Siegfried Prölß

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Siegfried Prölß (born September 11, 1934 in Dresden ; † October 9, 2011 in Leipzig ) was a German dancer and photographer .

Life

dancer

Siegfried Prölß attended the Erna Morena ballet school after completing his apprenticeship as a mechanical engineer. After passing the entrance exam, he studied at the Palucca School in Dresden from 1953 to 1958 . After completing his studies, he was hired first as a group dancer and later as a soloist at the Leipzig Opera until 1972 . In 1960 Siegfried Prölß danced with the principal soloist Ursula Cain under the direction of the ballet master and choreographer Emmy Köhler Richter at the opening of the new Leipzig Opera House. His greatest roles were the wolf in Peter and the wolf and the tiger in Abraxas by Werner Egk .

photographer

After completing his dance career, he turned his hobby into a profession. From 1972 to 1977 Siegfried Prölß studied photography at the Leipzig College of Graphics and Book Art . He took his diploma with ballet photography. Since 1977 he has worked as a freelance photographer, mainly in the field of stage dance , as well as for fashion publishers and magazines. He was hired as a photographer and with exhibitions at important events of the three ballet schools in the GDR, at the hour of dance at the Volksbühne Berlin and every two years for the ballet competition in the Anhaltisches Landestheater Dessau . With his gaze he shaped the image of stage dance in the GDR, which is perceived beyond the national borders. His dance photographs have been published in specialist magazines such as Theater der Zeit , Ballett Intern, Der Tanz or Tanz International. Siegfried Prölß captured the work of numerous choreographers and dance professionals in pictures and was a contemporary witness on the 85th birthday of Gret Palucca , from whom he was taught improvisation as a student .

Siegfried Prölß had been a member of the Association of Fine Artists of the GDR since 1980 .

In solo exhibitions in Krakow , Leipzig, Dessau and Halberstadt as well as participation in exhibitions in Krakow, Berlin, Athens and Legnica, he showed his view of dance: “My concern is to express the beauty of dance in all its phases of movement and aesthetic forms. Dance is movement, making it visible in the photo is certainly difficult. But it is my aim to always find new possibilities and to convey them to the viewer of my photos "

In the exhibition Crocodile in Swan Lake - Dance in Germany since 1945 , several dance photos by Siegfried Prölß were exhibited in the Akademie der Künste (Berlin) in 2003 and printed in the book of the same name accompanying the exhibition. The photo of the two tied up dancers from correlations between a choreography by Enno Markwart and the Erich Weinert Ensemble from 1985 was used as a press photo for reports on the exhibition.

Most of Siegfried Prölß's negatives are now in the archive of the Palucca School Dresden.

Second stage career

2005 Siegfried began Prölß with his former dancers colleagues from the Leipzig Opera, Ursula Cain, Christa Franze , and Horst Dittmann under the direction of the Leipzig choreographer Heike Hennig and Friedrich U. Minkus in the work to the autobiographical dance theater time - dancing since 1927 , which in 2006 celebrated an extraordinary success not only at the Leipzig Opera. The dance theater was filmed under the title Tanz mit der Zeit by Trevor Peters for ZDF and ARTE and was released in German cinemas in 2007/2008. Under the title of the same name, the book by the author Marion Appelt was published in 2008 about her life and dance history with numerous dance photos by Siegfried Prölß and Friedrich U. Minkus.

Since 2007 Siegfried Prölß has continued his second stage career in the contemporary dance piece ZeitSprünge by Heike Hennig and was able to inspire the audience with the dance theater of the generations Heike Hennig & Co in over 30 performances in Leipzig and at international festivals. In the trailer for Opera unplugged No. 4 - Four generations can be seen dancing.

In 2009 Siegfried Prölß danced at the Magdeburg Theater in the ballet Manon Lescaut , choreographed by Gonzalo Galguera. Siegfried Prölß was considered to be the oldest active palucca student.

Literature / DVD

  • Marion Appelt: Dance with the times . Plöttner Verlag, Leipzig 2008, ISBN 978-3-938442-45-6 .
  • H. Müller, R. Stabel, P. Stöckmann: Crocodile in Swan Lake . Anabas Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-87038-353-4 .
  • Thomas Luthard: My father is a dancer . Postreiter Verlag, Halle 1988, ISBN 3-7421-0087-4 .
  • Trevor Peters : Dance with the times . good! movies, January 30th, 2009. (DVD 16: 9, 93 min.)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Exhibition catalog Galerie P, Staatliche Kunsthandel der DDR 1988.
  2. ^ Dance review: Age in dance. tanzkritik.net8, accessed on November 7, 2016 .
  3. ↑ Heike Hennig - Music Dance Theater - Dance with Time , requested on November 7, 2016
  4. ↑ cycle no. 4 - Four generations. (YouTube video 9:30 min.) Retrieved on October 19, 2011 (trailer of Opera unplugged No. 4 with Siegfried Prölß).
personal data
SURNAME Prölß, Siegfried
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German dancer and photographer
DATE OF BIRTH September 11, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH October 9, 2011
Place of death Leipzig