Ogelala (1923)

What is danced

The article does not name a choreographer for the 1925 Dessau premiere, and it gives no description of the actual step vocabulary, holds or technique used on stage — only the thirteen scene-titles and a statement that the score itself combines jazz elements, imitated native American battle cries, and Central European expressionism. Those thirteen titles do tell a reader what kind of dance drama this is: it moves through mimetic/ritual scenes rather than abstract divertissement — a fight (Kampf), a captivity and chained dance (In Fesseln / Fesseltanz), a court scene in a pueblo, a judgment pantomime, a skull dance, a lament, a victory dance, a love dance, a sexual dance, a weapons dance, and finally a sacrifice dance (Opfertanz). This is a dramatic, scene-by-scene structure built for pantomime and ensemble ritual rather than a suite of set classical variations.

Context

Schulhoff was writing in the mid-1920s, a period when Central European composers and stage artists were absorbing jazz idioms and non-European or 'primitivist' subject matter into concert and theatrical works; this ballet's stated fusion of jazz, imitated indigenous battle cries and expressionist writing sits squarely inside that Weimar-era experimentation. The article gives no indication of who staged or choreographed the piece, so its place in the dance history of German expressionist stage-dance (as opposed to its place in concert-music history) cannot be established from this source.

Staging history

The article records only the 1925 Dessau stage premiere and no subsequent theatrical revival of the original ballet. The music itself fell into obscurity outside Czechoslovakia; it received its first recording under Václav Neumann and the Czech Philharmonic in 1987, and its US premiere — a concert performance, not a staged one — under James Conlon with the Aspen Chamber Symphony in 2006. In 2007 choreographer Robert Battle made a new dance to Schulhoff's score, later performed by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; this is a distinct 21st-century choreographic work set to the same music, not a revival of the 1925 stage ballet.

How to watch it

Because the article supplies no choreographic record, attention should go to the score's own dramaturgy: thirteen short, titled scenes that build from combat through captivity and judgment to ritual sacrifice, alternating jazz-syncopated passages with expressionist orchestral writing. Anyone approaching this as a stage work should treat the scene titles as the only reliable guide to its dramatic shape, and should not assume any particular technique or period style of dancing without further, independently sourced evidence.

Structure

1. Kampf
   Titled scene meaning 'Fight' in the score's sequence of thirteen images.
2. In Fesseln
   Titled scene meaning 'In Chains'.
3. Im Pueblo Konig Ivas
   Titled scene set in the pueblo of King Ivas.
4. Fesseltanz
   Titled scene meaning 'Chain Dance'.
5. Pantomime – Das Urteil
   A pantomime scene, 'The Judgment'.
6. Schädeltanz
   Titled scene meaning 'Skull Dance'.
7. Das Leid Ivalas
   A lament scene, 'The Suffering of Ivala'.
8. Ivalas Tanz
   A solo or featured dance for the character Ivala.
9. Siegestanz
   Titled scene meaning 'Victory Dance'.
10. Liebestanz
    Titled scene meaning 'Love Dance'.
11. Sexualtanz
    Titled scene meaning 'Sexual Dance'.
12. Waffentanz
    Titled scene meaning 'Weapon Dance'.
13. Opfertanz
    Titled scene meaning 'Sacrifice Dance', closing the work.

Structure read from an encyclopaedia article, not from a libretto or score we hold. Confirm against a programme before treating the numbering as authoritative.

Credits

• composer: Erwin Schulhoff

Questions