ABSTRACT
Anyone perusing today's dance theater programs will search in vain for any other evidence of the period of German Ausdruckstanz but Kurt Jooss's The Green Table. After more than six decades since its premiere in 1932, this work still forms a part of both German and international ballet repertoires, thus belonging to the modern classics. What are the reasons behind the success of this particular work? Looking for explanations in the many publications on Jooss's piece, one comes across a number of interpretations that have at least two ideas in common: the political affiliation of the work, represented by the "Gentleman in Black", and the structural openness and transparency of the work, represented by Jooss's decision to link the Dance of Death and war. The correlation between these two topics is of a dynamic nature and encourages different, even if very specific, views on this work.
