Letters to Walter Sorell

1964-1973

Mary Wigman, German modern dancer and choreographer, was born Mary Wiegmann, November 13, 1886 in Hanover. She trained first with Emile Jaques-Dalcroze in Hellerau and Dresden and later with Rudolf von Laban in Anscona, Switzerland and in Munich. Her debut as a concert dancer and choreographer occurred in 1919. Successful performances encouraged her to open her own school in Dresden, where among her first students were Yvonne Georgi, Gert Palucca, and Harald Kreutzberg. By 1925, her students included Ruth Abrahamowitsch, Hanya Holm, and Tilly Losch. Her students performed as a company, touring Western Europe throughout the 1930's. Wigman performed at the Berlin Olympics of 1936, but the National Socialists closed her school, and she became a teacher at the Leipzig Music Academy. After World War II, she returned to Berlin, re-opening her school in 1948, which became the center for the German modern dance movement. She choreographed over one hundred dances for herself and her dancers but also worked in various German opera houses, staging productions of Gluck in Leipzig and Mannheim and a famous joint performance of Carl Orff's Carmina Buranaand Catulli Carminain 1955. She died in Berlin September 18, 1973.