On Stage Alone: Soloists and the Modern Dance Canon

EIGHT: Anna Huber: A Conceptual Moment in Switzerland

187 eight Anna Huber A Conceptual Moment in Switzerland Renée E. D’Aoust Anna Huber’s dances begin with a concept; we watch the concept evolve into something centered in the body and yet beyond the body. Huber bases her choreography on ideas integrated with the body, a conceptual approach, rather than on ideas formed out of the body, a movement approach. Because ideas are privileged over the body, her work is an example of what is meant by conceptual art. This existential approach to a visceral medium means that the intention behind Huber’s choreography gives rise to structured dances. I contend that funding practices in Europe deepen the possibilities of Huber’s conceptual approach. An ultra-contemporary Swiss choreographer and soloist, Anna Huber was born in 1965, is originally from Bern, and trained as a dancer in Switzerland . While employed as a dancer by the State Theater of Cottbus in Germany (Staatstheater Cottbus), Huber was given studio space and production support and was encouraged to choreograph.1 Without this support, she would not have considered her career: “I never planned to be a soloist. I 188 neverplannedtobeachoreographer,”shesays.2 Aftermanyyearsoffinancial support in Berlin, Huber is now funded primarily in Switzerland. In addition to numerous other awards, she won the Ellys Gregor-Price in 2001 from the Mary Wigman-Gesellschaft in Cologne, Germany; the prestigious Hans Reinhart-Ring in 2002 (the first contemporary female dancer and choreographer to win this Swiss theater award); and, that same year, a Swiss critics’ prize for choreography from the Tanz der Dinge.3 Although Huber resists being placed within any school or tradition because she does not want audiences predisposed to think of her in a certain way, it is helpful to acknowledge that there is a tradition of the solo dancer in German-speaking countries in Europe.4 Ausdruckstanz, or the dance of expression, was popularized by Mary Wigman and made Wigman and other Germansoloistsfamiliar,althoughstill challenging,toaudiencesupthrough the 1930s.5 But technique and form were “qualities not always associated with the practitioners of Ausdruckstanz”; the focus was on expression.6 In Huber’s early career, the contemporary Swiss clown Dimitri called her a “contemporary Mary Wigman . . . [but Huber] has no conscious connection to expressionist dance.”7 Huber’s background places her in a tradition of performers in Germanspeakingcountriesthatallowsforareadierreceptionofchoreography resisting easy categorization. This history may be why the scholar Ramsay Burt suggests that “European audiences for innovative dance and live art seem preparedtotakethetimetoexperienceandappreciateslow,demanding,and experimental work.”8 To analyze Huber’s experimental work, I start with unsichtbarst (literally, most invisible), created in 1998 and recorded on DVD.9 Huber writes that her idea for unsichtbarst was to investigate “ways of seeing and of being seen.”10 Christina Thurner, a professor in the Institute of Theater Studies at the University of Bern, reviewed unsichtbarst for Neue Zürcher Zeitung: It is significant that [Huber] first performed [unsichtbarst] in a museum [at the National Gallery in Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof]. . . . The dancer makes the impression of being some kind of contemporary art figure— but not in the sense of something polished and beautiful—intended to Renée E. D’Aoust 189 be put on display for all to admire; she seems much more like a living sculpture searching for structure with . . . incredible precision.11 Huber is petite, but with a powerful, unshakable presence. She has cropped blond hair, a charming smile, and a body that is thin and taut. Her angular motions do not look friable; her body is pliant and lean without being hard and brittle. In unsichtbarst the dancer is movable sculpture, and we see a living piece of sculpture thinking. While Huber emphasizes activity, she also emphasizes nonactivity; nonactivity embraces the existence of ideas. Huber sculpts the body, yet the container of the sculpture (her body) also receives our projected ideas. Because the body does not move constantly but is simply present , the dancer’s physical presence becomes an abstraction. Huber does not impose meaning but allows meaning to be created by the audience through her presence. Even when she employs stillness, there is a sense of motion, but it is the motion of thought. This juxtaposition and exploration of contrasts continues to show in her work today. unsichtbarst uses an electronic score by Wolfgang Bley-Borkowski and therefore the body is not the only medium we experience. Yet the piece begins when Huber, wearing funky and...