Asta Mollerup

Asta Malthea Mollerup (22 May 1881 – 25 September 1945) was a Danish dance teacher who was one of the first to introduce the Danes to modern dance, a new trend which was inspired by the American dancer Isadora Duncan and the German choreographer Mary Wigman. From 1914, she ran her own dancing school for children in Copenhagen and in 1927 she founded the Asta Mollerup School for Female Dancers (Asta Mollerup Danserindeskolen). Apart from the Royal Danish Academy of Music, it was Denmark's only dancing school.

Biography Born on 22 May 1881 in Copenhagen, Asta Malthea Mollerup was the daughter of the museum director Arthur Julius William Mollerup (1846–1917) and Caroline Susanne Ewald Rothe (1853–1938). She was initially trained as a dancer by a Russian ballet master in Oslo. On returning to Copenhagen in 1914, she opened a ballet and rhythmic dance school for children and young adults. Until 1925, she also taught gymnastics and dance at Marie Mørk's School in Hillerød and at I. Ingwersen & H. Ellbrecht's School in Copenhagen.