Mamas of Dada

Women of the European Avant-Garde

Paula K. Kamenish

Mamas of Dada focuses on the lives and works of six representative female supporters
of the Dada movement: Emmy Hennings, Gabrielle Buffet, Germaine Everling, Cline
Arnauld, Juliette Roche, and Hannah Hch. Paula K. Kamenish selected these women
for their avant-garde pursuits in the chief centers of Dadas rebellious activity and,
more important, because they left behind a written record of their involvement with
the movement, which was short livedfrom 1916 to 1924but widespread geographically.
The rebellious spirit of the Dada period proved portable and adaptable, and the
movement led to later forms of Surrealism at the same time that it borrowed from
Expressionism, Constructivism, Futurism, and Cubism. Its influence was felt on sculpture, painting, dance, music, textile art, film, decoupage, photomontage, mask making,
and poetry.
Some female Dadaists were active participantsappearing in literary journals, on
stage, or in gallerieswhile others were observant and recording witnesses, but each
played a role in supporting the movement and its more prominent members. Female
Dadaists motivated the hesitant Hugo Ball, tempered the mechanical Francis Picabia, and
nurtured the inventive but temperamental Raoul Hausmann. Some women inspired
or gave a home to a wandering Tristan Tzara, while another provided a satiric chastisement of Dadaists in New York, Barcelona, and Paris. Each woman helps us chronicle and
better understand Dadas European (and sometimes American) manifestations.
Unlike their Futurist and Surrealist sisters, whose contributions were grudgingly
accepted by male artists and writers, female Dadaists were able to join more readily in
the movements unified attack on social norms. And, because of their individual talents
and insights, they did so in ways that were often quite different from methods adopted
by their male counterparts.

Paula K. Kamenish is an associate

professor of English at the University
of North Carolina Wilmington. She
received her universitys Board of
Trustees Award for Teaching Excellence
and has published articles on Bertolt
Brecht, Jean Genet, Eugne Ionesco,
Quebecois novelist Roch Carrier, the
fate of South Slavic poetry, and best
practices in teaching.

April 2015, 208 pages, 20 b&w illustrations

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