Vera Skoronel

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Vera Skoronel (real name Vera Laemmel; * May 28, 1906 in Zurich ; † March 24, 1932 in Berlin ) was an important German dancer , choreographer and dance teacher of Swiss origin.

childhood and education

Her father Rudolf Lämmel , who came from Vienna, was a doctor of reform pedagogy and author of a number of popular scientific writings. a. about the relativity theory of his fellow student Albert Einstein (1921) and about modern dance (1928). Vera's mother Sonja was the daughter of Paul Axelrod , a well-known ideologue of the Mensheviks . Vera's later stage name “Scoronel” is a childish word coined: according to information from her older brother Boris, she repeatedly moved nimbly around the apartment as a little girl when a Russian relative commented on this with “Vera skoro, fast”, which made her “child's name” “Vera Skoronel pulled together.

Vera Skoronel received her dance training mainly from 1919 at the Zurich Laban School with Suzanne Perrottet and Katja Wulff (also called Käthe), then for three months in 1921 at the Loheland School and finally with Mary Wigman in Dresden.

Artistic work

In 1924, at the age of only 18, Skoronel took over the dance management of the United Theaters in Oberhausen, Hamborn and Gladbeck and thus one of the first dance groups at German theaters that were independent from the opera and operetta business and only committed to modern dance. There she achieved great success with dance works such as 'Das böse Quadrat'. After a brief activity as dance director at the Darmstädter Theater in the 1925/26 season, she and her friend Berthe Trümpy (1895–1983) ran a school for modern dance, building (architect: Alfred Gellhorn ) and dance technology in Berlin until her death the most modern of its kind. a. With her appearance at the Magdeburg Dancer Congress in 1927, she had a groundbreaking success as a soloist and several times led her own independent dance group, whose performances always caused a stir.

Lämmel sees in Vera Skoronel above all "the most important dance poet who emerged from the Wigman School" (p. 160). It is also of great importance for the further development of the techniques of modern dance, as for example Lammel's class observations (May 1926) on the subject of arm guidance make clear: “Up until now, the arm has only been moved from the center of the body. (The Laban swings are based on laws that require a function from the body swing even when the body is completely at rest.) The arm is moved as an independent limb, independent of the body, does not need to follow the body swing, it can even to assert oneself in clear counter-rhythms ”(p. 163f.). In the mid-1920s, a polycentric and isolation technique was used here, which otherwise only flowed into modern dance much later through jazz dance .

Vera Skoronel, who, according to a statement by Yvonne Georgi (with whom she shared a room during the time of her training in Dresden), also drank their perfume during the inflation - when alcohol was hard to get hold of - died of one at the age of 25 Blood disease. Among her students were Hanna Berger , Ilse Meudtner and Lisa Czóbel (who joined Kurt Jooss' ensemble after Skoronel's death and danced in the premiere of the 'Green Table'). Hanna Berger's friend and later husband, the sculptor Fritz Cremer , took an impression of Vera Skoronel's right hand on the death bed. A portrait bust of Milly Steger and a painting by Julie Wolfthorn are missing. A part of Vera Skoronel's estate is in the German Dance Archive in Cologne , while other bequests have so far been inaccessible to the public.

Vera Skoronel was buried in the Wilmersdorf cemetery.

Publications

  • Berthe Trümpy, Vera Skoronel: Writings and Documents , [Contributions to Dance Culture, Vol. 5], Wilhelmshaven 2005.
  • "Mary Wigmans Führertum", in: Deutsche Tanz-Gemeinschaft , 2. Jg., 1930, H. 2, S. 4–6.
  • "Mary Wigman's style of composition", in: Schrifttanz , 3, 1930.
  • "Laban", in: Singchor und Tanz , 14, 1929.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Berthe Trümpy's estate is in the German Dance Archive Cologne : Berthe Trümpy inventory overview
personal data
SURNAME Scoronel, Vera
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Laemmel, Vera (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German dancer, choreographer and dance teacher of Swiss origin
DATE OF BIRTH May 28, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH March 24, 1932
Place of death Berlin