Gurdjieff's Movements and
European Art

Painter and choreographer Oscar Schlemmer was another pioneer fascinated by the threefoldness of man, as shown by his Triadic Ballet, first performed in 1916 with music by Paul Hindemith. By 1923, when he worked for the Bauhaus in Weimar, he had already fully developed his geometrical concepts of the human body, which were in dramatic contrast with the then prevailing flowing and free expressions of Isadora Duncan. Moreover, Schlemmer was able to explain the deep significance of geometric body positions with an astonishing and visionary precision. His figure drawings are certainly evocative of the powerful abstract body positions employed by Gurdjieff in his stage presentations the very same year.
Schlemmer's involvement with dance took shape through his collaboration from 1912 through 1916 with Albert Berger, a soloist with the Royal Opera Ballet, and his wife, the dancer Else Hötzel. The little-known fact that Berger and Hötzel were influenced by the dances created by Émile Jacques-Dalcroze shows us an interesting historical connective pattern.