Dance Theatre

Kurt Jooss was born shortly after the turn of this century, a time that ushered in the Age of Modernism. His achievement places him in the ranks of those leading artists who have permanently changed our cultural landscape. The significant stages of his career roughly correspond to the major cultural and political events that influenced the lives of his generation. The first and possibly most important period of Jooss’s artistic development spanned the years of the Weimar Republic from 1918 to 1932. His career received a major setback when the Nazi regime drove him from Germany in 1933. He escaped to England, where at Dartington Hall he continued his work by organizing a dance community that included his school and his company. Jooss’s career took its final turn when in 1949 he accepted the invitation to return to his homeland. His renewed artistic and pedagogical efforts in postwar West Germany led to the eventual development of the postmodern German Tanztheater.