The Birth of Dada in Zurich
Zurich is generally regarded as the birthplace of Dada, though, as Duchamp later put it, “dada ‘had been in the air’ a long time before.” What happened in Zurich, then, was perhaps not so much the invention of a movement as the consolidation of a mood.
A variety of notable, soon-to-be-famous figures called Zurich home in 1916: Hugo Ball, Tristan Tzara, Vladimir Lenin, James Joyce. Refugees fleeing the carnage and criminal irrationality of World War I, the Zurich artists represented a myriad of concerns, talents and mediums, though they shared a collective disgust with both the war and the prevailing status quo. Hugo Ball and his lover/collaborator, Emmy Hennings, began the Cabaret Voltaire in early February, 1916 inviting “the young artists of Zurich whatever their orientation to come along with suggestions and contributions of all kinds.” The first performance featured poems, recitations and paintings by Ball, Hennings, Marcel Janco, Tristan Tzara, Georges Janco, Hans Arp and others. The group was soon joined by Richard Huelsenbeck, who would later return to Berlin and continue his activities there. Within a few months the movement that was vigorously anti-movements had coined itself Dada.
Dada in Zurich was grounded in performance and abstraction, perhaps due to the centrality of the Cabaret Voltaire: the first simultaneous poems were read at the Cabaret, and evenings regularly featured music, dance and the reading of manifestos, as well as featuring paintings and other visual art on its walls. Marcel Janco’s extraordinary masks, which, according to Hugo Ball, suddenly and clearly made perceptible “the horror of our age,” were also first unveiled at the Cabaret Voltaire. Dada in Zurich was never overtly political; at its core was a broader design that aimed to shock, bewilder, tease, and, most importantly, to engage its audience. The Cabaret audience responded to the artists’ provocations, often booing, hissing, cat-calling and shouting at the performers on stage; behaviour which was welcomed by the artists on stage. The Cabaret also inspired the first of the “little magazines” that would become essential in disseminating Dada throughout Europe and the US. A single issue of the review “Cabaret Voltaire” was published in June 1916. The four “Dada” magazines that followed, and the leadership role that Tzara gradually assumed as editor after Hugo Ball left the scene, rapidly accelerated the spread of Dada to culture capitals like Paris and New York. Another Dada-inspired publication, “Der Zeltweg,” was also published from Zurich and included work by the Czech writer Walter Serner.
