Lavinia Schulz

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Lavinia Schulz; undated self-portrait
Expressionist dance study Tanzbertchen by the dancer Lavinia Schulz. Photograph by Minya Diez-Dührkoop , 1924.
Full body mask by Lavinia Schulz, shown at the exhibition "Sturm-Frauen" in the Kunsthalle Schirn, Frankfurt (2015/2016)
Memorial stone in
the women's garden, Ohlsdorf cemetery
Memorial plaque for Lavinia Schulz at the union building in Hamburg

Lavinia Berta Schulz (born June 23, 1896 in Lübben (Spreewald) , † June 19, 1924 in Hamburg ) was an expressionist actress and mask dancer.

life and work

At the age of 16 Lavinia Schulz went to Berlin to study academic drawing. Around 1917 she met Lothar Schreyer there, editor of the expressionist magazine Der Sturm and director of the Sturm-Bühne in Berlin, where Schulz stayed as an acting student. 1918 her nude appearance in the drama was Sancta Susanna by August Stramm a scandal. In 1919 Schulz followed Schreyer to Hamburg, who founded the Kampfbühne there.

At the Kampfbühne, Schulz met the actor Walter Holdt (born December 20, 1899 in Hamburg), whom she married in 1921. In 1923 they had a son, Hans Heinz.

From 1919 Schulz and Holdt designed dance performances in specially developed full-body costumes. Since 1921 their performances have been accompanied by the avant-garde composer Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt . They also appeared at the popular Hamburg artist festivals - such as the idol drum in the Curio-Haus in 1921 .

On June 18, 1924, Lavinia Schulz shot her 25-year-old husband, alerted the neighborhood, and then tried to shoot herself. She died of her injuries the following day. The motive for the act was never finally clarified. One reason could have been financial difficulties, as the artist couple performed their dance performances to the audience without payment.

As early as March 1925, a commemorative exhibition with the masks of the artist couple took place in the Hamburg Museum of Art and Industry. After that Lavinia Schulz and Walter Holdt fell into oblivion. It was not until 1988 that three boxes with around 20 full-body masks were rediscovered in the museum's attic. The costumes were restored and shown to the public in 2006 in the exhibition Unleashed - Expressionism in Hamburg around 1920 .

In Hamburg, an element of the spiral of memories reminds of Lavinia Schulz in the area of the women's garden in the Ohlsdorf cemetery . The life and art of Lavinia Schulz and Walter Holdt, as well as their relevance for the present, are the focus of the 2019 novel Pixel Dancer by Berit Glanz .

literature

  • Kirsten Beuster: "Against the current ..." - The expressionist mask dancers Lavinia Schulz and Walter Holdt . In: Lichtwark booklet No. 72. Verlag HB-Werbung, Hamburg-Bergedorf 2007. ISSN  1862-3549 .
  • Karl Toepfer: Empire of Ecstasy. Nudity and Movement in German Body Culture, 1919-1935 (= Weimar and now, Volume 13). University of California Press, Berkeley [et al.] 1998, ISBN 0-520-20663-0 , pp. 214-216 (biography of Walter Holdt and Lavinia Schulz, English)
  • Ralf Beil, Claudia Dillmann (Hrsg.): Gesamtkunstwerk Expressionismus. Art, film, literature, theater, dance and architecture 1905 to 1925. Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2010, ISBN 978-3-7757-2712-9 , pp. 432–445 (on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt, October 24, 2010 - February 13, 2011)
  • Athina Chadzis: The expressionist mask dancers Lavinia Schulz and Walter Holdt (= studies and documents on dance studies, volume 1). Lang, Frankfurt am Main [et al.] 1998, ISBN 3-631-33057-X ; also: Master's thesis, University of Hamburg, 1994.
  • Dianne S. Howe: Individuality and Expression. The Aesthetics of the New German Dance, 1908-1936 (= New studies in aesthetics, Volume 24). Lang, New York [et al.] 1996, ISBN 0-8204-2656-3 .
  • Rüdiger Joppien et al. (Ed.): Unleashed. Expressionism in Hamburg around 1920. Catalog, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 978-3-923859-64-1 , ISBN 3-923859-64-3 (on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name from February 25 to June 5, 2006 ).
  • Lothar Schreyer: Expressionist theater. From my memories (= Hamburger Theaterbücherei, Volume 4). Toth, Hamburg 1948.
  • Ingrid Pfeiffer, Max Hollein (eds.): Sturm-Frauen: Artists of the Avant-Garde in Berlin 1910-1932 . Wienand, Cologne 2015, ISBN 978-3-86832-277-4 (catalog of the exhibition of the same name, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt , October 30, 2015 to February 7, 2016).

Web links

Commons : Lavinia Schulz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b article on Lavinia Schulz and Walter Holdt
  2. ↑ a b c d e Belinda Grace Gardner: "Unleashed" captivates. Expressionism exhibition in the Museum of Arts and Crafts. In: world. February 19, 2006 (article on the exhibition Unleashed - Expressionism in Hamburg around 1920 )
  3. ↑ a b c d Reinhard Krause: Purgatory and food worries. On: taz.de, March 18, 2006 (Article on the Hamburg exhibition Unleashed - Expressionism in Hamburg around 1920 )
  4. ^ Karl Toepfer: Empire of Ecstasy. Nudity and Movement in German Body Culture, 1919-1935 (= Weimar and now, Volume 13). University of California Press, Berkeley [et al.] 1997, ISBN 0-520-20663-0 , pp. 214-216 (biography of Walter Holdt and Lavinia Schulz, English)
  5. ↑ Berit Glanz: Pixel Dancer . Schöffling, Frankfurt am Main 2019, ISBN 978-3-89561-192-6 .
personal data
SURNAME Schulz, Lavinia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schulz, Lavinia Berta
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German expressionist actress and mask dancer
DATE OF BIRTH June 23, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Luebben (Spreewald)
DATE OF DEATH June 19, 1924
Place of death Hamburg