Wera Goldman

Wera Goldman (born November 7, 1921 in Vienna , died May 15, 2020 in Tel Aviv) was an Austrian-Israeli dancer, choreographer and educator.

Life

Wera Goldman was the daughter of an art-loving couple. She started dancing at an early age and received dance lessons from Riki Raab . In the 1930s, her parents emigrated to Australia, while even after the annexation of Austria, with a certificate from the Women's International Zionist Organization, she was only able to go to Palestine in 1939 .

There she worked as a pioneer in a kibbutz . She joined the expression dancer Gertrud Kraus and worked for five years in their ensemble at the Tel Aviv Opera House. In 1943 she danced the role of death in Kraus' choreography "The Poet's Dream". She was one of the last representatives from the network of Viennese dance modernity before 1938, who was still on stage at a very old age. In 1998 Andrea Amort brought the artist to the "Viennese Dance in Exile" event series at the Jewish Museum, where Goldman danced her solo "Dybbuk". From then on Goldman u. a. in the context of this series repeatedly in Vienna (theater museum, Alte Schmiede, Volksoper, impulse dance, ballet school of the State Opera, degree course in dance at the MUK Vienna) and studied the solo "Sara in the tent" (2001) with the dancer Martina Haager. In 2006, Haager and Goldman organized the new production "Friedenszelt", which could be seen in Vienna, Ebensee and Graz. On extensive travels Goldman had also acquired a wide range of ethnic dances, which she also taught in her studio, including Indian dance forms and dances from the Middle East as well as dances from the Pacific and Filipino regions. Typical for Goldman was the solo program "Women in the Bible", which she designed as a fusion of modern and oriental dance forms. In addition to dancing, she wrote poetry and published several books from an early age .

On October 22nd, 2008 she was awarded the Medal of Honor of the Federal Capital Vienna for her life's work as part of the festival "Touchings. Dance before 1938 - Dance of Today" on the occasion of the "Benefit Gala for Wera Goldman" . As part of the exhibition "Alles tanzt. Kosmos Wiener Tanzmoderne" at the Theatermuseum Wien (2019-2020) she was represented via film and photo.

Works

• Let me free / poetry, 1996. M&N Boesche-Verlag
• Gothic cycle / dramatic monologues, 1996. M&N Boesche-Verlag

Life

• Alisa Douer : New territory. Israeli artists of Austrian origin. Picus, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-85452-407-2 , pp. 154f. (Book accompanying the exhibition of the same name).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Poems by Wera Goldman at LiteratPro

Andrea Amort: Artistic Dance and Exile. Research and visualization in Austria - an attempt at a chronology. In: Amort (ed.), Everything dances. Cosmos of Viennese dance modernity. Theatermuseum Wien and Hatje & Cantz, Berlin 2019, pp. 228–239. ISBN 978-3-7757-4567-3

Alfred Oberzaucher: The Viennese roots in Israeli expressive dance. In: tanzaffiche, 11/1997, pp. 22-23.

Vera Skala: Wera Goldman. A commented documentary about the Austrian-Israeli dancer. Diploma thesis, University of Vienna, 2015.

Film Heide-Marie Härtel, Ina Fuchs, Ulrich Scholz: Four days. Wera Goldman. Video production 2006, German Dance Film Institute Bremen.