Latent tradition in modern dancing: the body politics of “The Green Table”

Abstract

In the turmoil of the Weimar Republic German choreographer Kurt Jooss created The Green Table (1932), a farsighted ballet that critically looked back at the atrocities and suffering inflicted by of World War I and anticipated the events of World War II. Although Jooss´s piece drew directly from the ongoing political climate, the narrative was placed in an untraceable location and time, thus rendering it a timeless, universal protest against war that made The Green Table artistically and aesthetically resilient. In this paper we will analyze how Jooss expressed political opinions and conveyed social commentary, claiming his share of the sensible in Rincière´s words, through both experimental and traditional movement (modern dance and ballet), and how dance as a non-verbal art form used its instrument, the human body, to convey images of tradition, repression and cultural symbolisms of race and gender.