Type: Publication · Research / Historisation Project · Archival Activation Period: 2018–2021 Location: North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany Role: Researcher · Oral Historian · Project Collaborator · Educator Partners: Pina Bausch Foundation · Deutsches Tanzarchiv Köln · Folkwang Tanzarchiv / Folkwang Universität der Künste
Euphorie und Aufbruch — A History of Dance 1959–1969 was a collaborative research and development project involving three dance archives in North Rhine-Westphalia: the Pina Bausch Foundation, the Deutsches Tanzarchiv Köln and the Folkwang Tanzarchiv. The project explored ways of connecting archival collections and making relationships between dispersed materials accessible through a shared digital environment.
The project focused on the period from 1959 to 1969, a formative decade in the development of dance and the artistic environment surrounding Pina Bausch. A selection of archival materials from the participating collections was brought together to create a shared historical view rather than separate institutional narratives.
Archival Activation
A selection of 99 archival documents — 33 from each participating archive — formed the basis of an interactive chronological timeline. The project made relationships between people, works, events, places and time more visible across the participating collections.
The project also addressed a broader question for dance archives: how can archival structures represent an art form whose primary material is movement, and how can historical relationships become accessible without reducing dance to isolated documents?
Visual Research
Euphorie und Aufbruch Timeline — Sorting and grouping of 99 Documents (Viviani 2020)
Visual organization of the archival material became an important part of the research. The documents were also approached through comparison and juxtaposition, allowing historical relationships, aesthetic developments and recurring patterns to become visible in ways that complement conventional textual description.
This visual approach treated the archive as a field for observation as well as documentation. It supported attention to the movement and artistic qualities that may be difficult to communicate through text alone.
Oral History
The project also explored digital models for connecting heterogeneous archival information, including CIDOC CRM and FRBRoo. Oral History added another layer to the archival record through an interview with composer Juan Allende-Blin.
The interview connected personal testimony with the documentary record and contributed another perspective on the people, works and circumstances represented in the project.
Finding Your Own Voice
Within the project, Ricardo Viviani taught the semester-long course Finding Your Own Voice at Folkwang Universität der Künste. Students worked with historical photographs and other archival material and used their observations as impulses for contemporary choreographic work.
The course took place remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. Students submitted their work as video, creating a further context in which archival observation, choreography and the moving image could be brought together.
Archival Material:
Project documentation; timeline material; selected archival documents; visual research; Oral History interview with Juan Allende-Blin; Finding Your Own Voice teaching material; publication material.
In this workshop, the professional choreographer and oral-historian Ricardo Viviani together with Sarah Walker, a fellow oral-historian will explore in which ways the awareness of non-verbal communication elements influence the outcome of an interview.
We are always communicating with our bodies. From postures to the placement of the body in space, these elements are constantly sending messages. By being aware of which non-verbal elements are important to observe, the interviewer can help the narrator feel more comfortable. A narrator that feels comfortable with the situation is freer to talk.
Of great importance are also the signals sent by the interviewer during an interview. Appropriate clothing that respects and eases the power structures at play during an interview, postures, gestures, help to engage the narrator. The body of the interviewer is just as important as the body of the narrator.
The analysis of video interviews can also benefit from the knowledge of non-verbals. Spoken language can acquire different colors and weights according to the complex interplay of non-verbals. Most oral-historians can adjust transcripts accordingly. This workshop will help to describe how these non-verbals are at play during the interview, thus helping to articulate the reasons for adjustments.
The workshop will consist of a theoretical introduction, examples that will be played out by the workshop leaders, followed by simulating situations and analyzing them. A group exchange of experiences will round-up this session.
Type: Publication · Documentary Film · Oral History Date: 2017 Context:Pina Bausch + New York, part of the series Geografia da Arte Role: Script Writer · Researcher Production: Producing Partners NYC in collaboration with the Pina Bausch Foundation Broadcast: Arte1, Brazil Locations: New York · Chicago · Woodstock · Wuppertal · Essen
Pina Bausch + New York explored the formative relationship between Pina Bausch and New York through archival research, Oral History and conversations with artists and people connected to her experiences in the United States.
The project was Ricardo Viviani’s first major project at the Pina Bausch Foundation after joining the institution in 2016. It brought together his new role as a researcher at the Foundation with experiences from his own history as a dancer and choreographer in the New York dance environment.
Viviani had first met Pina Bausch personally in New York after performances of Viktor at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Bausch stayed with dancer Manuel Alum at his loft in TriBeCa, together with her son. Viviani was part of Alum’s performing circle and had known him since his own years at Jacob’s Pillow.
This encounter revealed connections between Viviani’s own formation in the New York dance scene and Bausch’s formative experiences in the United States. When the documentary research began, these intersections became a starting point for tracing the people, places, teachers and artistic encounters connected to Bausch’s early development.
Research
The research extended across a wide range of dance and performing-arts archives and personal networks. Viviani worked with the archives of the Pina Bausch Foundation and the Deutsches Tanzarchiv Köln, as well as collections and institutions in the United States including the 92nd Street Y, Jacob’s Pillow, the New York Public Library’s Dance Collection and the archives of Juilliard School.
At the 92nd Street Y, where Pina Bausch had danced in New York for the first time, Viviani encountered an institution that was also part of his own history as a choreographer, having received a grant and presented work there. At Jacob’s Pillow, he returned to an archive and community he had known since 1980, when he was a scholarship student there, and worked with longtime archivist and curator Norton Owen.
The research also included conversations with dance scholars and critics including Mark Franko and Deborah Jowitt, as well as tracing places, people and artistic networks connected to New York in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Viviani also drew on his own study with Alfredo Corvino and his knowledge of the New York dance environment.
Oral History
The documentary developed an Oral History-based account of Pina Bausch’s formative relationship with New York. Interviews and archival research brought together memories of artists, teachers, collaborators and other witnesses, allowing aspects of Bausch’s early artistic development to be reconstructed through personal testimony and historical sources.
The resulting material provides a record of experiences and encounters that are not always visible in conventional accounts of Bausch’s biography, including the teachers, artistic communities and cultural environments that she encountered in New York and the United States.
Production
The opportunity to produce the interviews arose through an independent coincidence. Rolf Salomon Bausch received a request to collaborate with a New York production company developing a series about artists and geographical places. This led to a collaboration between Producing Partners NYC and the Pina Bausch Foundation.
Interviews and filming subsequently took place in Chicago, New York, Woodstock, Wuppertal and Essen. Although the production company was based in New York, the resulting series was produced for the Brazilian cable channel Arte1.
Producing Partners, led by Tatiana Issa and Guto Barra, was responsible for the production on the New York side.
Archival Material:
Film and production documentation; research notes; Oral History interviews; archival research material; correspondence and production material where preserved; related documentation concerning Pina Bausch’s relationship with New York.
Representative documentation of Ricardo Viviani’s long-running choreographic work for the Märchen zur Weihnachtszeit at Theater Hagen.
Type: Recurring Practice · Dance Education · Young Audiences · Choreography · Theatre Period: approximately ten years — documented through individual production records Institution: Theater Hagen, Hagen, Germany Role: Choreographer · Dance Educator Audience: Children · Families · School groups · Young audiences Status: Historical record · recurring institutional practice documented through individual productions and contemporary press
Record / Description
For approximately a decade, Ricardo Viviani was repeatedly engaged as choreographer for the Märchen zur Weihnachtszeit at Theater Hagen, contributing dance and choreography to a continuing series of productions for children, families and school audiences.
This recurring body of work is best understood as a distinct strand of Viviani’s practice rather than as a collection of unrelated individual productions. The productions combined theatre, music and dance and were presented as major seasonal events for young audiences at Theater Hagen.
The individual productions are documented separately in the archive. This record preserves the larger institutional and artistic relationship: the repeated creation of choreography for young audiences within the Christmas-period programme of Theater Hagen.
The Recurring Practice
The Märchen zur Weihnachtszeit occupied a particular position in the cultural life of Theater Hagen. Contemporary reporting describes the Christmas fairy tale as a long-established pre-Christmas tradition for schools in the region and records audiences drawn from several generations.
A contemporary report from November 2012, on Die Prinzessin auf der Erbse, stated that approximately 30,000 people of all generations were expected to see the production before Christmas, including numerous school classes. The report also describes the Christmas fairy tale as part of the pre-Christmas “curriculum” for many regional schools. It specifically discusses Ricardo Viviani’s choreography and its effect on the predominantly young audience.
The figure of 30,000 is retained here as a contemporary reported expected attendance figure for the 2012 production, not as a calculated cumulative audience figure for the entire period.
Dance and Choreography
Viviani’s role within the series was specifically choreographic. Contemporary Theater Hagen publications and press material repeatedly identify him as choreographer, including documentation for Hänsel und Gretel, Kalif Storch and König Drosselbart.
The 2012 contemporary review of Die Prinzessin auf der Erbse gives additional evidence of the artistic character of this work. It describes Viviani’s choreography as contributing to the atmosphere of the production and specifically connects his choreographic approach with the imagination of a child.
This recurring engagement therefore provides substantial evidence for the development of dance as an integral component of Viviani’s work for young audiences, within large-scale theatrical productions rather than only within dedicated educational workshops.
Young Audiences / Dance Education
The Theater Hagen Märchen work is an important part of the broader Dance Educator strand in Ricardo Viviani’s archive. The audience was not incidental: the productions were conceived and programmed specifically for children, families and school groups.
The Theater Hagen programme for Hänsel und Gretel explicitly describes the responsibility of presenting fairy tales to thousands of children entering the theatre space for the first time and experiencing the performance with all their senses. The production credits Ricardo Viviani with choreography.
The recurring Märchen practice therefore represents a different but complementary form of dance education from workshop-based projects such as Carl & children in Kleve or Carnaval da Dorotéia in Frankfurt: here, children encountered dance through professional theatre productions designed specifically for young audiences.
Production History
The individual production records currently documented in the archive include the Theater Hagen Christmas-period fairy-tale productions for which Ricardo Viviani’s choreographic involvement is recorded. These records should remain the principal sources for individual production facts, dates, collaborators, premieres and production details.
The broader production history includes, among others, Die Prinzessin auf der Erbse, Der Froschkönig, Hänsel und Gretel, Kalif Storch and König Drosselbart, alongside other productions documented in the existing Theater Hagen production records.
Public Reception / Contemporary Documentation
The surviving press material provides unusually valuable evidence of the scale and cultural position of the Märchen series.
In November 2012, TV58.de reported on Die Prinzessin auf der Erbse and described an expected audience of approximately 30,000 people of all generations, including numerous school classes. The article emphasizes the long-established relationship between the Christmas fairy tale and regional schools and discusses Viviani’s choreography as an important part of the production.
In November 2013, Lokalkompass Hagen reported on the Märchenwerkstatt for Der Froschkönig, identifying Ricardo Viviani as choreographer and describing the public workshop as an opportunity to see the production process and meet members of the creative team.
Contemporary material for Hänsel und Gretel, Kalif Storch and König Drosselbart further documents Viviani’s continuing choreographic role in the series.
Institutional Context
The importance of the Märchen series lies not only in the individual productions but also in its institutional continuity at Theater Hagen. The recurring format connected professional theatre-making with a large and returning young audience, including organised school attendance and family performances.
The available documentation indicates that the theatre treated these productions as an important part of its relationship with younger audiences, while the recurring engagement of Viviani established continuity in the choreographic language of the series.
Contribution / Significance
The Theater Hagen Märchen series represents a substantial body of work in Ricardo Viviani’s development as a choreographer working with young audiences.
It demonstrates that his work with children and families extended beyond isolated educational projects into sustained professional theatre practice, where choreography formed part of large-scale productions experienced by school groups, families and multigenerational audiences.
The contemporary evidence of large attendance, repeated school participation and the theatre’s stated responsibility toward first-time young theatre visitors gives this strand particular relevance to the archive’s developing Dance Educator / Young Audiences history.
Assessment / Relevance
This recurring Theater Hagen practice is one of the strongest pieces of evidence for a long-term young-audience dimension in Viviani’s career.
It should therefore be read alongside, rather than merged with, his school-based dance education projects, cultural mediation projects and later young-audience activities. Together these records establish a broader professional strand in which dance functions as artistic creation, communication and access to culture for younger generations.
Archival Material
Surviving and identified documentation includes: individual Theater Hagen production records; Theater Hagen season programmes and theatre newspapers; contemporary press coverage; Märchenwerkstatt documentation; production photographs and other surviving visual material; and the broader Theater Hagen production list.
The 30,000 figure is retained specifically as the contemporary reported expected audience for the 2012 production Die Prinzessin auf der Erbse. It should not currently be presented as a cumulative attendance figure for the entire approximately ten-year period.
Keywords
Theater Hagen · Märchen zur Weihnachtszeit · Christmas fairy tale · young audiences · children · families · school groups · dance education · Dance Educator · choreography · children’s theatre · family theatre · cultural education · Die Prinzessin auf der Erbse · Der Froschkönig · Hänsel und Gretel · Kalif Storch · König Drosselbart · Ricardo Viviani
This record documents the recurring institutional and artistic practice of Ricardo Viviani’s work as choreographer for the Märchen zur Weihnachtszeit at Theater Hagen. Individual productions remain the primary records for production-specific facts and should not be duplicated here. Contemporary press and institutional publications are used to document the scale, continuity and young-audience context of the series. Attendance figures are retained according to their original documentary meaning and are not converted into cumulative estimates without further evidence.
„Ein Kind, dem nie Märchen erzählt worden sind, wird ein Stück Feld in seinem Gemüt behalten, das in späteren Jahren nicht mehr angebautwerden kann.“ Johann Gottfried von Herder, Schriftsteller, Philosoph und Theologe der Aufklärungszeit
Unermüdlich erzählen wir deshalb auf der Bühne Märchen – immer in der Verantwortung, dass tausende Kinder zum allerersten Mal den Theaterraum betreten und mit allen Sinnen dem Bühenerlebnis entgegenfiebern.
In diesem Jahr präsentieren wir ein Märchen, das zu den meist erzählten gehört – aber auch zu den meist umstrittenen: Eltern bringen aus sozialer Not ihre beiden Kinder tief in den Wald und hoffen, dass Hänsel und Gretel dort verloren gehen.
Auf ihrem Irrweg gelangen die ausgestoßenen Kinder an das Lebkuchenhaus einer Menschen fressenden Hexe. Mit List können sich beide befreien und kehren mit reichlich Schmuck und Nahrung zurück zum Elternhaus.
Entgegen der Haltung der 70er Jahre, die das Erzählen der Volksmärchen in Frage stellte, werden wir uns gemeinsam mit den jungen Gästen hinein stürzen in diese Geschichte über böse und gut, dumm und schlau, traurig und lustig, hungrig und satt, dunkel und hell, unglücklich und glücklich.
Rolf Gelewski — Ricardo Viviani presentation, 11 May 2015
Type: Presentation · Research Date: 11 May 2015 Context: Research into Rolf Gelewski and dance pedagogy Format: Prezi presentation Role: Researcher · Presenter Subject: Rolf Gelewski (1930–1988)
Rolf Gelewski — A Biographical Presentation
On 11 May 2015, Ricardo Viviani prepared a Prezi presentation devoted to the life and work of Rolf Gelewski. The presentation formed part of his research into Gelewski’s place within dance pedagogy and his relevance to Viviani’s own artistic formation.
The presentation is preserved as a record of the research activity itself. The Prezi remains the principal document.
Archival Material:
Prezi presentation dated 11 May 2015; presentation images; research notes; related references to Gelewski.
Type: Production · Presentation · Dance Education Date: 12 June 2014 — documented premiere Time-span: 2014 Location: Casa do Brasil · Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Context: Brazilian Carnival · cultural education · young audiences · 2014 FIFA World Cup Role: Choreographer · Director · Dance Educator Participants: Julia Mota Carvalho — Dorotéia · dance dramaturgy Status: Historical record · documented from surviving project material
Record / Description
Carnaval da Dorotéia — Tanzen mit Dorothee was a dance-education and cultural presentation for children introducing Brazilian Carnival through movement, music and regional cultural references.
Ricardo Viviani and Júlia Carvalho for Carnaval da Dorotéia at the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof
The surviving project exposition documents the premiere at Casa do Brasil, Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, on 12 June 2014. The project was conceived for children and their parents and combined an introduction to Brazilian Carnival with practical dance and movement activities.
The surviving material describes Brazilian Carnival through examples from different regions of the country. The programme connected the activities to the atmosphere surrounding the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil and referred specifically to Salvador, Fortaleza and Recife and to forms of Carnival and popular dance associated with those places.
The project was conceived not simply as a performance but as an encounter in which children could experience Brazilian culture through their own bodies, music and movement.
The Work / Creation
Carnaval da Dorotéia, Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, 2014. Public web version reduced in resolution for privacy protection; original photograph
The project exposition identifies Ricardo Viviani as choreographer and describes the format as a one-hour pedagogical encounter with three principal stages:
Introduction — approximately 15 minutes. Dorotéia welcomes the children, introduces Brazilian Carnival, plays music and demonstrates dance movements. A playful geographical association connects Brazilian regions and cities with different Carnival traditions.
Dance and movement — approximately 30–40 minutes. The children participate in free movement, coordination and rhythm exercises, spatial work and basic dance movements. A simple choreographic structure develops into a more open and festive Carnival section.
Reflection. The concluding section combines photographs, movement and conversation about Brazil, Carnival and the places introduced during the activity. The surviving exposition refers specifically to a Bumba-meu-boi element in this concluding context.
Production
The surviving production documentation credits Ricardo Viviani with concept, choreography and pedagogical execution. The project also identifies Julia Mota Carvalho as Dorotéia and as a dance dramaturgical collaborator.
Ricardo’s archival recollection describes the project as a commissioned intervention connected with the Brazilian cultural programme in Frankfurt during the 2014 World Cup. The precise commissioning organisation is not named here because it has not yet been independently established from the surviving documentation.
Contracts, invoices and other managerial or administrative documents relating to the production are preserved privately and are not reproduced on this public archival page.
Dance Education
Carnaval da Dorotéia continues a documented strand of Ricardo Viviani’s practice connecting professional dance, cultural education and work with young audiences.
An earlier documented example is Carl & children / Tanzprojekt zu Carl Andre, developed with the Karl Kisters Realschule in Kleve. The surviving Kinder zum Olymp! certificate identifies the project as an Endrundenteilnehmer of the 2011/2012 competition „Schulen kooperieren mit Kultur“, in the category Tanz for Klassen 5–9, with Ricardo Viviani identified as Tänzer und Choreograph.
This Kleve work is independently corroborated by the NRW Kultur und Schule project documentation, which records Ricardo Viviani as the artist for Klever Klangnacht at Karl Kisters Realschule Kleve-Kellen during the 2011/2012 school year. Museum Kurhaus Kleve also documents the Karl Kisters Realschule’s participation in the Schule Kunst Museum network and student dance performances connected with the Carl Andre exhibition.
The Kleve work is retained here as relevant background to Viviani’s established practice with schools, dance education and young people. A fuller archival account of the Karl Kisters Realschule, Kleve and Museum Kurhaus collaborations will be documented separately.
Kinder zum Olymp! certificate documenting Carl & children / Tanzprojekt zu Carl Andre as an Endrundenteilnehmer, 2011/2012.
Activity / Event
The surviving flyer documents a public presentation at Casa do Brasil, Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, with the date 13 July 2014. The project exposition, however, identifies 12 June 2014 as the premiere. The two dates are therefore preserved as separate documentary references rather than reconciled by assumption.
The flyer also gives a different target age range from the project exposition: it addresses children aged 8–12, while the exposition describes the project as intended for children aged 5–12. Both formulations are retained as evidence from their respective documents.
Promotional flyer for Carnaval da Dorotéia at Casa do Brasil, Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, 2014.
Primary Source / Documentation
The principal surviving documentation consists of the project exposition Carnaval da Dorotéia — Tanzen mit Dorothee, version 3, dated 15 January 2015; the promotional flyer; surviving photographs; the promotional video; and associated project records.
The exposition provides the principal documentary account of the project’s concept, pedagogical structure, team and intended audience. The flyer provides independent documentary evidence for a public presentation and preserves a different date and age specification.
The surviving visual material is retained as archival evidence. Where children appear, public derivatives should be reduced, cropped or otherwise prepared so that children are not reasonably identifiable. Original documentary files remain preserved separately as archival masters.
Bumba-meu-boi element associated with the Carnaval da Dorotéia activity.
Personal Reflection
I later collaborated with Júlia in a commission during the football World Cup in Brazil to create an occupation in the Frankfurt train station in Germany to present Brazil through its different Carnival cultures and give the continental dimension of the country. It was called Carnaval da Dorotéia for young people and schools. Many pictures survive and a flyer describing the intervention to recruit school classes. [from IRIBIRI recollections]
This recollection is preserved as Ricardo Viviani’s retrospective account and is distinguished from the independent documentary evidence contained in the surviving project material.
Relationship
Carnaval da Dorotéia is related to Ricardo Viviani’s broader work in dance education and with young audiences, including documented projects developed with schools in Kleve. The relationship to the Karl Kisters Realschule and the Museum Kurhaus Kleve will be developed more fully in the relevant archival records rather than duplicated here.
Place / Context
Carnaval da Dorotéia, Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, 2014. Public web version reduced in resolution for privacy protection; original photograph preserved in the archive.
Casa do Brasil, Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof formed the documented institutional and spatial setting for the project. The Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof context was particularly relevant to the project’s public-facing cultural approach: Brazilian Carnival was presented in a major railway environment during the period of the 2014 World Cup.
The surviving project documentation should be read primarily as evidence of a cultural-educational intervention rather than as a conventional stage production.
Contribution / Significance
The project is significant within Ricardo Viviani’s practice because it brought together choreography, dance education, cultural mediation and young audiences in a public setting.
Its distinctive contribution was to approach Brazilian Carnival through embodied experience: children encountered regional cultural references through music, rhythm, movement and participation rather than through information alone.
Assessment / Relevance
Carnaval da Dorotéia documents an intersection between Viviani’s Brazilian cultural background, his professional choreographic practice and his continuing work in dance education.
The surviving documentation also demonstrates a form of cultural presentation in which dance functions simultaneously as artistic practice, educational medium and means of intercultural encounter.
Archival Material
Surviving material includes: Project exposition: Carnaval da Dorotéia — Tanzen mit Dorothee, version 3, 15 January 2015, Promotional flyer for Casa do Brasil, Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, Photographic documentation from 2014, Promotional video, Private contracts, invoices and administrative project records, retained but not reproduced publicly.
Keywords
Carnaval da Dorotéia · Tanzen mit Dorothee · Brazilian Carnival · dance education · Dance Educator · young audiences · children · cultural education · Frankfurt · Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof · Casa do Brasil · 2014 FIFA World Cup · Brazilian culture · Bumba-meu-boi · Frevo · Salvador · Fortaleza · Recife · Julia Mota Carvalho · Ricardo Viviani
This record distinguishes documentary evidence, external documentation and Ricardo Viviani’s retrospective recollection. Dates, audience descriptions and other details are retained according to their respective surviving sources where discrepancies occur. Later discoveries, corrections or additional documentation should be added through a dated Post Scriptum rather than silently altering the historical record.
