Tristan Tzara in the context of "Lettrism"

Dada (/ˈdɑːdɑː/) or Dadaism was an international art movement that developed in the context of the Great War and Futurism first established in Zürich, Switzerland, and later quickly spread to Berlin, Paris, New York City and a variety of artistic centers in Europe and Asia. The Dada movement's principles were first collected in Hugo Ball's Dada Manifesto in 1916. Ball is seen as the founder of the Dada movement. Key figures in the movement included Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, Jean Arp, Johannes Baader, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, George Grosz, Raoul Hausmann, John Heartfield, Hannah Höch, Richard Huelsenbeck, Francis Picabia, Man Ray, Hans Richter, Kurt Schwitters, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Tristan Tzara, and Beatrice Wood, among others. The movement influenced later styles like the avant-garde and downtown music movements, and groups including Surrealism, nouveau réalisme, pop art, and Fluxus.

Nancy Clara Cunard (10 March 1896 – 17 March 1965) was a British writer, heiress and political activist. She was born into the British upper class, and devoted much of her life to fighting racism and fascism. She became a muse to some of the 20th century's most distinguished writers and artists, including Wyndham Lewis, Aldous Huxley, Tristan Tzara, Ezra Pound and Louis Aragon—who were among her lovers—as well as Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Constantin Brâncuși, Langston Hughes, Man Ray and William Carlos Williams. MI5 documents reveal that she was involved with Indian diplomat, orator, and statesman V. K. Krishna Menon.

In later years she suffered from mental illness, and her physical health deteriorated. When she died in the Hôpital Cochin, Paris, she weighed only 26 kilograms (57 pounds; 4 stone 1 pound).

The Dada Manifesto (French: Le Manifeste DaDa) is a short text written by Hugo Ball detailing the ideals underlying the Dadaist movement. It was presented at Zur Waag guildhall in Zürich at the first public Dada gathering on July 14, 1916. The choice of this date, Bastille Day, was important to Ball as it carried significance as a protest to World War I. In this manifesto, Ball begins by giving diverse definitions of the word "Dada" in multiple languages. He continues to introduce the movement's own definition of "Dada" by boldly asserting that "Dada is the heart of words." Ball concludes his manifesto with a linguistic explosion that alternates between coherence and absurdity. After writing his manifesto Ball stayed active in the Dada movement for another six months, but the manifesto created conflict with his fellow Dada artists, most notably Tristan Tzara.

On March 23, 1918, Tzara wrote and published another, longer, Manifeste Dada 1918. This manifesto was angrier and more nonsensical in tone. Tzara counters Ball's earlier manifesto and states that all definitions of "Dada" were to be dismissed immediately. Tzara's Manifeste was used in the prologue and in the segment about Dadaism of the 2015 film Manifesto.