"Alle alle starben […] an meiner Geschlechtslosigkeit, die doch alle Geschlechter in sich hat". Eine queer-feministische Spurensuche zu Anita Berbers tänzerischem Werk der 1920er-Jahre

Abstract

The dancer and artist Anita Berber (1899–1928) became an icon of the rural 1920s in Berlin; her dances about death, addiction and gender roles became a scandal. It was the time of modern dance that broke with all previous conventions. Anita Berber went even further and, even within these upheavals, extremely challenged her audience's moral standards and viewing habits: Long before the times of performance art, Anita Berber masturbated on stage, made menstrual blood the central motif of one of her pieces and wrote poems with her gay dance partner Sebastian Droste which include ideas of what we call queer today.