In summer 2017, we invited Pew Fellow and choreographer/dancer Tania Isaac (2011) to sit down for an extended interview with Pew Fellow Hellmut Gottschild (1992), a seminal figure in Philadelphia dance. In the excerpts that follow, Gottschild describes his evolution as a dancer, how aging has affected his movement language, and the relationship of teaching to his artistic life.
Gottschild cofounded the contemporary dance company Group Motion in Berlin with Brigitta Herrmann and Katharina Sehnert, and continued to work with the company after moving to Philadelphia in 1968. In 1972, he founded Zero Moving Dance Company, which performed throughout the US and Europe. He served as a distinguished member of the dance department at Temple University for nearly three decades.
On becoming a dancer: Gottschild describes his journey to becoming a dancer and choreographer, recalling that it was a gradual process that grew out of not knowing “any other place to run to.”
On making dance: “There can be truth, there can be wisdom, in the movement itself. I like to find the world inside the movement.”
On the effects of age: “I had to go into greater depth with what I still could do, and wanted to do…I didn’t make work on a body; I made work with a body.”
>>See archival footage of Gottschild in motion in this Pew Fellowships Anniversary video.
