Ideology in Movement and a Movement in Ideology: The Deutsche Tanzfestspiele 1934 (9-16 December, Berlin)

This essay analyzes the Berlin Deutsche Tanzfestspiele 1934, focusing on the discrepancy between the values embodied in National Socialist discourse and those represented on the stage. Reconstructing the festival and examining archival sources and reception, the essay places the Tanzfestspiele in its historical dis / continuity. By considering the Tanzfestspiele program's enforced conformity to the canon of "new German dance," the essay highlights the festival's negotiations between established and emerging dance paradigms as well as with the emotive rhetoric of the Third Reich.