Within the context of literature and performance art, dada was way beyond its time.  The theories of chance, anti-art, and the role of the artist are explored in these mediums in some of the same ways that they were in the visual arts.  The performance aspect of dada is also highly political as mentioned in the Politik section of the page.  Included with this link are a few pieces of dada poetry, along with a dada play or two and on top of that a picture of Hugo Ball in costume for one of his poetry readings.

Poetry And Writing

These two pieces are dada poems that were created by the authors of this page using the instructions provided by Tristan Tzara in his piece “how to make a dada poem”.
 
 

A Dada Ransom  Collaged by Nick Ragan That race- quick/doomed,  Abuse can park boyhood After still how supply giants Win America Over leagues he is.  Manager Brewers’ Food lived in open Determined varsity Still drinking, ramification

St. Petersburg Collaged by Jacob Beck Longer days, facades, years, Neva River,  A city of giant potholes, Festival, around the summer this faded imperial city All one man’s whirlwind,  Crowds gather on the banks,  With music filled, fill with tourists and at the venerable thing. St. Petersburg with a pretty face Valerie, solstice, columned world’s most, Those long nights bring to this gritty city, When the long nights, then hitting his stride. High culture, low wages, alone,  The limelight on Dickensinian squalor, thriving Seven years ago, mundane maybe the seats, theaters, streets With shabby hotels, vague, ramblings Sun dips out of sight A few hours at the stars, opera Czarist palaces, conductors, artistic, sought after…

Prison

Emmy Hennings

We pull ourselves toward Death with the cord of hope.
Ravens are envious of the prison yards.
Our never-kissed lips quiver.
Powerless solitude, you are magnificent.
The world lies outside there, life roars there.
There men are permitted to go where they like.
Once we also belonged to them.

And now we are forgotten and presumed dead.
At night, we dream of miracles on our plank-beds.
During the days, we move along like frightened animals.
We mournfully look out through the iron railing
And have nothing more to lose
Than the life God gave us.
Only Death lies in our hand.

The freedom no one can take from us:
To go into the unknown land.

(Translated by Mel Gordon)
 
 
 
 
 
 

Performance

Exerted from a play by Roger Vitrac

FIRST CHILD

Mr. Patrice, what do you bring in your shoes?

PATRICE
Elephants under the palm trees.

SECOND CHILD
And what about that lion looking at us?

PATRICE
That, my child, is liberty.

THIRD CHILD
And what about the automobile, is it for us?

PATRICE
It is unbreakable and deep.

FIRST CHILD
Are you giving us some new perfume?

PATRICE
Take these birds.

The first child is the son of the bakery horse, while the second is the offspring of his mother's sewing machine.
The third, father of a colonel in the Zouaves, shoots the other two, then remarks to Patrice,
"What do you expect, Papa, I was the father of a colonel of Zouaves by accident,
but I will always be the son of love."
 
 

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