Bewegungsszenarien der Ballettreform und des Literaturballetts (1760/ 1960)

This article explores the transmedial process of translation of words into movements and vice versa by analysing parallels and differences between movement scenarios and literary ballets created from the 1760s and the 1960s onwards. It introduces different forms of movement scenarios that precede or accompany the creation of literary ballets or contribute to their preservation – literary texts and libretti, notations, reviews and other written descriptions of the movements of a ballet. These movement scenarios and the choreographic »texts« of ballets allow us to study the ways works of literature have been transposed into movements since the eighteenth century. The article briefly compares two ballets created in Stuttgart in 1763 and 1978 respectively, Jean-Georges Noverre’s ‚Médée et Jason‘ and John Neumeier’s ‚Lady of the Camellias‘. Thus, it demonstrates that the task which eighteenth- century ballet masters set themselves for the first time – the transposition of complex literary sources into a wordless genre – was fully accomplished two hundred years later when a number of choreographers created expressive movement vocabularies that allowed them to represent and interpret the action of literary texts.