Episode 13: The Witch Dance

On March 17 Sotheby’s will sell a trio of images showing Mary Wigman performing her ‘Hexentanz’ (Witch Dance) in the 1920s by Charlotte Rudolph.

Charlotte Rudolph (1896 - 1983)

Untitled (Triptych of Mary Wigman in the Masked 'Witch Dance')

blind-stamped Ch. Rudolph Dresden (on each image)

3 gelatin silver prints on carte postale

5 ⅜ by 3 ½ in. (13.7 by 8.9 cm.) (each)

Executed circa 1926.

Mary Wigman (1886 - 1973) is considered by many to be the founder of modern dance in Europe. The Wigman School in Dresden produced many of the first generation of leading concert dancers in Germany; similar schools were later founded by Wigman in Berlin and New York.

Wigman and other modern dancers active in the 1920s and 30s were a huge inspiration for the chorography for the remake of Suspiria in 2018, directed by Luca Guadagnino.

Here is the original trailer for Suspiria from 1977, directed by Dario Argento. It’s…. very different from the remake.

Photograph by Charlotte Rudolph of other dancer, Gret Palucca, in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, circa 1928