik. Tanztheater put expression ahead of formal display and treated dance as a way of engaging with society, and it was shaped by Bertolt Brecht, Max Reinhardt and the culture of the Weimar Republic. Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch became its best known company.