Gret Palucca Explained

Gret Palucca
Birth Name:Margarethe Paluka
Birth Date:8 January 1902
Birth Place:Munich, German Empire
Death Place:Dresden, Germany
Nationality:German
Field:Dance
Movement:Ballet

Gret Palucca (born Margarethe Paluka; 8 January 1902 – 22 March 1993) was a German dancer and dance teacher, notable for her dance school, the Palucca School of Dance, founded in Dresden in 1925.

Life and work

Margarethe Paluka was born in Munich. Shortly after birth, her family moved to San Francisco, returning with her mother to Dresden in 1909.[1] She had ballet lessons with Heinrich Kröller from 1914 to 1916 and from 1917 to 1918, she attended Margarete Balsat's school for upper-class girls in Dresden.

From 1921, when she changed her name to Gret Palucca, until 1923, she studied with Mary Wigman and she performed as a member of her Chamber Dance Group.[2]

In 1924, she married Friedrich Bienert, who worked in his father's mills. Through her mother-in-law, Ida Bienert, she was introduced to the Bauhaus artists.[3]

In 1925, she opened her own dance school, the Palucca School of Dance, with the support of her husband, after which she and Mary Wigman became competitors. In 1927, she opened a branch of her school in Berlin. In 1931, another branch was opened in Stuttgart.

In 1939, because of her Jewish ancestry the National Socialist authorities closed her schools and she was not allowed to teach dance lessons, however she was permitted to continue dancing herself and in 1936 she even appeared in the Olympic Games in Berlin.[4]

In 1945, during the air raid on Dresden, Palucca lost all her possessions. After 1945, the Russian style of ballet dominated the training in Palucca school.[5]

She became founding member of the East German Academy of Arts. In 1959, East German culture policy officials wanted to see the school transformed into a Soviet-style socialist professional school of dance. To gain support for her demands, Palucca briefly went to West Germany.[6]

In 1993, Palucca died in Dresden, aged 91.[7] [8]

Palucca's work was included in the 2021 exhibition Women in Abstraction at the Centre Pompidou.[9]

Awards

Legacy

Her students included Ruth Berghaus, Lotte Goslar and Dore Hoyer.[10]

See also

Notes and References

  1. News: 22 March 2013 . Gret Palucca: Nicht nur auf Sylt unvergessen . Sylter Zeitung . Flensburg . epd . de . 24 August 2020.
  2. News: Kachelrieß . Andrea . 14 December 2009 . Wenn Ruhm zu einer Ware wird . . Stuttgart . 23 August 2020.
  3. Web site: Biografie von Gret Palucca (1902–1993) – ISGV e.V. . Sächsische Biografie . de . 24 August 2020.
  4. News: Rögner . Katharina . 19 March 2018 . Mit den Beinen denken . Jüdische Allgemeine . Berlin . de . 23 August 2020.
  5. Web site: Palucca dance school – history. 24 August 2020. 30 March 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190330191606/http://www.palucca.eu/de/hochschule/geschichte.html. dead.
  6. News: Beyer . Susanne . 26 March 2009 . Abriss eines Sehnsuchtsorts . . Hamburg . de . 24 August 2020.
  7. News: Anderson . Jack . 15 August 1993 . Who Was Gret Palucca? A Legend in Her Time . . New York City . 23 August 2020.
  8. News: 26 March 1993 . Famed dance teacher Gret Palucca, 91 . . Chicago . 101 . . 23 August 2020.
  9. Book: Women in abstraction . 2021 . Thames & Hudson Ltd. ; Thames & Hudson Inc . London : New York, New York . 978-0500094372 . 170.
  10. Book: Partsch-Bergsohn, Isa. Modern dance in Germany and the United States : crosscurrents and influences. 1994. Harwood Acad. Publ.. Chur. 3-7186-5557-8. 122.