site of political mobilization.Based on his experiences workingwith various
Leipzig-based amateur groups,hedescribed the maingoal of theSprechchor
movement as“the manifestation of rousingpolitical insights through the per-
formers’bodies, with the ultimategoal of propellingthe audience into action.”²¹
The growingsignificanceofbodycultureineverydaylife confirmed his belief in
what he called the primacy of rhythm–especiallyits prelinguistic, preindividual
qualities–in facilitating proletarian identifications.²²If treated as an integral
part of these bodilyregimes, choral speaking would eventuallyovercomethe di-
vide between“passive majority”and“active minority”and fullyintegrate theau-
dience into theaural, visual,and kinetic effects of the movement chorus turned
mass movement.Ofcourse, the realization of the proletarianGesamtkunstwerk
required extensive training of all participants,Zimmermann admitted, including
gymnasticexercisesthatachievedcompleteunityandsynchronicityingroup
movements and breathingand speaking exercises that trained the performers
in precise diction, rhythm, andvolume.²³
TheSprechchormovement beganaspart of the socialist mass festivals or-
ganized in Leipzig around the turn of the centuryand reached an initial high
point inJanuary 1920 with the stagingofthe historical slave revolt ofSpartacus
on acycle-racing track duringatradeunion festival in front of fifty thousand
spectators. Mass dances,songs, and pantomimes had always playedanimpor-
tant part in the dramatization of revolutionary moments, with the preference
for open-air theaters discouragingillusionist tendencies and expandingthe
boundaries of theater asapublic space. On the remainingpages, it maymake
sense to situate the emergence of the collective subjectaspart ofalongernine-
teenth-century history of socialist theater in critical dialogue with bourgeois the-
ater and older dramatic forms and traditions. Introducing thedramatis persona
of the worker’smovement,titles suchTagdes Proletariats(1924,Day of the Pro-
letariat) by ErnstToller,Arbeiter,Bauern, Soldaten(1924,Workers,Peasants, Sol-
diers) byJohannesR.Becher,andLiebknechtLuxemburg Lenin(1927)byHans
Lorbeer proudlydeclared the Marxist orientation of this emerging collective
OttoZimmermann,“Dramatischer Chor?,”Kulturwille7. 5(1930): 93 – 94.For asimilar argu-
ment,see Walter Zeiler,“UnsereJugendweihen,”Sozialistische Bildung1(1932): 14 – 16.
OttoZimmermann,“Gymnastik undTanz vomStandpunkt des Arbeiters,”Kulturwille5.1
(1928): 4–5. Zimmermannwrote the standardworks on this variant of theSprechchor,the
two-partDer Sprechbewegungschor(Leipzig: Arbeiter-Turnverlag,1929–30) and, together with
Hermann Heyerand GeorgBenedix,Maschine und Arbeit in GestaltungenfürLaientanz-,Sprech-
undBewegungs-Chor(Leipzig: Arbeiter-Turnverlag,1930).
OttoZimmermann,Der Sprechbewegungschor.Theoretische GrundlagenandHinweisefürdie
Praxis(Leipzig: Arbeiter-Turnverlag,1929).
SocialDemocracy and the PerformanceofCommunity 233