Cosmically eccentric. Tribute to Xanti Schawinsky.

Since 2024 the elective course “Performative Arcitectonics” (Art Techniques) is negotiating and experimenting with the question how human bodies can transform themselves into different materials and spatial concepts and express these transformations performatively on the Bauhaus stage. In the winter semester of 2025/26, the course will focus primarily on the Bauhaus stage experiments of Xanti (Alexander) Schwawinsky. One hundred years ago, in 1925 and 1926, also before Oskar Schlemmer came to Dessau, he startzed to reorganize the Bauhaus stage, which had been founded in Weimar in 1921. The stage ideas he developed during this time serve as inspiration for the course in the development of new material, mask, and costume performances. The focus is on Schawinsky's vision of “cosmic eccentricity,” in which the performers use silk, aluminum, and other modern materials to bring a fantastically moving world to life. There are plans to present the Schawinsky études developed in the course to the public in early 2026 as part of a Xanti Schawinsky exhibition organized by the city of Dessau in collaboration with the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation.

Teachers: Torsten Blume, Matthias Lipeck, Tomoya Kawamura.