Olga Desmond

Olga Desmond (born Olga Antonie Sellin; 2 November 1890 – 2 August 1964) was a German dancer, actress, art model and living statue.

Biography

Olga Antonie Sellin was born on 2 November 1890 in Allenstein, East Prussia (now Olsztyn, Poland), and shared a home with thirteen brothers and sisters. At the age of fifteen, she left her family and joined a theatre act in London. In 1906, she attended the Marie Seebach School of the Königliches Schauspielhaus Berlin.

In Berlin, she co-founded the Association for Ideal Culture and gave shows called "living pictures" in which she posed after the manner of ancient classical works of art. Upon returning to Berlin, she changed her name to Olga Desmond, working with Adolf Salge. She began to create her own show, and would dance with a veil. Eventually she switched to a long mediaeval-style belt. These so-called "Evenings of Beauty" (Schönheitsabende) were prohibited on more than one occasion starting from 1908, because the actors usually posed nude or wearing only bodypaint. She defended them by comparing them with the classical Greek ideal of nudity. Variety reported in 1909 that she had been ordered to cover up when performing at the Crystal Palace, Leipzig, where she was earning $200 per night, but the police in Frankfurt did not stop her performing there. She also introduced solo dances between the tableaux

Olga Desmond herself persistently defended her right to appear naked. She told the Russian press:

Like other dancers around the world seeking to raise the status of their art, Olga Desmond raised the prices of some of her shows so that only people who respected her kind of art would be seeing her shows. In addition to raising prices, many of her performances were only open to members of other dance societies so that people on the street could not see her performances.

Asked whether a stage costume would interfere with her, Olga Desmond answered: "To be completely graceful in a costume or even in a tricot is unthinkable. And I decided to throw off this needless yoke." Objecting to the claims that she excites "base instincts" of the public, the dancer said: "I purposely set a high admission charge for my shows so that the street would not get in, for it has little understanding of pure art, but so that people with broader demands for it would come, people who will look on me as a servitor of art."

The authorities in St. Petersburg paid little attention to the explanations offered by the dancer from Berlin, and her first appearance in the imperial Russian capital was also her last: further shows were forbidden by the mayor. Many artists in the capital took the side of the authorities. For example, Konstantin Makovsky sharply denounced what he called the "cult of the naked body", saying that "beauty, like much else in life, must have its hidden secrets, that we don't even have the right to expose."

Return to Berlin Olga Desmond was no less the subject of controversy in her own country. In 1909, her appearance in the Berlin Wintergarten was the cause of such a scandal that it became a subject of discussion even in the Prussian State Assembly. Thereafter, she made fewer public appearances and from 1922 devoted herself entirely to teaching. Among her best-known students was Hertha Feist, who later became a member of the dance group of Rudolf von Laban.

After the First World War, she married her second husband, Georg Piek, a Jewish businessman with a studio for stage equipment, decorations, and special fabrics. After 1933, Piek left Germany.

After World War II, Desmond lived in the eastern part of Berlin. In her later years, forgotten by the public, she worked as a cleaning woman. To make a living, she also sold vintage postcards and other memorabilia from her time as a renowned dancer.

Legacy Desmond's work continues to be exhibited. For example, in 1993 a photo of her 1908 'Schönheitsabende' performance featured in Mike Kelley's The Uncanny. In 2009 she was the subject of Olga Desmond 1890–1964 Preußens Nackte Venus. She was included in Dance of Hands: Tilly Losch and Hedy Pfundmayr in Photographs 1920–1935 which ran at Museum des Moderne Salzburg in 2014 and at Das Verborgene Museum in 2015–2016. Otto Skowranek's series of photos of Desmond's sword dance is held at Deutsches Tanzarchiv Köln.

Filmography 1915: Seifenblasen 1915: Nocturno 1917: Postkarten-Modell : Wanda 1917: Die Grille 1918: Leben um Leben : Aglaja 1918: Der Mut zur Sünde 1918: Der fliegende Holländer : Senta. Directed by Hans Neumann. 1919: Göttin, Dirne und Weib

Publications Desmond, Olga. Rhythmographik. Tanznotenschrift als Grundlage zum Selbstudium des Tanzes. Edited by Fritz Böhme, Leipzig, 1919.