BODENWIESER, GERTRUD (1890-1959), dancer, choreographer and teacher, was born on
3 February 1890 in Vienna, younger daughter of Johann Theodor Bondi,
auction-broker, and his wife Maria, née Tandler. Taught at home by governesses,
from an early age Gertrud showed a talent for dancing. In c.1905-10 she was
trained in classical ballet by Carl Godlewski, but soon recognized that this art
form had 'become a mere exhibition of virtuosity'.
View the full record at
Australian Dictionary of Biography
Gertrud Bodenwieser, dancer, teacher
and choreographer, was born in Vienna
on 3 February 1890, the younger daughter
of Theodor and Maria Bondi. She was trained
in classical ballet by Carl Godlewski,
but soon came to develop her own method
of performing and teaching 'free' dance.
By 1917 she had adopted the surname ?Bodenwieser'.
She married theatre director Friedrich
Jacques Rosenthal on 27 June 1920.
Bodenwieser gave her first public performance
as a dancer at the Wiener Konzerthaus,
Vienna, on 5 May 1919. Between 1920 and
1938 she taught at the Akademie für Musik
und Darstellende Kunst (the Vienna State
Academy for Music and Drama), where she
was appointed a professor in 1926. From
1925 to 1939 Bodenwieser and Tanzgruppe
Bodenwieser toured extensively in Europe,
also visiting New York and Japan.
Following the Nazi invasion of Austria
in 1938, Bodenwieser and her husband
fled to France. While Bodenwieser went
on to join some of her dancers in Colombia,
Rosenthal stayed in France, where he
was later arrested and interned in the
concentration camp at Auschwitz, Poland.
It is believed that he died in 1942.
During her tour with her company in South
America she found herself unable to return
to Vienna, and arrived in Australia via
New Zealand in 1939. She immediately
established a company in Sydney, variously
called the Bodenwieser Ballet and the
Bodenwieser Viennese Ballet. From 1940
to 1954 the company toured Australian
cities and towns, as well as visiting
New Zealand, South Africa, Rhodesia and
India.
During her career, Bodenwieser choreographed
approximately 300 dance works, including
dance-dramas and comedies, group dances
and solo dances, as well as dances for
operettas and plays. Over 100 of these
were composed in Australia, including
some which looked to Australia as a source
of inspiration such as
Waltzing Matilda and
Central Australian Suite.
Many of her works dealt with social issues
including her well known
Demon Machine, which she
choreographed in Vienna in the early
1920s, which won a Grand Prix in Florence,
Italy, in 1931 and which remained in
the Bodenwieser repertoire throughout
her life. Other works, such as
The Blue Danube, were lighter
in tone.
Bodenwieser played a significant role
in the development of modern dance in
Australia with her studio in Sydney helping
to produce some of Australia's best-known
modern choreographers and dancers, including
Anita Ardell, Keith Bain and Margaret
Chapple. Bodenwieser also worked with
the New South Wales Art Council and the
Mobile Theatre Unit. She died in Sydney
on 10 November 1959. At the 2001 Australian
Dance Awards she was posthumously inducted
into the Hall of Fame.
Further information about Bodenwieser
and the Bodenwieser Ballet in Australia,
with online resources including a brief
film clip of Coralie Hinkley performing
in Bodenwieser's
Central Australian Suite,
is contained in the National Library
of Australia's exhibition
Dance people dance. See
'The
search for identity' and explore
the 'More' links.
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