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9. Warfare over Realism Tanztheater in East Germany, 1966–1989 Franz Anton Cramer In the first half of the 1950s, the Zentralhaus für Volkskunst (Central Office for the People’s Art) in Leipzig produced a film of about ten minutes in length. Titled Der Tänzerwettstreit (The Dancers’ Contest),1 it depicts three people in a public park cheerfully dancing to lively accordion music. An introductory voiceover clarifies the film’s context: The primary function of each and every true work of people’s art (Volkskunst­ schaffen) is to provide a reflection of current-day life. The socialist lifestyle, new moral system and relationships among the people ought to determine the content of new dance. There’s no need to attempt to resolve contemporary problems by means of dramatic and tumultuous action. We can also demonstrate the spirit of the time through dance works characterized by natural, sympathetic partnerings, by a spirit expressed through the dance itself, and by their style of movement. Let’s watch now how this challenge is successfully met here. Two young men occupy the screen. One, with luxurious blond hair, is in civilian clothing, and the other, with dark hair, wears the uniform of the Volkspolizei (People’s Police). They are both apparently expecting to meet the same attractive young woman. Once she appears, the two men begin a friendly tussle—a contest , actually—in which each attempts to assert his primacy with gestural dance steps, powerful soubresauts, and other forms taken from folk dance. The young woman watches with amusement but does not take part, and at the dance’s conclusion, all three walk off arm-in-arm in a swaying step toward a meadow. This film was made only a few years after the founding of the GDR. It clearly attempts to adhere to the guidelines expressed in the voiceover—that dances be marked “by a spirit expressed through the dance itself, and by their style i-xii_1-284_Mann.indd 147 4/5/12 3:29 PM 148 franz anton cramer of movement”—by demonstrating the social and even playful coexistence of various segments of the population. The state (the police officer) and worker are on equal terms; they court the same damsel; they dance to the same accordion music; they dance on the same piece of public parkland; they use the same forms of expression and resolve their individual conflicts in a popular and collective manner. They are, moreover, young and optimistic. The short film appears to be a direct response to a controversy that had arisen immediately after the founding of the state in 1949 and that reached its first peak by 1953. This controversy, referred to as the Realismus-Streit (dispute over realism), was voiced at symposia and on the pages of publications, such as the monthly Weltbühne.2 In 1953 the Staatliche Kommission für Kunstangelegenheiten der DDR (State Commission for theArts of the German Democratic Republic) brought together a variety of opinion pieces, essays, and responses in a publication dedicated to this heated debate.3 The aim was to include dance in the integration of art into socialist life, an integration already well established in other disciplines. Martin Sporck, one of the initiators of this debate, writes: “The revitalization of dance will not proceed from form, but from content. Replenish dance with new social content. Then the new forms that are most appropriate for this content will emerge.”4 The concern was to depart from existing styles of art and dance and to develop a form of dance that would be in accordance with the new social ideal: “What we need are new ballets, socialist in content and national in form . . . a new kind of dancer who, embracing life fully, indissolubly binds his thoughts and feelings with the thoughts and feelings of the masses and who serves his people as a singular force.”5 A popular artistic practice was required, one in which art would draw directly from the social climate and, in turn, work in an educational manner upon this climate. Years later Bernd Köllinger, the artistic and political mind driving the formulation of new East German dance, elucidated the task confronting dance, a task that had already been a central concern for the founders of the GDR: “Both the starting point and the goal of socialist artwork is the new man: the rich, comprehensively cultivated man in socialist society, dedicated to socialism and real social progress.”6 In accordance with this new conception...

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