Klarna Pinska photographs

1920s-1987

Klarna Pinska was born in the Ukraine and immigrated to Canada with her family at a young age. They relocated to San Francisco in 1919, and soon after Pinska began studying with Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn at the Denishawn School in Los Angeles, California and New York City. In the early 1930s, Pinska became the head teacher at the Ruth St. Denis School of Dance in New York. In this role she choreographed a number of performances, and collaborated with St. Denis on a ballet that was performed at the New York World's Fair. During this time Pinska also studied with Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, Louie Horst, Jane Dudley, and Sophia Maslow.

Pinksa moved back to California in 1941, where she taught dance therapy to adults and children, and collaborated with doctors at the University of California Medical School to find ways to use dance to assist in patients' recovery. She worked as a dance therapist throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and taught children's classes at the Walter Beggerstaff Studio between 1960 and 1964. Pinksa spent three years serving as Ruth St. Denis' assistant, and conducted master classes, lectures, and performances in the 1970s on Denishawn techniques. She also choreographed and directed The Spirit of Denishawn in 1977.

Pinksa continued to set up performances and teach classes throughout the 1980s. She died in 1994 in San Francisco, California.