The theater of the Bauhaus - Gropius

The Bauhaus movement was one the 20th century's most daring experiments in arts education, and its influence on architecture, design, and the visual arts is well known. Many of the most important ideas are revealed in Bauhaus writings about theatrical performance and performance spaces.;Originally published in Germany in 1925 - at the height of the Bauhaus movement's influence - this work collects writings from some of the movements important figures and describes a theatre stripped of history, moralism, scenery, and, for that matter, narrative itself. The Bauhaus group believed traditional theatre to be little more than a vehicle for propaganda, with its "peep show" stage separating spectators and the performers. They rejected as well the theatre of ridicule and satire practiced by the Dadaists and the Expressionists. In place of both traditional drama and the avant-garde that lampooned it, Oskar Schlemmer and his Bauhaus associates created an abstract theatre of movement, colour, light, form, and sound - language would be added later, once the stage had been purged of its "literary encumbrance". They believed that humanity's essential nature - freed from history, tradition, class, and nationality - would find expression in the theatrical works that incorporated pantomime, masks, dance and acrobatics.