filamentosmovimentos

"The radical experiments undertaken with the "dream dancer" Madeleine G., whose dance works share a variety of governing principles with subsequent german expressionist choreography, poignantly underline the close connection at the time between hysteria and dance.
(...) The ordinary public was excluded from many of Madeleine's performances and only selected representatives of the academia, press and art world were invited to attend. On these occasions, Madeleine underwent a series of examinations carried out by specialists - for instance opticians and psychiatrists - shortly before, during and after her performances. In Munich alone, fourteen doctors considered her case deeming it an "interesting case of hypnotic somnambulism based on hysteria".
(...)
She displayed a noticeable talent for transforming affects she found expressed in music into nuanced mimic expressions and dance.
(...)
She was never deemed a pathological case or madwoman, which would considerably weakened the sense of her artistic achievement.
(...)
Madeleine's dance took its inspiration entirely from elemental experience, thus radicalizing the possibilities of a bodily art form originating entirely from non-rational, affective dispositions. "



in "Performing Femininity: Dance and Literature in German Modernism" by Alexandra Kolb
p.131-140