The term Bauhaus evokes functionality, social utopia, maybe even novel pedagogical thinking, but this is often associated with its role as a school of design. However, the Bauhaus developed out of a movement that was split between the rational and what P谩draic E. Moore refers to as the 鈥榗osmically-inclined鈥. This year鈥檚 Bauhaus centenary gives pause for thought to the contrasting utopianisms at the heart of the school, and to the esoteric elements, which have been given less attention in its historiography.
These elements are often reduced to the influence of Wassily Kandinsky, who articulated a 鈥榮piritual vision鈥 for 20th-century art. Kandinsky sought to unite form, colour, sound, and movement in 鈥榯he gradual forming structure of the new spiritual realm鈥. Der gelbe Klang (鈥楾he Yellow Sound鈥) is one such 鈥榮ymphonic composition鈥 that paved the way for a new theatre. It first appeared in Der Blaue Reiter Almanac (Munich, 1912; C.107.h.16) and comprises six 鈥榩ictures鈥 almost without dialogue, detailing elaborate staging and actor movements.
Kandinsky was a key influence on Lothar Schreyer, pioneer of expressionist theatre, who, according to David F. Kuhns, 鈥榖uilt a whole theory of performance on the expressive process first suggested in The Yellow Sound鈥.

Title-page of Lothar Schreyer, Kreuzigung (Hamburg, 1920) C.180.cc.8.
Where Kandinsky offers lengthy stage directions as a surrogate for synesthetic art experience, Schreyer鈥檚 Kreuzigung: Spielgang Werk VIII attempts to represent a spiritual experience in a singular score, employing a distinct set of signs and symbols, colours and forms. Its publication triggered Walter Gropius to invite Schreyer to the Bauhaus, where he led the stage workshop between 1921 and 1923.

Lothar Schreyer in 1918. (Picture from Universit盲tsbibliothek Heidelberg, CC-BY-SA-3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Kandinsky was influential but Schreyer鈥檚 Bauhaus experience was shaped more by Johannes Itten and Gertrud Grunow, two less familiar names. Schreyer鈥檚 thinking around rhythm maps onto ideas simiular to theirs. Itten led the Bauhaus Preliminary Course [Vorkurs] and Grunow the course in 鈥楶ractical Harmonization鈥 [Praktische Harmonisierungslehre], both forming the foundation of a student鈥檚 education. Itten鈥檚 devotion to Mazdaznan opened his practice to regulating physical exercises, including breathing and rhythmic drawing. Likewise, Grunow encouraged rhythmic breathing and a response to colours through movement. Both were committed to strengthening students鈥 鈥榮elf-awareness in relation to both the corporeal and the spiritual鈥 (Linn Buchert). In the focus on fundamental words, tones, colours, forms, Schreyer also encourages in each of his practitioners an inner harmony, sound, or rhythm, which pushes to a limit the experience of 鈥榳ord鈥. This is more than the 鈥榯ransmission of a message鈥; it is the evocation of spirit.
Kreuzigung developed out of Schreyer鈥檚 work with Der Sturm, the most influential journal of German expressionism, an offshoot of which, Die Sturm-B眉hne, he edited in collaboration with the Hamburg Kampfb眉hne, his parallel theatre project. Schreyer鈥檚 expressionism went against the overly literary dramatic tradition, which he declared defunct: in his 1916 essay 鈥楧as B眉hnenkunstwerk鈥, he wrote: 鈥業t is necessary to forget theatre. [鈥 A stage art [B眉hnenkunstwerk] is necessary鈥. That stage art privileged performance over print, synesthetic experience over dialogue. Kreuzigung then returns to the print medium in order to explode the representative possibilities of literature.
The book is not described as a playscript [Theaterst眉ck], rather Schreyer prefers the neologism Spielgang. Whereas the usual term refers to a piece, the new term draws attention to the mobility of the text through Gang (path, walk, derived from the verb gehen, to walk or go). It is the only Spielgang to materialize from a workshop process that was usually reserved for the Kampfb眉hne鈥檚 community of artists. Schreyer only rarely allowed outsiders into performances and practically no reviews. Yet Kreuzigung became the exemplary work 鈥榯o grant others the knowledge鈥 of this creative experimentation through, in Schreyer鈥檚 own words, 鈥榯he system and sign, in which a stage work was given the stability of form [die Best盲ndigkeit der Gestalt]鈥.
The text is evocative rather than wholly readable. It works in connection with the representation of movement, figures (as coloured forms), and sound. That is apparent from the title page, headed with the motto, 鈥楽turm dir Sturm allen Sturm鈥, which might be translated as 鈥楽torm to you Storm to all Storm鈥 but also works on the level of sonic rhythm and visual symmetry, especially in the heightened artistry of the wood-block setting.

鈥榃hat the reader must know鈥, from Kreuzigung
The next page sets out what the reader, performer, and spectator 鈥榤ust know鈥. Schreyer writes in the essay 鈥楤眉hnenwerk Spielgang und Spiel鈥 that 鈥榠n order to learn the Spielgang system and its signs, no particular course of study is necessary鈥. Yet, the universal pretensions are qualified in the work itself as 鈥楢nyone can read the score who can hear word-tones [Worttone] internally and see the movement of coloured form鈥. Likewise, 鈥楾he play can only be seen and heard with a circle of friends as a shared experience, as a shared act of devotion, as a shared work鈥. On one level, Kreuzigung acts as a representation of performance but, on another, it points to the impossibility of that very representation. It is at once readable by all and penetrable only by the initiated.

The system and symbols from Kreuzigung
The system is unpacked on the following page. Three levels are represented on a stave: word sequence, tone sequence and movement sequence. A zigzag line on the tone sequence denotes pitch based on its position and on the yellow (high) or blue (low) lines. The bracket symbols refer to volume and the target signs to pauses in both sound and movement. Words are stretched and contracted as appropriate to the bar by way of the woodcut text. The cross-like symbol relates to the 鈥楳an鈥 character, the single red circle to the 鈥楳other鈥 character, and the two red circles to the 鈥楤eloved鈥 character.

The figures of 鈥楳an鈥 and 鈥楤eloved鈥 from Kreuzigung
These symbolic referents point to the 鈥榙e-individuated 鈥渁rt-body鈥 stripped of socially conditioned speech and movement patterns [鈥 capable of expressing universal truths鈥 (Buckley). In fact, the Spielgang was a communal creation based on an original process of meditation and vocal practice to identify the performer鈥檚 ground-tone [Grundton], becoming word-tones [Wortton] when applied to language and Sprachtonspiele when in sentence combinations.
Schreyer glosses the play itself as a 鈥榙esperate struggle for humanity against daemonic forces鈥. It evokes a post-war apocalypse, around which man wanders wounded in the company of two female characters in the conventional guises of mother and mistress, ultimately seeking escape through spiritual transcendence.

鈥楳an: Wounded feet of men carry us | Woman: My heart is blood鈥, from Kreuzigung (all translations by Mel Gordon)
Ultimately, while salvation is demanded, it does not arrive, as the figures are left to call for the world to wake, to realize itself beyond the material desperation. Yet, Kreuzigung is not just the representation of some failed transcendence; that would neglect the formal purity of a project less concerned with content. Rather, 鈥榯he actual logic of the work of word art [Wortkunstwerk] is more of an artistic logic鈥. Spiritual transcendence is a process entered into in the performance and experience of such universal stage art.

Complex movements: 鈥楤eloved: I am (Beloved alternately moves arms up and down four times) | Man: All tasks we perform. Flames break at midnight. (Mother quarter turn left, right arm horizontal sideways. Hand behind, then in front, opens left hand on breast; Beloved quarter turn right, right arm horizontal sideways. Hand behind, then in front, opens left hand on left breast; Man forearm on cross, straight in front; Mother right hand on right breast; Beloved right hand on right breast)

鈥楽aviour!鈥 (All together)

The End: 鈥楢wake. World. Awake.鈥 (All together)
Kreuzigung is an attempt to encapsulate the anti-literary in print, what Buckley terms the manifestation of Schreyer鈥檚 鈥榓nxious utopianism鈥, which enacts the tensions 鈥榖etween its knowledge and its hopes 鈥 between the Werk as commodity and the Arbeit of the community, between mediation and immediacy鈥. A contemporary of Schreyer, Robert Musil, articulated this negotiation between spirit and rationality a year after the publication of Kreuzigung, as 鈥榓n abiding miscommunication between the intellect and the soul. We do not have too much intellect and too little soul, but too little precision in matters of the soul鈥. In the urge to leave something material, 鈥榦ut of which creative people in the future could understand what forces had moved and shaped our plays鈥 (Schreyer, Erinnerungen), Schreyer and the Kampfb眉hne showed their precision in works of the soul and underlined that tension at the heart of the Bauhaus. Kreuzigung is thus the result of precise printing craft and a meticulous pedagogical process that might just also tend towards the divine.
Pardaad Chamsaz, Curator Germanic Collections
References / Further Reading
Wassily Kandinsky, On the Spiritual in Art, edited and translated by Hilla Rebay (New York, 1946), 7813.b.1.
Lothar Schreyer, Theateraufs盲tze (Lewiston, 2001), YC.2002.a.12966
鈥斺, Erinnerungen an Sturm und Bauhaus. Was ist des Menschen Bild? (Lewiston, 2002), YK.2002.a.21881
Robert Musil, Precision and Soul: Essays and Addresses (Chicago, 1990), YC.1991.b.1058
Hans M. Wingler, The Bauhaus: Weimar, Dessau, Berlin, Chicago (Cambridge, MA, 1979), f80/0186
Mel Gordon, 鈥楲othar Schreyer and the Sturmb眉hne鈥, The Drama Review, vol. 24, no. 1 (1980), pp. 85-102. 3623.197000
David F. Kuhns, German Expressionist Theatre: the Actor and the Stage (Cambridge, 1997), YC.2002.a.15612
Jennifer Buckley, 鈥楾he B眉hnenkunstwerk and the Book: Lothar Schreyer鈥檚 Theatre Notation鈥, Modernism.modernity, vol. 21, no. 2 (2014), pp. 407-24. 5900.120000
P谩draic E. Moore, 鈥A Mystic Milieu: Johannes Itten and Mazdaznan at Bauhaus Weimar鈥, bauhaus imaginista, edition 1
Elizabeth Otto and Patrick R枚ssler (eds), Bauhaus Bodies: Gender, Sexuality, and Body Culture in Modernism鈥檚 Legendary Art School (New York, 2019), ELD.DS.381646
Linn Buchert, 鈥楾he spiritual Enhancement of the Body: Johannes Itten, Gertrud Grunow, and Mazdaznan at the early Bauhaus鈥, in Bauhaus Bodies