Wilmo Kamrath

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Wilhelm "Wilmo" Kamrath (born March 17, 1908 in Lauta ; † December 24, 1989 in Dessau ) was a German dancer and choreographer .

Life

He was the eighth child of pastor Hugo Kamrath, who came from Lanz near Lenzen on the Elbe. After his death in 1919 he became a pupil of the orphanage in the Francke Foundations in Halle and a pupil of the "Schola Latina" , a humanistic grammar school. He wanted to study sport, became aware of Rudolf von Laban's work and before the beginning of the semester responded to a call from the Braunschweig State Theater , which was looking for participants for a movement choir. He was trained by the ballet master and was already performing as a soloist in the theater's stage productions in the summer of 1927. At Laban's personal recommendation, he underwent technical training in Berlin in 1928 and 1929 at Max Terpis' school for stage dance and special training in classical ballet with Victor Gsovsky .

For the 1929/30 season Kamrath was hired by Harald Kreutzberg , who was in charge of dance there, as a dancer with solo engagements at the Leipzig Municipal Theaters and in the following season as a solo dancer. In his spare time, he founded the “Gruppe Junge Tanzkunst Leipzig” in 1931, which presented itself to the public for the first time in a matinee on March 8, 1931, including with his dance drummer in red (based on music by Béla Bartók ). From 1931 onwards, she performed as a guest ballet master at the Halle City Theater, at the Operetta Theater in Wiesbaden and at the Battenberg Theater in Leipzig. He founded his own dance studios in Halle and Leipzig and taught at the University of Halle-Wittenberg. In 1932/33 Kamrath gave his own dance evenings with Ilse Meudtner .

In the 1933/34 season Kamrath was hired by Kurt Jooss as a member of his dance theater group for a world tour. In 1934/35 he made his own tour through northern and eastern Germany and took part in the German Dance Festival in Berlin. From 1935 to 1937 Wilmo Kamrath worked as the head of the dance group at the Oberschlesisches Landestheater Beuthen - Gleiwitz - Hindenburg and took part in the 1936 dance performances for the Berlin Olympics in the choreography of Harald Kreutzberg. Further engagements took him to the Reussische Theater in Gera in 1937/38 , in 1939/40 as a training master and solo dancer at the Duisburg Opera House , in 1940/41 as a ballet master and solo dancer in Teplitz-Schönau and in 1941/42 as a ballet master and solo dancer at the municipal stages in Katowice - Koenigshütte . His engagement as head of the dance stage, ballet master and solo dancer at the theaters of the city of Nuremberg , which he began with a three-year contract in 1942, was ended when he was drafted into the Wehrmacht.

In the season 1945/46 Kamrath worked as head of the dance stage, ballet master and solo dancer at the municipal theaters in Hagen . At the same time he founded his own dance group again, with which he went on tour, especially in the Ruhr area. In 1947 he became ballet master and solo dancer at the Essen Municipal Theaters and taught ballet and national dance at the Folkwang Schools in Essen. In 1948 he moved to the municipal theater in Lübeck as a ballet master and solo dancer for three seasons . In 1951, Wilmo Kamrath began working for many years at the Landestheater Dessau as director of the dance stage, ballet master and solo dancer. In addition to classics such as Dreispitz (1952), he also choreographed his own works here, such as The Devil's Whip to music by Zoltán Kodály , whom he visited in Budapest in 1953, and directed movement in operas such as Die Stumme von Portici . In 1965 he created his first chamber dance evening at the theater with a contemporary theme ... and every day became brighter to the ballad of Albrecht Kortüm's hard- earned life , set to music for the performance by Heinz Röttger .

Wilmo Kamrath was married to the solo dancer Ellen Meißner, for whom (and her dance partner Rolf / Rudolf Handel) he created many roles or particularly profiled classical roles such as Swanilda in the ballet Coppélia . Kamrath saw his choreographic work primarily as "dance direction".

literature

  • Wilmo Kamrath remembers (written down by Dietmar Fritzsche). In: Theater der Zeit , H. 1/1990.
  • Kamrath, Wilmo . In: Dessauer Künstler-Lexikon , Vol. 3. Office for Culture, Tourism and Sport [u. a.], Dessau 2007, pp. 296-297.
  • Frank Kreissler: Selection from the 2014 anniversaries . In: Dessau calendar. Local yearbook for Dessau-Roßlau and the surrounding area . Dessau-Roßlau, City Archives, vol. 58.2014, pp. 178–183. ISSN 0420-1264.
  • Graphic portfolio by Wilhelm Krieg: The dancer Wilmo Kamrath in 6 original etchings . Dresden and Halle 1932.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Pages of the German Dance Archive Cologne, accessed April 5, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Kamrath, Wilmo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kamrath, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German dancer and choreographer
DATE OF BIRTH March 17, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Lauta
DATE OF DEATH December 24, 1989
Place of death Dessau