The Diary of the Munich Dancer Michael Johann Laroche (1805-1870)

Michael Johann Laroche, born 1805 in Vienna, was for more than twenty years engaged as grotesque dancer at the Munich Court Ballet. There he was not only an important dancer but also a witness of the personnel and institutional changes within the company. Beside his recognition as a great dancer he left an amazingly accurate and lovingly designed diary. Nowadays this diary can be found at the archives of the German Theatre Museum Munich. In the diary he not only listed his colleagues, but also the repertoire and guest performances. But most impressive are his descriptions of the performances, changes within the different stagings of one production and the audience's reactions. In its combination of empirical data and subjective perceptions this diary is an enlightening source for the Munich dance history of the 19th century as well as the self-image of a dancer during this period. Until now the diary was mainly used as one source among many to write a general history of the Munich court ballet (e.g. Mlakar: Unsterblicher Theatertanz, 1992). This lecture will introduce Laroche's diary as a multi-layered source and will focus on a systematic approach to open up its dance historical potential. 

About the author

Anja K. Arend is a research assistant at the Institute of Contemporary Dance at the Folkwang University of the Arts, Essen and responsible for the Folkwang Dance Archives. After studying Dance Studies and Musicology with the minors History and Theology she received PhD in Dance Studies at the University of Salzburg with a thesis about the transatlantic relationships in ballet of the second half of the 19th century with a special focus on dance practices. From 2015 to 2016 she was part of the Austrian Science Fund research and communications project 'Dance and Migration' (with Prof Dr Claudia Jeschke and Dr Sandra Chatterjee). Her research focuses on 19th and 20th century dance history. Besides her academic studies she is dealing with questions of archiving dance and is a member of the editorial staff a tanznetz.de.