Bessie Schoenberg

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Bessie Schoenberg

Elizabeth 'Bessie' Schoenberg (born 27. December 1906 in Hannover ; d. 14. May 1997 in Bronxville , New York ) was an American dancer , choreographer and influential dance teacher of modern dance . She helped shape a new generation of contemporary dancers .

biography

Bessie Schönberg's mother, Rose Elizabeth MacGrew, was an American opera singer. She had studied singing in Germany and met Bessie's father, Alexander Schönberg, as an engineering student at the university. Bessie grew up as the youngest of three siblings. Her mother returned to the United States in 1911 or 1912 . When her father was called up for military service in World War I , she and her siblings lived with a sister of her father, a photographer, in Dresden from 1914 onwards. During this time she attended courses for rhythmic education with Émile Jaques-Dalcroze in Hellerau and saw performances by Mary Wigman . In Dresden it was shaped by the mixture of tradition and avant-garde in art, architecture, music and dance.

At the age of 19 she emigrated to the USA, to Eugene, at the invitation of her mother . She studied arts at the University of Oregon and took dance lessons. In 1927 she broke off her studies to be trained by Martha Hill . Hill introduced her to the world of dance in New York and introduced her to the then most famous American dancer and choreographer, Martha Graham . After two years, Bessie Schönberg decided to pursue a career as a dancer.

She came to New York City at a crucial time for the development of dance in the United States. With Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey , Helen Tamiris and others, she belonged to a new generation of dancers who longed to create expressive movements freed from the boundaries of traditional ballet, and who established modern dance in the 1920s. Bessie Schönberg danced with Martha Graham's ensemble for two years and performed in important roles in some of Graham's groundbreaking works, including Heretic and Primitive Mysteries .

A knee injury in 1931 forced her to give up dancing. She resumed her studies and received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Bennington College in 1933 . From 1938 she taught theater and dance at Sarah Lawrence College , where she was director from 1956 to 1975. During this time she built one of the first dance departments in American higher education, which became a model for other colleges. She was also a choreographic consultant at The Yard in Martha's Vineyard , one of the first retreats for young choreographers, and gave workshops in dance and theater at the Tisch School of the Arts . She taught at the Juilliard School until her death in 1997 .

Bessie Schönberg was married to the Russian-born potter and businessman Dimitry Varley for 50 years until his death in 1984.

Teaching methods

As a dance teacher, she worked with various methods. Although Schoenberg, like other pioneers of modern dance, admired Isadora Duncan , she preferred movements that required more discipline and expressed more heaviness. She was trained in the Graham technique, but did not associate herself with any particular style of modern dance. As a choreographer and teacher, she let her dancers explore gravity, space, time and rhythm. She also gave them complex tasks to be solved through movement. With this teaching method she wanted to train creative dancers who were open to new ideas. Her pedagogical style was based on Martha Hill, her first dance teacher. However, she believed that her approach to teaching emerged from interacting with her students. Most of what she learned about teaching was taught to her students.

legacy

Bessie Schönberg has accompanied the careers of many American dance artists. She left no published writings. Her legacy lives on in the work of her students, including Merce Cunningham , Jerome Robbins , Meredith Monk and Lucinda Childs .

The Bessie , as the New York Dance and Performance Awards are called in honor of Bessie Schönberg, is one of the most prestigious awards in the world of American dance. From 1984 to 2008 by Dance Theater Workshop and since 2009 by Dance / NYC it is awarded for “outstanding artistic achievements in the field of contemporary dance performance”.

Awards

  • 1989: New York State Governor's Award for the Arts
  • 1993: National Endowment for the Arts for Lifetime Achievement
  • 1994: Dance / USA 'Ernie' Award

Film portrait

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Isa Partsch-Berg son: modern dance in Germany and the United States. Crosscurrents and Influences , Routledge Verlag, London 1997, ISBN 978-3-7186-5558-8 , pp. 54/55
  2. ↑ Sally Hess: Bessie Schönberg: Making Sausages , Dance Heritage Coalition 2012 (pdf)
  3. ↑ a b Cynthia Noble: Bessie Schonberg, Pioneer Dance Educator and Choreographic Mentor . Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston, New York 2005, ISBN 978-0-7734-6052-2
  4. ^ A b Owen Norton: Bessie Schonberg: 1906–1997 - dance teacher . In: Dance Magazine . 1997. Retrieved March 28, 2009.
  5. ↑ Julia L. Foulkes: Schönberg, Bessie , in: Susan Ware (Ed.): Notable American Women. A biographical dictionary completing the twentieth century , Volume 5, Belknap Press, Cambridge 2005, ISBN 978-0-674-01488-6 , pp. 576/577 (limited Google Books view )
  6. ^ Dance / USA Honors. ( Memento from) In: Dance / USA. Retrieved August 31, 2016.
  7. ↑ From Graham Dancer To Choreographic Icon , TV Review, New York Times, March 25, 1999
personal data
SURNAME Schoenberg, Bessie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schonberg, Bessie (American spelling); Schoenberg, Elisabeth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American dancer, choreographer, modern dance teacher
DATE OF BIRTH December 27, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH May 14, 1997
Place of death Bronxville , New York (State)