Reinhild Hoffmann

Reinhild Hoffmann (born Nov. 1, 1943 in Sorau) is a German choreographer and dancer who is an important innovator in Tanztheater, along with Pina Bausch and Susanne Linke.

Reinhild Hoffmann moved to southern Germany as a child and studied ballet at a school in Karlsruhe. From 1965 to 1970, she studied contemporary dance at the Folkwang School in Essen with Susanne Linke and Pina Bausch and graduated with a degree in dance education. Hoffmann, Linke, and Bausch are often credited as the three chief founders of the contemporary hybrid form known as Tanztheater in Germany (where it originated) and dance theater in English-speaking countries. Hoffmann demonstrates a concern for the female perspective in her work, and she has revived from Expressionist dance the use of masks, an appreciation for the solo, and an emphasis on expressive abstraction in movement.

After leaving the Folkwang School, Hoffmann worked as a dancer for both Kurt Jooss and Johann Kresnik. From 1975 to 1977 she directed the Folkwang Dance Studio with Susanne Linke. In this period she created her first choreographic work, a trio, which earned her a two-year stipend as a choreographer at the school. The pieces Duett, Solo, Fin al punto, and Rouge et noir followed. In 1977, she choreographed one of her best-known solos, Solo mit Sofa, set to the music of John Cage, in which a dancer is pinned to a sofa by a dress with an oversized train. Two years later, she created two more solo works, Steine, Bretter and Auch. Hoffmann herself danced these two solo works until 1984. In 1978 she spent six months in New York on a grant from the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.

In the fall of 1978, Hoffmann was hired along with Gerhard Bohner as director of the Tanztheater Bremen (Dance Theater Bremen) in the north German port city. Her first piece for the theater was Fünf Tage, fünf Nächte, followed by Hochzeit, a piece that dealt with courtship, wedding, marriage, and pregnancy in a range of moods from humor to seriousness. In 1980, she created Unkrautgarten, a piece about familiar neuroses; Erwartung; Pierrot Lunaire (set to the music of Arnold Schoenberg); and Kings and Queens, a piece that traveled to the Berlin Theatre.

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