Gertrud Bodenwieser

Gertrud Bodenwieser (born February 3, 1890 in Vienna; †10 November, 1959 in Sydney) was a dancer, choreographer, dance teacher and pioneer of expressive dance.

Life

The daughter of Theodore and Maria Bondi, a wealthy Jewish couple, she turned to dance under the pseudonym Gertrud Bodenweiser of which she was celebrated in Vienna as a sensation. Bodenweiser’s style was based on classical ballet, this was a new style of dance and was welcomed by the audience, critics and young students with much enthusiasm. One of her greatest successes was “Demon Machine”, a dance performance, in which a group of dancers turned into machines.

Gertrud Bodenweiser was appointed professor of dance at the Academy of Music and performing Arts in Vienna. In the concert hall’s basement she ran her own dance studio. Her pupils went out on tours throughout Europe as the “Bodenweiser dance group”. Her dance “The Masks of Lucifer” showed intrigue, terror and hatred as personifications of political totalitarianism and became famous as the embodiment during an ominous time.

In the build up to World War Two, Gertrud Bodenweiser fled with a handful of students to Colombia in 1938, where she gave a guest performance as part of the four hundred year celebration of Bogotá. She was even able to fill a bullfight arena with enthusiastic spectators. Emigration led Gertrud Bodenweiser to Australia. In Sydney, she taught dance. Her teaching has produced some of the most important choreographers and dancers of Australia, including Anita Ardell, Keith Bain and Margaret Chapple.

Literature

• Cuckson, Marie: Gertrud Bodenwieser. Her Contribution to the Art of the Dance. Vaucluse, NSW 1960.
• Dunlop MacTavish, Shona: An Ecstasy of Purpose. The Life and Art of Gertrud Bodenwieser. Dunedin, N.Z. 1987.
• Grayburn, Patricia (ed.): Gertrud Bodenwieser, 1890-1959. A celebratory monograph on the 100th anniversary of her birth, with a catalogue of the exhibition shown at the University of Surrey (...) and the Royal Festival Hall (...). Surrey 1990.
• Dunlop MacTavish, Shona: Gertrud Bodenwieser. Tänzerin, Choreographin, Pädagogin. Wien - Sydney. (Gekürzte Ausgabe, aus dem Englischen übersetzt von Gabriele Haefs, hrsg.v. Denny Hirschbach). Zeichen und Spuren, Bremen 1992. ISBN 3-924588-21-X.
• Vernon-Warren, Bettina and Charles Warren (ed.): Gertrud Bodenwieser and Vienna's Contribution to Ausdruckstanz. Harwood Academic Publishers, Amsterdam u.a. 1999. ISBN 90-5755-035-0.
• Amort, Andrea: Free Dance in Interwar Vienna. In: Interwar Vienna. Culture between Tradition and Modernity. Eds. Deborah Holmes and Lisa Silverman. New York, Camden House, 2009, p. 117-142. ISBN 978-1-57113-420-2

Sources

• Biography auf www.australiadancing.org (accessed 8. November 2008)
• Siglinde Kaiser-Bolbecher: Österreichische Emigration in Kolumbien auf www.literaturepochen.at (Zugriff am 9. November 2008, German)
• Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-522-84459-7. ISSN 1833-7538. OCLC 70677943 http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/{{{id}}}.htm. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Autor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)