Ecstasy and the Demon: The Dances of Mary Wigman

Mary Wigman, Germany’s premier dancer between the two world wars, envisioned the performer in the thrall of ecstatic and demonic forces. Widely hailed as an innovator of dance modernism, she never acknowledged her complex relationship with National Socialism. In Ecstasy and the Demon, Susan Manning advances a sociological explanation for the collaboration between German modern dancers and National Socialism. She models methods for dance studies that contextualize choreography in relation to changing sociopolitical conditions, bringing dance scholarship into conversation with intellectual trends across the humanities. The introduction to this second edition brings Manning’s groundbreaking work to bear on dance studies today and reconsiders Wigman’s career from the perspective of queer theory and globalization, further illuminating the interplay of dance and politics in the twentieth century. Susan Manning is professor of English, theater, and performance studies at Northwestern University.