Fuchs Lívia: A tánc forradalmárai. Vendégszereplők 1898 és 1948 között. Bajor Gizi Színészmúzeum, Budapest 2004. március 19 - május 2. (Budapest, 2004)
Kísérlet a szintézisre
t i \ World War II. At this time, an unequivocally laudatory tone prevailed in the short reviews of his recital. They emphasised that “He is as much a dancer as an actor. He reveals the psychology of various ages with a demonic force... Perhaps he is the only one who could emerge unscathed from the deathwhirl of the isms of artistic dance.” In the 1930’s, Rosalie Chladek visited Budapest several times - usually with the Hellerau-Laxenburg dance group. Her critics pointed out the nobility of her appearance, the perfection of her technique, and the complexity of her dance vocabulary, while the distinctive features of her style were ascribed to the fact that “the contents of her art were neither emotional, nor literary or pictorial.” About Chladek’s post-World War II recitals it was still flawlessness and harmony of movement that reviewers acclaimed, but all this could not enthuse contemporary audiences any more. A new generation of the representatives of modern dance had already appeared in Budapest. One of the emerging artists was Hanna Berger, who debuted on the stage with Dances of Today. Berger brought political issues on the stage — on the one hand, the indigestibly recent scenes of death camps, of human suffering, of ubiquitous grief, but, on the other hand, some merrier compositions, as well. The most prominent figure of European modern dance, Rudolf Lábán, visited the capital in transit in 1930, as a stopover of his European study tour, during which he concerned himself with “research on physical education, folklike dances, and the new direction in the art of movement.” Lábán paid visits only to the Institute of Physical Education and his former pupil’s, Lilli Kállai’s school of dance. He talked about his artistic philosophy in an interview given to a daily paper, in which he claimed that innovative theatrical dance must merge a multiplicity of movement forms: “Ballet can only appeal to those who are satisfied with watching a merely technical feat. Ballet has now become outdated, and in theatres only a novel dance technique has any future. The new theatrical dance will be based on the harmonic principles of the art of movement, and will incorporate ballet as well as acrobatics.” The synthesis of ballet and modern dance, however, was not yet to ensue, but Budapest audiences were able to judge how far the internal reform of ballet progressed by the 1930’s witnessing the performances of leading companies, since the most renowned groups all appeared in the theatres of Budapest. The bill of the March 1912 concert of the Ballets Russes included - apart from the twoact Swan Lake — only one-acts by Fokine. The Russians mesmerized the audience, although the stage of the Folksopera did not allow the installation of certain sets. “What they presented surpassed everything we could ever imagine. And in conceiving of them we took Reinhardt’s, this marvellous theatrical magician’s productions as a basis,” could be read in a journal, and indeed, seeing the company, the audience realized and prized the fact that the Russian ballet presented a wholly modern kind of theatre. It was the pieces of oriental splendour — Cléopátre and Shéhérazade - that had immense success. The
