author
Hugo Ball
1886–1927
A founding voice of Dada, he turned poetry into performance and helped make Zurich's Cabaret Voltaire one of the great flashpoints of modern art. His work is witty, radical, and still startlingly fresh.
1 Audiobook
Flametti: oder vom Dandysmus der Armen
by Hugo Ball
About the author
Born in Pirmasens, Germany, in 1886, Hugo Ball was a writer, poet, dramatist, and journalist who became one of the central figures in the birth of Dada. After studying sociology and philosophy in Munich and Heidelberg, he worked in the theater and developed a sharp distrust of the political and cultural order that had led Europe into war.
In 1916, while living in Zurich with Emmy Hennings, he co-founded Cabaret Voltaire, the small venue that became the cradle of Dada. There he staged performances that mixed sound poetry, music, manifesto, and satire, including the famous phonetic poem "Karawane," helping redefine what poetry and performance could be.
Ball later moved away from the Dada circle, but his writing remained important for understanding the movement's early spirit and contradictions. He also wrote on religious and literary subjects, including a study of Hermann Hesse, and died in Switzerland in 1927.