Triadisches Ballett

Oskar Schlemmer’s Triadic Ballet of the 1920s was the most widely performed avant-garde artistic dance and while Schlemmer was at the Bauhaus from 1921 to 1929, the ballet toured, helping to spread the ethos of the Bauhaus movement. The dancers were encased in cumbersome, coloured costumes. Erich Ferstl wrote the music for the 1970 filmed reconstruction by Margarete Hasting, the original score by Paul Hindemith being lost.

The idea of the ballet was based on the principle of the trinity. It has 3 acts, 3 participants (2 male, 1 female), 12 dances and 18 costumes. Each act had a different colour and mood. The first three scenes, against a lemon yellow background to affect a cheerful, burlesque mood; the two middle scenes, on a pink stage, festive and solemn and the final three scenes, on black, were intended to be mystical and fantastic.

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