Wolfgang recalls the first performance of RÜCKBLICK at The Place Theatre in 1981, and the events leading up to it.

After our performance of I AM NOT YET DEAD in 1980, our friend Mrs. Vera Bonhomme, who believed in what I was doing, encouraged me to write a book.  She was concerned that other people coming to my classes would write books and use my ideas, which I later discovered was the case.  Mrs Bonhomme was living in Coventry but came to London every Thursday to help me to write the book.

The Stange System of Therapeutic Calisthenics was finished in 1981, but I never published it as it was too technical for my liking.  I told Mrs. Bonhomme that it had not enough soul, which I thought my work was all about.  “Feelings don’t belong in a such a book”, she proclaimed.  Then I have to wait until I can do it and the time is right, I thought.

We in AMICI returned to our Wednesday class at St. Andrews.  Normansfield had sent the students who were in our performance to nearby Day Centres, so I could no longer work with them.  They were replaced by students with multiple difficulties, mainly wheelchair users.

Before we embarked on our 1982 production of RÜCKBLICK we were asked to do a production in 1981 for the “International Year of Disabled Persons”.  THE DREAM, as it was called, had only the combined classes of the sighted and the blind dancers.  Two young men from Venezuela joined us for this project and all I can remember is a duet between our Chrissie and the rather large Venezuelan called Adolfo that I had choreographed the duet for.  We performed, it as I remember, at the West London College Studio Theatre in Barons Court.

1981 was also the year Judy Fairclough was asked to bring The Venturers to Lille in France to be part of celebrating this special year.  I had just returned from Sri Lanka when Judy rang me and invited me to go with her to France and choreograph a piece on the theme of Halloween.  A week later we left.  Graeae Theatre Company had also been invited.

Many things were initiated in that particular year.  The BBC commissioned Nick Darke to write the script for a TV series on dance, highlighting Dance for the Disabled.  Pedr James was the Director and they had chosen Ben Kingsley to play my character.  I wanted my students to play themselves, but there was not such enlightenment in the early days and it was decided that actors should play my students.  I was very apprehensive, but my mind was put at rest when I realized that the actors were very sincere and did a thorough character study before they embarked on their task.

They came to several classes at Normansfield, and also observed the students in their daily life at Normansfield.  Ben Kingsley had to shadow me for two weeks, observing me at the Stroke Unit, as well as at all the other settings where I was working at the time. I was asked to be the Movement Consultant at the TV Studio.  As we were in the process of rehearsing for RÜCKBLICK, I asked Ben if if he would give us the honour of playing the speaking part of Death and he agreed.  At the same time Pauline Cox, the make-up artist at the BBC, offered to do the make-up for RÜCKBLICK.

Sadly, RÜCKBLICK was not ready in the early summer of 1982, and by the autumn the promotion of the film Gandhi, in which Ben Kingsley starred, was in full swing and so we lost our Speaking Death.  However, Pauline Cox stood by her word and provided the make-up for RÜCKBLICK and all the Amici productions, that followed, and has been supporting us now for 38 years.

In the early summer of 1981, also as part of the International Year of Disabled Persons, I was invited to Australia House in London to watch a production with people with Down Syndrome that had been performed at The Sydney Opera House.  It was conceived and choreographed by a South American, I think called Aldo, who had made Australia his home.  I was taken aback with the whole professionalism that was displayed.  Total artistic integrity was shown by the cast, performing in an internationally known venue with total professional backing from lighting, costume and set design.  I was jubilant to see such amazing collaboration.  After the performance I met Seona Reid, now Dame Seona Reid, who had taken over SHAPE from Gina Levete and was now running it.  Seona had seen our I AM NOT YET DEAD and told me, “AMICI can do something like that.  We will provide the professional backing and the finance for it.  We are at your disposal.”  Well, what a wonderful offer, and even more wonderful was the belief that we would deliver the goods.

As always, I could not just do something because financial support was available.  I believed now as then that there has to be a reason and a message.  At the end of 1981 I had seen a poster advertising the first exhibition of the work of Käthe Kollwitz in Britain and the bells were ringing in my ears.  Käthe portrayed the working-class people of my home town, Berlin.  Her husband was a doctor in the working class district of Berlin and so Käthe saw how they suffered from the inequalities in society.

Käthe’s motive for drawing the working-class people was because they gave her in their simple way what she found beautiful.  I saw the beauty in the rawness of my students, their honesty and directness that drew me to them.  I suppose this is what inspired me to use Käthe’s work for our first professional performance.

Now there was a reason and also a message.  I went to Seona and proposed to create " RÜCKBLICK”.  Seona being a strong advocate of women’s rights could identify with Käthe Kollwitz and gave us her full support.

Since there was no way I could get the Normansfield students back, I thought of inviting a group of students from Strathcona Education Centre who had joined my dance class at the City Lit.  A group of ten students who came in their own mini bus.  I approached their teachers Joan and Mark and proposed that they should join our Wednesday AMICI group to work on RÜCKBLICK.  Luckily we had the total support of their manager Gerda Lewis who provided us with the transport and allowed her people to come out to the Wednesday evening rehearsals.

I brought books of Käthe’s work to the rehearsals, read passages of her diary and asked some of the students to re-create Käthe‘s sculptures so our blind members could get a basic feel of her work.  Gina, knowing of our new venture, brought a real bronze relief of Käthe‘s to the rehearsal.  Her friend owned this sculpture and had taken it out of a bank vault where it had been kept for security.  This was a very emotional moment for me and for all of us, but in particular for our blind members who were able to feel her work.  It was only repeated 13 years later in 1995 when we presented RÜCKBLICK in Berlin and the Käthe Kollwitz Museum there let us touch Käthe‘s sculptures.

Seona stood by her word and commissioned Nick Darke to write a script for RÜCKBLICK.  Sally Loughridge and Kate Owen were commissioned to do the costume and set design and Geoff Amos the lighting and the actor Gordon McDonald took Ben Kingsley‘s part.  The Place Theatre, the home of the London School of Contemporary Dance and my old school, was chosen as the professional venue.  Robin Howard, of The Place, who was passionate about the Martha Graham technique and had opened the first Contemporary Dance School of the Graham technique in Britain, was guided by Graham’s belief that Dancers are Athletes of God.  And now I brought my motley group of dancers to the High Temple of Dance.

I proposed five performances, but The Place advised me to have only two.  Better to have two half-full-audiences than five sparsely attended performances.  This was unchartered water and so I took their advice.  Even when the professional actor Gordon did not turn up for the dress rehearsal we were not concerned, as he was good and we felt he would turn up for the first night.  But he did not, and so I had to jump in at the last minute.  Luckily he had a similar build to mine, so the costume fitted me.

The Place has no curtains and so we all had to be on stage 15 minutes before the audience was let in.  Most of the company was on stage, all under an enormous white cloth, representing Käthe‘s sculpture under a dust cloth.  I was with my back to the audience and had no idea why we did not start.  After nearly an hour on stage, the lights suddenly dimmed and we could start.  I am still surprised nobody fainted. 

After I inquired why there was this hold up, I was told that some wheelchair users had arrived late and it took some time to get them to the entrance of the theatre.  My answer, people had the starting time of the performance, so if they are late, they have to wait until there is an appropriate moment for them to be able to enter the auditorium.  The next day we started on time.  (Part of the delay was also caused by people literally queuing around the block to get tickets.  The theatre admitted later that they could have sold seats for three more performances because of the high demand.) 

We had no idea how our performance would be received by the audience.  Once the lights were put off after the last image there was an eery silence.  When the lights came back on we got an standing ovation with shouts of bravo and stamping of feet.  We were dumbfounded, and then it sunk in.  After we took our bow, we hugged each other and cried.  Not very professional behaviour, but maybe very natural after all the tension beforehand.

Jane Kingshill, an audience member that night, wrote to me afterwards, and here is an extract from her letter.  “I was completely overwhelmed by the oneness of it all.  Every individual submitted to the whole and yet each individual became more of an individual and not less because of this surrender.”  In fact Jane seemed to have understood AMICI in its philosophy to accept and celebrate individuality.

Another letter came from a group of young people with Down Syndrome who studied Creative Writing at the City Lit.  This is what they wrote:

Memories of the first RÜCKBLICK

I joined Amici in 1981 (before the first RÜCKBLICK performance), for the ballet barre, but soon realised that there was no room for ego in a draughty old church hall with old concrete floors where nobody cared what you looked like, it was your humanity that counted.  That was the essence of the classes run by their inspired teacher Wolfgang and the company which evolved as a result.  What he passed on to us from a long line of serious, committed dance artists, including Hilde Holger, was the embodiment of perceiving and bringing out the natural dance expression of every member of the company, whether sight impaired, Down syndrome, in a wheelchair, professional or semi-professional dancers. 

At the time it felt like a quiet revolution.

One of my most moving experiences was dancing the Mother’s Dance inspired by the Tower of the Mothers sculpture by Käthe Kollwitz, choreographed by Wolf.  Three sighted and three visually impaired dancers jete’d and glided across a dark stage to Carmina Burana.  It was fast, urgent, tragic, so powerful in its portrayal of women’s determination to survive and protect in the face of terrible adversity.  Because of our trust for each other, flinging ourselves into the black, reaching out, we became more than our individual contributions, we became a tower of hope artistically, personally and spiritually. 

No matter where I am, when I hear that music I am straight back there, alive in the moment.  Amici is made up of endless privileged experiences like this.

Maggie Landells

It was such an exciting time for us, getting the recognition for Wolfgang’s work.  I loved performing at The Place, probably my favourite location, there was a feeling of intimacy there.  And I remember the long wait under the cloths.  We were all quite nervous in our little huddle, and practised slow gentle breathing to keep us calm.  Then the sound of the aircraft and falling bombs took us into another world and a different kind of fear gripped us.

The Nightmare scene was always a bit of a nightmare, having to count and hope we were all doing the same thing at the same time.  The music and words, especially the Cuckoo song were so powerful.  The audience reception was just incredible.

There was such a wonderful sense of togetherness in the Dance of the Mothers, and the final death scene with Colin gave me a great sense of satisfaction.

As with other Amici productions, the tremendous trust we had in each other carried us through the difficult moments.

Margaret Wilson

When we started rehearsing for the new show in the autumn of 2019 I was keen that the Mothers Dance and The Crosses  should be included.  For me, I had just had a son, and the dances in the show resonated with me.  To this day they still make me cry. 

RÜCKBLICK was very special in that Amici, the company we now have, was built on the inclusion of students from the Strathcona Theatre Group who came from the Social Education Centre and attended weekly.  They were a great addition - they were used to taking direction, and like us all became riveted by the story of Kathe.

Wolfgang from the very start built the production on ideas from the weekly classes and his genius for making each and everyone of us give of our best makes him a great choreographer.  That is not to say he wasn’t strict and knew exactly what he wanted.

I could not believe I was finally going to appear on stage and nearly died of stage fright before the first night, but then Wolfgang said, “Come on, who is going to look at you?”  Just what I needed.

Carmina Burana- gosh, the music is heaven to dance to, and the Sanctus, where the whole company joins around Hilary.  When they used it for a car advert a few years ago I was so cross.  When I last heard it at the proms a gentleman offered to buy me a drink in the interval to ask why I had been crying.  It was lovely to tell him about Amici.

To add to the funny story about “Who is going to look at you?”, I was so bound up in ideas of going to the ballet at the opera house that I wanted to present Hilary, the star of our show, with a bouquet at the end of first night.  “Absolutely not!”, said Wolf, “There are no stars in this production.” And to prove it we all got a flower from him after the show!  Even the royal ballet stars who have danced with us don’t get any special treatment.

When, after the brief silence the audience gave us a standing ovation and I stood on a packed stage with the best dance company in the world I thought my heart would burst with joy.  Never in a million years did I believe this would be one of my greatest achievements.

There is a duet from RÜCKBLICK on You Tube

Perin Parri-Hughes

Here are a few paragraphs that describe how I felt about the first performance of RÜCKBLICK.  I remember all too well sitting under those dust sheets for an hour, shaking and sweating, not knowing what was going on.  In  true Amici style we stayed still and held hands!

Since the age of three I have always loved to dance and that is exactly what I did, but when I was aged nineteen studying dance at college I was asked to leave due to deterioration in my eyesight.  It felt like this was the end of my world. 

Some years on I was acting in Graeae Theatre Company.  After a performance at the Soho Theatre, Wolf came to chat and all of a sudden my world opened up again.  He told me about Amici; there was a way I was going to be able to dance.  Finally, about eighteen months later, I was able to attend my first class with Amici ,which was unbelievably  wonderful.  Wolf and Amici welcomed me with open arms.  The company enveloped me with love and care and I felt free to dance without being judged. I  was not alone.  Wolf always had time for everyone, he always seemed to know how to draw the best from each of us.

Then I found out that we were going to perform this amazing piece about Kathe Kollwitz’ life at the Place Theatre.  This was really beyond  my wildest dreams.  I could dance again and express my true self within the most wonderful group of people.  Together we were a strong force to be reckoned with and at the centre was passionate, determined and loving Wolfgang.

The world of dance was very narrow-minded at that time. It was all about ‘perfection’, whatever that is.  Your body had to look a certain way, you had to be able to move in a certain way and we were to perform in the epicentre of this way of thinking.  I am sure we were perceived as that very weird group.  Attitudes that we were not real artists pervaded  the air.  At the end of the first performance there was a long silence and then the whole auditorium erupted: hand clapping, foot stamping and shouting “Bravo!”. After that we were seen differently.

Elane Roberts

GALLERY OF IMAGES FROM RÜCKBLICK

We’re looking for young people to join Young Amici, a new inclusive dance theatre group, run by Amici Dance Theatre Company.

Young Amici is for those aged 11-25, disabled & non-disabled who are interested in dance & theatre. The classes are FREE, fun, fully inclusive and suitable for all levels of experience.

Young Amici is a chance to meet new people, take part and experience dance through Amici’s unique improvisation techniques and discover the Magic of Amici.

WHERE

The Dance Studio
Lyric Hammersmith
Lyric Squre
King Street
London
W6 0QL

WHEN

4.30pm to 6pm every Wednesday during term time

HOW

If you would like to take part or to find out more please email imogen@turtlekeyarts.org.uk or call 020 8964 5060

Wolfgang recollects the second production of Rückblick [Flashbacks] at The Young Vic in March 1983

After our first Rückblick we were asked by Jane Kingshill to appear with her inclusive theatre company Path’s production MIRANDA’S DREAM at The Young Vic.  Jane believed as passionately as I that theatre was for all and should be inclusive.  Jane and her family members started Path Production which concentrated on the spoken word and music whereas we in AMICI concentrated on movement. In both cases we used all three: Dance, Drama and Music, of course.

Their production of Miranda’s Dream drew on Shakespearean plays and ours of course on the work of Käthe Kollwitz.  Jane’s son Danny, a cello player, caught my eye and I invited him later to play the role of the apostate priest in our 1985 production of SILENCE.  Danny became a much-loved member of AMICI as an actor and musician.

The Young Vic performance had its own challenges.  Not only was the stage on two levels, but it was also almost in the round.  The choreography had to be repositioned because of the stage and its layout.

I remember that the staff looking after the technical side were not very helpful.  It took us nearly two hours after our arrival on stage to pull out nails that partly stuck out from the supposed dance floor.  It was obviously used for drama, where the performers were wearing shoes, but not suitable for barefoot dancers.  No help from the staff on duty.  We worked very hard and the rehearsals went on much longer than anticipated.  One member took me to the side and said, “Wolf, you have to stop now, the Strathcona students are knackered and need to stop.”  We had lost so much time pulling out all those nails to make it safe to dance on that we were behind in our schedule.  I knew I had to press on.  “Are you tired and need to stop?” I asked, “Let me ask the students.”  I explained the situation we were in and they overwhelmingly voted to carry on.  I felt guilty but knew we would not be ready for the performance otherwise, and I hope the tired ones have since forgiven me.

A TV crew from the German Television Tagesthemen had come to shoot some scenes and to interview some of us.  Tagesthemen is a very renowned TV programme normally going out after the 10‘clock news.  We still have a copy of the programme.  The moderator of the programme declared that one had to go all the way to London to see Käthe Kollwitz honoured in this way.

I cannot thank Jane and Path Production enough for inviting us to share the Young Vic with them.

Wolfgang Stange

Recollections of Rückblick (1983) from members of the cast

Käthe Kollwitz’s sculptures, drawings, posters and woodcuts convey to those that can bear to look, see and feel the shock of human suffering: of poverty, hunger, separation and loss, of the human sacrifice in war and of the ultimate act we all have to face in death.  These are eternal themes, tragically no less in the world today than they were in Käthe’s lifetime 100 years ago.  In her work these themes reverberate with courage, fortitude, acceptance, mother and sisterhood, and with a deep compassion and respect for what it means to be human.

It was these images that Wolfgang dared to bring alive directly on stage using Amici’s unique cast at a time when Integrated Dance and Theatre barely existed, let alone seen as able to address such dark, powerful and evocative themes. Wolfgang dared to invite the audience to feel the raw emotions that Käthe’s images evoked. 

Memories of Rückblick: Sitting for what seemed like hours on stage facing the audience with no curtain, listening to old German songs on a radio, hearing whispering and giggles from Amici members under the white cloths [dust sheets] of the sculptures wondering why, oh why, were we not starting, with my nerves growing every minute!  Hearing Voldi’s dulcet tones when he played one of the many Deaths which grew in number in each production.  The German production had six Deaths!  Dancing to the words of Faust.  The passion and intimacy of the parent’s duet and the poignancy of the duet with Käthe’s son played by Chris Collins.  The much rehearsed [and shouted at!] boy’s dance which is still shocking to watch as each young man is seduced by a dancing death into war.  Getting tangled up in the very, very long white cloth in the Bridal scene and not being able to untangle myself, causing much laughter at a rehearsal.  Cuts, bruises and splinters from the nails in the wooden steps at the Young Vic.  Rehearsals in St Andrews Church Hall where it was so cold that on one occasion Wolfgang went home and returned with Liquors for us all to try to warm us up.  Meeting Ben Kingsley after one performance and being so overwhelmed I could not speak.  Putting loads of white talcum powder in my hair to age myself.  It took equally ages each night to wash it out!

Most of all I remember the strength and closeness of the company as a whole, with each of us supporting each other through laughter and tears.  We spent many hours in each other’s company.  Abilities and disabilities faded into the background as we felt our way together through Wolfgang’s choreography.  Friendships grew strong within the whole cast and as in Käthe’s images the friendship between the six women who played the Mother’s grew, and for some of us has remained for nearly forty years.

I will never ever forget the first production of Rückblick at The Place in 1982.  The tension of the silence at the end of the production, then a standing ovation.  People said there were queues for tickets the following night.  I can recall the elation going home afterwards so much so that I got lost on the tube system!

Playing Käthe Kollwitz was a wonderful gift from Wolfgang and one of the most important experiences in my life.  Hearing Carmina Burana even now causes my heart to start beating fast and I am back on stage doing what I can to inhabit Käthe, knowing that all my Amici friends are whispering to each other under the white cloths and how they will burst into life once I lift the white cloths.

Little did I know then that Rückblick and Käthe would remain in all our lives across the years.  Productions at the Place [1982], at the Young Vic [1983]  at Riverside Studios [1988] a professional film [1992] and then the German revision at the Academie Der Kunste [1995] which we took to Berlin and then revisited at the Riverside Studios [1995].  Even now we are rehearsing “The Mother’s” for our 40th Anniversary as a company.

Each production brings memories of Amici members who are no longer with us but who remain powerfully alive in recollections.

Wolfgang’s vision, courage and creativity bought movement to Käthe’s sculptures and images.  My hope is that those who have contact with Amici leave with equal courage, inspiration and respect for every person’s unique individuality, seen in every member of Amici.  Käthe brought out that individuality in her Art.  Wolfgang bought it alive on stage and in the hearts and emotions of those who may meet Amici.

Hilary Beard

I had heard of Wolfgang when I was a student at Trent Park, because a few students went to work with him.  I was always very resistant, maybe I knew it would change my life, and I wasn’t ready for that until later.  Then Ann Peaker from Shape used to talk about Wolfgang.  I was still resistant.

I nearly didn’t do that workshop as I was teaching in the morning so arrived late.  It was for Derby Art Therapy students and was run by Judie Taylor.  It took place in July, I think.  (We all went to her house for dinner a few years later when Wolfgang stayed with me.)

What I loved that afternoon was how Wolfgang created a whole world through the improvisations, and how lovely the music was.  I went home so happy. I felt as if I’d entered another world.  I felt free.  So I knew I had to come to London.  I was a bit scared.  I think I rang Wolfgang for a chat before I came.  On the first night I met Hilary, and we made friends straight away.

I always used to rush away before the end to catch my last train home.  That was frustrating, running along through Earl’s Court.  It was the year we did Nigel’s MONKEY piece, and I danced a trio with Margaret and the beautiful black young man, whose name has just slipped my mind.  We did Wolfgang’s piece PASSAGE TO SANITY?  A lump comes into my throat as I write this, as those times were the most amazing of my whole career.  What I loved was how Wolfgang turned beauty around, and I saw in a different way.  I saw these young and old disabled people as beautiful.  It was like a family.  And I felt that I really danced, and it didn’t matter that I was a bit overweight and not great at technique.

So what year did the wall come down? If it was 1989, then that was the year I joined, in the September.  I went to Glasgow with AMICI, and to Berlin and Vienna.  Berlin was the most amazing time as we were a strong group of women, Hilary, Janee, Anne, Perrin, Elaine and Maggie.  Some of us were going through difficult times.  I was in a bad state, but somehow it was a wonderful time.  I remember the joy as we walked back after the performances, alongside a park.  We danced and sang.  I was totally engaged in the work.  The war, German guilt, and everything that happened to my parents’ generation had haunted me for many years.  My Dad had to liberate a camp called Little Belsen.  It affected him, and later me.  It made me read and question things for many years, and I saw that in Wolfgang too, through his work - the way he was haunted by it all.

Knowing Wolfgang and Amici have been the most formative experiences in my life.  I used to love the moments before we went on stage, sensing Wolfgang’s emotion, and feeling it myself.  So many very emotional but happy times.  But I think the week in Berlin was the most amazing.

Tricia Durdy

Notes from Wolfgang:

The beautiful young man was Reynard Gayle

Nigel Warrack died suddenly in India late last year, to everyone’s enormous sadness and regret.  He shared his immense talent as a dancer and musician with all of us and was loved and admired by all Amici members.

Amici dance company starts from improvisation, sensitivity and touch under Wolfgang’s amazing vision and guidance.

I’m so proud to have been part of AMICI in many performances and being able to pass on the baton in dance movement classes with disabled students and later with able bodied but traumatized refugee children who arrived at my school with only their mother tongue and very few possessions.  There will always be a special place for creative movement and dance to restore and to inspire!

Thank you Wolf for your love and generosity of spirit; for sharing your dance skills, your music and your imaginative interpretation of simple props around you wherever you are and incorporating them into a dance...and of course thank you for your deliciously scrumptious cooking and so much more...

Ann Ballard

I found a box of really old papers, cards and things from my past - a couple of old address books, two diaries, 1983 and one, a Spare Rib diary dated 1984, filled with lots of actions I took part in linked to Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp, and setting up ‘Southwark Greenham Women’ in my little house in Peckham Rye because we had no centre to meet in.  And we had many London actions, some of which I dare not tell about....

I was involved a great deal in direct action as well as the big national events at Greenham Common.  I lived there at times, living in my bender, a handmade tent comprising plastic sheets between trees.  I can't remember how many 'shit pits' I helped dig.  I recall how difficult it was to get a fire going when it snowed, and I smelt of wood smoke all the time.

I experienced Newbury police cells, direct action, police doors, cutting the fence at night - I have Greenham wire hanging in my greenhouse and still possess my large cutters.  We made Greenham Common a 'second home' in the High Court at Lincoln Inn Fields, Holborn - what power we felt as women took over and filled the court!

I received an official reprimand from the education authority for my political involvement but didn't lose my job, which would have been a big waste to education because I stayed in London education for 40 years, retiring after being headteacher.

Amici workshops also are written in the diary at times.  The 1983 diary has the dates of Rückblick rehearsals at The Young Vic, and the opening night on Wednesday 2nd March.  I used to cycle to all the workshops and rehearsals because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to attend.  I was teaching, taking political action and protesting, attending meetings, coming to Amici and lots more-I can't believe how I managed it all as I read my diaries!  I also had a social life too!  During the time of Rückblick I was taking part in very large actions at Greenham Common, as well as actions involving going to Court and supporting women going to trial, including me!

I remember clearly how special that time was, and Rückblick was very intense.  I remember Wolfgang’s passion and how we all worked together to achieve the Rückblick performances.  I felt proud and special being part of it.  I did wonder how the audience would respond to a performance that was so serious and intense.  I seem to remember issues that arose because the stage at The Young Vic was 'in the round', so to speak.  I was thrilled that my older brother and his wife came to see the performance.

I remember the feelings that I think we all were having during rehearsals and the performances themselves.  It was a powerful and amazing feeling, certainly for me, and it totally reflected how I felt about so much in life and still feel.  I was teaching in hospital education at that time, at Guy's Evelina Hospital School, and was working with children and young people, and their families, during trauma, and having disability as part of their lives.

My younger son has complex needs and disabilities.  I'm in the process of trying to move him out of the adult care system because it has failed him.  It's been 10 awful years.....there is so much to tell you about the system and how my son's motivated but obsessional behaviour has led him to being hospitalized (as now) with no control over anything, as it has been for me. It's heartbreaking, truly. it's a long journey.

But I will never forget how Wolfgang welcomed each and every individual to join in and I think he has helped to inspire me to never give up.  The presence of Wolfgang and Amici in my life has been truly wonderful.  Thank you.

Angie Low

My own recollections and observations of the early AMICI days are a bit sketchy since I moved to East Sussex in 1984, so I was only really involved in Rückblick, but the memories are precious all the same.  Looking back, I realise what a profound impression being involved in AMICI made on me, and how the experiences I had dancing and sharing time with such a wonderful group of people has influenced choices made throughout my life.  Whilst I never managed to find another dance class that could measure up to Amici, I did work with adults with learning difficulties in an agricultural setting for over 12 years, which I would never have done, had it not been for the early experiences I had through AMICI.

My introduction to AMICI was a bit of an accident really.  I was looking for an exercise class and my dear friend Perin suggested I come along to Wolfgang’s class.  It must have been around 1981.  I do remember her mysteriously saying that your classes were anything but 'typical' but not to make up my mind until I had attended a session.  I didn't know what to expect, but figured that if Perin was involved, it would have to be worthwhile.

Even in that draughty church hall where we gathered on a Wednesday evening, it was apparent that something extraordinary was being developed by Wolfgang.  We were all very different individuals, but magically became something 'complete' and connected as we all responded to the music Wolfgang provided and to the people around us.  Sometimes extremely moving, sometimes hilarious! - but never ever ordinary.

I’d get off the tube at Baron's Court station, and maybe catch up with another AMICI member like Jim, making their way to the church hall.  We'd change in the loo then get ready for the ballet warm up followed by pairing off, doing group dances, floor improvisations, or rehearsals for a forthcoming show.  Even after all these years there are pieces of music which will be forever associated in my mind with those times.  I have been known at home to launch into 'AMICI dance mode' if any of the ballet warm up or show music comes on the radio and will probably continue to do so no matter how old I am! (or who's watching!)

So those early days with AMICI were very formative for me personally.  For the first time I was given the opportunity to share with others my love of music and dance under Wolfgang’s guidance: - hands or feet touching another's, a head on a shoulder, an embrace.  Your whole body moving to a musical beat or a sad refrain.  Dancing at a gallop in a circle!  Responding to the music, responding to your heart, responding to each other.  Bonding without words.  Free expression, mutual respect.

Ability and disability seemed to lose meaning and melt away.  The things we all had in common became more apparent.  It felt like a family.  For the first time in my life it was no longer 'me me me', or 'them them them', but 'us us us'.  A chance to celebrate individuality and togetherness.  Dancing freely was like reconnecting with the child in me again!

Rückblick was such a powerful piece of work.  It was a challenging theme and a complex production.  I feel very proud to have been just a tiny part of it.  My husband was in the audience in 1983 and I asked him recently what he recalled about the production.  He said that he remembers being completely carried away with the whole theatrical experience at the time.  But it was only afterwards, when he reflected upon what he'd just seen; considering the mixture of abilities and disabilities, the team work and immense focus involved, that the audience had just witnessed the making of the impossible become possible! - A unique experience! Thank you, Wolfgang!

Bernie Graham

I was a very new member of Amici when we performed Rückblick at the Place Theatre.  I had been introduced to the company by an influential and lovely friend who was inspirational in challenging my assumptions and perspectives.  I had little previous dance experience, so I was learning technique, movement sequences, expressive performance and the disciplines of dancing as a company member simultaneously, in a very short space of time.

I remember arriving at The Young Vic and seeing the stage floor studded with hundreds of exposed nails.  I spent hours working inch by inch over the stage finding and extracting them, taping over splintering boards to create a safe surface for barefoot dance.

It’s easy to forget that many people in the company were coming to rehearsals and performances after full days at work, finding another burst of energy to keep going through long evenings and then travelling miles, often hours, home, only to repeat the same process the next day.  Re-plotting the choreography to adapt to The Young Vic performance space was particularly taxing, especially for Wolfgang, who had to keep the company’s spirits from flagging.

Come the performance nights, the adrenalin kicked in.  The opening scene featured groups of dancers arranged under giant drapes to resemble furniture under dust sheets.  Everyone had to remain motionless and silent. Some of the positions to be held were painful after just a few minutes.  The plan was for audience to take fifteen minutes to seat.  On the first night positions had to be held for considerably longer.  A few whispers floated from under our drapes. What was going on?  Is someone missing? Has there been a disaster?  It turned out the theatre staff were trying to find additional seats for the huge number of people who had turned up.

And then, as the tension in people’s limbs and bodies started to really hurt, someone ‘let one go’.  The company displayed superhuman self-control to remain composed and posed, silent and immobile but ready to go.

Finally, lights, sound and action!  The concentration required, even in a minor role, was so intense I have no memory of the performance itself from the first night, and only momentary glimpses from the others, like feeling the combined power of the raised crosses scene coupled with Orff’s Carmina Burana and the emotional strength of the Mothers’ dance.  I can recall the joy backstage when we collectively realised what we had achieved – a rag-tag crew of people from every possible background breaking box office records and attracting great reviews from respected critics.

I also remember after-show conversations in a nearby pub, during which I got to know Elane a little better.  We became closer over the succeeding months and are still together, with two daughters who adore dance and have performed in their own right, and recently as grandparents.  Rückblick was a story of belief over endurance.  I think of our little story as one of love and enduring. Everyone in the company gained something from that series of performances - confidence, skills, friendship, a greater sense of self-esteem. The friendships I made remain some of the closest I have.  The values I learned in Amici have informed in a very deep sense the way I work and the work I do.  Personally and professionally, Käthe Kollwitz, The Amici Company members and Wolfgang Stange changed my life.

Kenn Palmer

For me, Käthe Kollwitz’s work is profound and powerful and displays many emotions in their raw brutality and desperate intensity.

Rückblick has always been my favourite production. It was a real privilege to portray through dance, replicas of Käthe’s etchings and sculptures, especially the “Tower of the Mothers”, and to portray parts of her life as her sister, Liese.

But for me, all this was done at a time of emotional turbulence as, throughout the rehearsals and performances for the Place in 1982, my father was dying, slowly and extraordinarily painfully with terminal cancer.

Amici and the friendships within the company held me together and were my strongest support. 

He died the week before we performed at the Young Vic in March 1983, and his funeral took place on the morning of our Friday evening performance.

I had to chant, “Everything is equal before death” seven times, the first time alone, then joined by the other mothers, and then with increasing numbers of the cast until it became a shout, but somehow it wasn’t too difficult because I just knew that it was true.

Barbara Lawrence

The flyer for Path’s production MIRANDA’S DREAM, which appeared at the Young Vic alongside Rückblick

Amici Open Workshops at The Lyric, Hammersmith.

Amici regularly get requests from teachers, practitioners, dance students and people of all abilities and levels of experience interested to attend their classes, learn their methods and teaching practices, in response Amici hold “open workshops”, which are open to anyone. A unique opportunity to take part in an Amici Dance Theatre Company workshop run by Wolfgang Stange and Amici members.

Please join the mailing list and we will let you know the dates of future Open Workshops.

The Lyric, Hammersmith (Dance Studio)

£10  Book Tickets at Box Office 020 8741 6850 (Places are limited, early booking is recommended)

“Amici affirms life, creativity and the power of compassion”
Financial Times

“Amici free us from preconceived notions of art and disability - stereotypes are totally subverted and our perception of the power of theatre is not so much challenged as heightened”.
Dance Expression


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