An Evening Immersed in the Avant-Garde: Open Dance Project presents DADA GERT

A single open room with a chandelier and dimmed lighting. Cabaret posters and scattered leaflets found among littered cigarettes accompany a piano in this enchanting venue. Cafe menus printed auf Deutsch duet with dancers poised at random around the space, costumed in delightfully flamboyant black and white Weimar German attire, are set to make you feel you are on the edge of something important. The words from Die Autobiographie von Valeska Gert, “Ich bin eine Hexe. Ich bin eine Hure. Ich bin eine Amme. Eine Kupplerin. Ein Erzengel. Ein Kasper…” translated from German as, “I am a witch, I am a whore, I am a wetnurse, a procuress, an archangel, a clown”, is the off-putting and genre-defining mantra spoken repeatedly by Annie Arnoult, embodiment of Dada and proto-punk Jewish German Weimar era artist Valeska Gert, and the brain behind the ten year anniversary remounting of Arnoult’s immersive work, DADA GERT. The show is presented by Houston’s own Open Dance Project, produced by ODP’s Managing Director Laura Harell, and created and choreographed by Executive Artistic Director Annie Arnoult. 

The ingenuity of this show shines in its historical recreations. The intentions behind the work DADA GERT are made plain by the genuineness of the set and atmosphere, its aesthetic purposes transparent in attention to detail. Arnoult’s vision is clearly not to merely recreate the Weimar era for vibes and giggles. Her work brings lost and forgotten artistic voices back to life from a period in time where so many of them were buried, violated, or destroyed. A project like this one, its sights set on paying respect to and grieving for an entire generation of artists, cannot be done in integrity without swearing fealty to the weight and responsibility of the undertaking; this is a responsibility that Annie Arnoult and the entire team at ODP have taken seriously, beyond expectations, in every aspect of its production. 

The atmosphere created by Arnoult and her team at Open Dance Project was alluring and engaging, oftentimes satirical and erotic, and enticingly mysterious. By design, patrons are invited to roam the venue, crafted to reflect “A gritty street in Weimar Berlin, an empty dressing room, a telephone ring, a whispered name…Valeska Gert” (Open Dance Project Program). The set was meticulously detailed, the cultural aspects satisfyingly accurate; appropriate use of the Berliner dialect was appreciated, and the Weimar era soundtrack boasting of artists such as Marlene Dietrich, Lotte Lenya, Kurt Weill, and Bertolt Brecht were accents that complemented and completed the Weimar canvas. Costumes were faultless recreations or reimaginings of the creations of Valeska Gert’s own work, designed and constructed by ODP costume designers Ashley Horn and Jeff Hancock. The ambitious set and projection design by Ryan McGettigan and Brian Ealey, respectively, inspired by the original mounting of DADA GERT projection designer Christopher Ash and creator Annine Arnoult, was attractive and jaw-dropping. 

Walking through the hypnotic set of DADA GERT felt as close to time travelling as I have adventured. After experiencing this performance, I am confident that any patron could wander into the venue and be given a singular and enriching experience. The combination of set and costume design, spoken selections from popular German media artists, and the recreations of Gert choreographies built an entire world that we are all invited to explore, an event you are certain to depart from in possession of a deeper understanding of Dadaism, Weimar Germany, and the sensation that is Valeska Gert. This show also has specific performances designed for patrons in need of ADA accommodations. More information regarding these inclusive performances can be found here. 

In DADA GERT, I was particularly drawn to the performance of Atticus Griffin, “die Kupplerin”,  who performed his role with such a beautiful and generous androgyny. Griffin’s performance lent itself to the authenticity of a Weimar setting. Like today, Weimar was filled with artists and voices who were in every way questioning the status quo and challenging hegemonic heteronormativity. Dada, or Dadaism, the artform presented and celebrated in DADA GERT, is at its core designed to provoke. Born from the European traumas of the First World War, Dada emerged as an artistic and political response to the horrors and grief of war. It is entrenched and bathed in the ridiculous, as its goal is to fully embrace the absurdity of sentience. It challenges us to clasp everything we experience together in one hand, and then reflects back at us the realities of what we try to pretend is not happening. If the absurdism makes you uncomfortable, then it has proven you to be alive; for the beauty of Dadaism is in its ability to force you to hold and acknowledge contradicting and uncomfortable truths about our world and about our own nature–that even in the modern world, we are tribal, we hoard our resources from our neighbors, we manipulate systems to benefit a select few, we obfuscate universal truths in order to kick cans down the road for the following generations. Yet at the same time, in every pocket of the world, we garden, we nurture, we commune, and we love deeply and unconditionally. We are bold and brave and terrible and selfish and above all, human.

DADA GERT asks us to consider the roles we play in society and in perpetuating harmful behaviors and beliefs. Are we brave enough to be ourselves, or do we give in to the pressure to pander to the loudest and richest voices? If this message sounds uniquely modern, it’s because its meaning emerged from the rubble of a devastating war; as long as we continue to create a world where war and destruction are evergreen conditions of society, Dadaism and resistance will not only remain relevant, but necessary. As you walk the set of DADA GERT, remember that the essence of Dada exists as anarchy and resistance: resistance to capitalism, fascism, conformity, the bourgeoisie. Without context, a Dadaist work of art may appear meaningless, much like small acts of aggression by an authoritarian government when singled out from its established pattern may seem meaningless. But a Dadaist knows that there is always context. Dada is something to be experienced; I do not believe Dadaism wants us to pick apart the intellectual nature of a work or dissect its artistic merits; it wants us to turn that exercise onto society itself. Pick apart our authorities, dissect our government, evaluate our group behaviors. Its objective is to reject linear pathways and order; in a culture so defined by its bureaucracy, the polarity that Dada offers in its critique of Germany is a poignant reminder that there is no one way of being, and even when the ideology is forced, it will never be successful. This is a throughline found throughout the entirety of DADA GERT in its exposition, composition, and choreographic structure.

Key sections that stood out to me in terms of choreography included abstractions of gestural movements that utilized dance as a meaning-making tool that inspired my imagination. During “A Dadaist Manifesto”, the ensemble created a traincar, shaking and rattling as passengers or seats or handlebars, maybe even a trolley track. I cannot recall the specifics as much as I can recall the excitement I felt watching this moment unfold. I know I will never forget it! Another ensemble phrase that was particularly effective to me was “Parade for a Dead Soldier”. Each dancer marched in a line around the room with a broken seig-heil, right arms held at a right angle with palms facing inward, chaperoned by the spoken words of Bertolt Brecht’s poem “Legend of the Dead Soldier”. I want to be clear that a seig-heil was never performed. The broken seig-heil is an example of abstracting a gesture to translate its meaning without doing the literal movement; in my opinion, it was brilliantly done. Listening to the words of Brecht discuss the absurdity of the glorification of war while the ensemble marches various abstractions of Nazism and military life throughout the room was the point where I felt most reflected, and most a part of the bystander audience. We watched these horrors unfold before us. It was an eerie and disturbing movement experience that only a Dadaist could construct. 

After a chilling reprise of “Mack the Knife”, sung acapella by the ensemble, a dissenter arises from the crowd at the arrival of “Nun kam Hitler” (“Then came Hitler”). As the banners of the Third Reich fall from the ceiling, “die blonde Frau”, played by Jaime Garcia Vergara, begins to clap and cheer. The ensemble is stunned at the betrayal, as am I. During a reprise by each dancer of different moments of the performance, the fascist Frau jeers and points and shouts at each individual, ‘“Verboten! Verboten!”. As each artist is told they are forbidden, illegal, they pack up their suitcase and leave, one by one, until there is no one left, and there is no meaning left. Only a skinheaded fascist remains, literally clothed in their own extremist ideology. They stand self-righteous and spat upon. 

Annie Arnoult, who played “die Hexe” (the witch), costumed as Valeska Gert, gave a deliberately off-putting and formidable performance as participant, narrator, and at times antagonizer to the ensemble of DADA GERT. She consistently pirated the space without apology, much as I imagine Gert herself would have done. Valeska Gert plays such a vital role in DADA GERT and in the Dadaist movement at large because she broke barriers in exposing Weimar period dance audiences to not only Dada, but a moving and living Dada that had not been seen before. Gert was known for her performance art, her scandalous pantomiming, and her satirical choreography. Gert, like many Dadaists, knew that repression and poverty create hellscapes of violence and class divide. She created shows filled with grotesque and unnerving performances and demanded that her audiences see her, perceive her, and witness her testimony. 

To me, the message of DADA GERT is that self-fulfillment and self-actualization are found in the rejection of prescribed forms of sentience, and that there is no sense in ignoring or investing in manufactured consent; it is of course, a waste of time and a poison to the artistic process, but also a detriment to the soul. Dadaists knew this. Valeska Gert knew this. Annie Arnoult, creator of DADA GERT, knows this; it is evident in the choreography that this show is an inspired one, loyal to its source material, and honest in its representation. 

Walter Benjamin, a German Jewish intellectual of the Weimar period, once wrote that “There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.” (Theses on the Philosophy of History, Thesis VII) This quote has a habit of angering or confusing the recipient, which is why I include it here; it feels Dada in nature, because the statement is absurd. But where there is absurdism, there is often truth. If you look deep enough, trace a thing back to its roots, something barbaric did occur. Dada exists because of the brutality of the First World War and because we needed to express our collective pain and anger. Many Dada artists and voices were oppressed and buried due to the Second World War. Countless texts and works of art from that same period, pieces that discuss class and poverty, or celebrate exploration of gender and sexuality, are gone, only known to us by word of mouth or the fragments that remain. A brutality exists in the structure of censorship. Through Dadaism, through the work of Valeska Gert, and through this work of DADA GERT, there is an endless potential to revive and expand our knowledge of those artists and their work, and to create more dance theatre exhibits that act as archeological sites for their sources of inspiration. That in itself is demonstrated in the choreographic journey of the ensemble on this dirty street in Berlin, in that empty dressing room, in the ring of the telephone, and in the whispered vision of Arnoult: Viva Gert! Viva Dada! 

Open Dance Project’s run of DADA GERT continues through November 22 at Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston. Tickets and more information are available at matchouston.org.