Mary Wigman: the coreography of Carmina Burana

Abstract

This essay analyses the choreography of Mary Wigman’s Carmina Burana (1955), music by Orff, whose substantial outline Randi can reconstruct primarily through the drawings, partially unpublished, Wigman made to write down the different passages of her dance score.

Randi thinks that the characters must not be seen as realistic and that they are the projections of the Vagabond, whose quest is supposed to be the theme underlining the story.

The theme of destiny – a destiny on which man has very little or no control – is dominant. The end of the choreography seems to clarify that the self’s quest consists in piétiner sur place: our actions are inevitably sucked under by a whirlpool (represented by the wheel of Fortune choreographically rendered by the figure of the circle) and they are unable to bring any significant change.