Mel Gordon is Professor of Dramatic Arts at UC Berkeley, and the author of Dada Performance and Expressionist Texts. In the last weeks of World War I, a dance craze and body mania overtook the German-speaking world. The beginnings of New Age spiritualism strangely blended with nudity, nature worship, and eroticism. Finally freed of kaisers, censoring boards, and simplistic attitudes about the role and place of women in the modern world, German artists and performers looked to the cult of the body. Among Central European intellectuals, these various physical culture schools, modern dance regimens, "scientific" religions, and shocking cabaret productions were collectively called Ausdruckstanz (or Expression Dance). Ways to Strength and Beauty (1925), long celebrated for its scenes of male and female nudity as well as its kitschy educational frame, is the most important filmic document of Ausdruckstanz. From theatrical presentations to the utopian city of Hellerau to Berlin cabaret, no motion picture has more authentically captured the body madness of Weimar Germany, as it prefigures the Nazi aesthetic. We will also view slides and clips featuring dancers of the twenties including Anita Berber, the most provocative and innovative nude dancer during this heightened consciousness of female sexuality. This is presented in conjunction with an exhibition and performance program at the Goethe-Institut documenting the beginnings of Ausdruckstanz. For Goethe-Institut programs phone 415-391-0370.