Valeska Gert occupies a singular locus within dance scholarship. This lecture interrogates how Gert has been researched and which methodological instruments remain to be forged. I contend that sustained engagement with Gert allows sharpening the field’s theoretical acuity, methodological reflexions and questions its focus on avant-garde self-understanding of the field. Her frenetic oeuvre has compelled dance studies to mobilize frameworks addressing gender, identity, exile, embodiment, and transgressive aesthetics, thereby exposing underlying research paradigms. Reading her works, writings, and archives, I allows tracing how the discipline itself has been transformed. An intersectional lens further situates Gert within institutional and economic conditions of dance production, prompting questions about value-making, inclusion and exclusion.

Yvonne Hardt is Professor of Dance Studies and Choreography at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Cologne and has held this position since 2009. Previously, she was Assistant Professor of Dance, Choreography and Dance Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Her scholarly interests include, among other things, the methodological development of dance studies as a discipline. Her most recent publications include Tanz und kulturelle Bildung erforschen (2023).

This lecture is a part of the series Valeska Gert and her Afterlives. FU Berlin / AdK / DAAD: Celebrating 20 years of the Valeska Gert Professorship.