Pola Nireńska

Pola Nirenska (28 July 1910 — 25 July 1992), born Pola Nirensztajn, was a Polish performer of modern dance. She had a critically acclaimed if brief career in Austria, Germany, Italy, and Poland in the 1930s before fleeing the continent in 1935 due to rising antisemitism. She spent 14 years in the United Kingdom, primarily entertaining refugees, troops, and war workers. She emigrated to the United States in 1949 and settled in Washington, D.C., where she was widely acknowledged as the city's leading choreographer and performer of modern dance until her death.

Early life Nirenska was born Pola Nirensztajn on 28 July 1910 in Warsaw, Poland, which at that time was part of the Russian Empire. Her parents, Mordechaj and Ita ( Waksmann), were observant Jews. The family was well-off, as Nirenska's father made men's neckties for a living. She exhibited a strong interest in dance from a very early age. Nirenska was nine years old when she received her first formal training in dance (at a summer dance camp for girls), and 15 years old when she choreographed her first work (a solo piece, performed in the family kitchen, set to Camille Saint-Saëns' Danse macabre). In her teens, she attended a Roman Catholic high school for the arts. She secretly took a class in ballet. Finding she did not like it, she switched to a class in modern dance.

Dance training under Mary Wigman Her father sold a building which he had purchased in Berlin, and agreed to use the profit he made to finance her dance training. Nirenska was accepted at the Wigman School, a music and dance school established in Dresden by Expressionist dance pioneer Mary Wigman in the fall of 1920. Nirenska began her studies in 1929 at the age of 18.

The Wigman School offered a three-year program that included courses in anatomy, music, and pedagogy (the theory and practice of teaching) along with intensive instruction in dance. Students were also required to take courses in the liberal arts, such as art, philosophy, and religion, to study piano and accompaniment. Dance instruction covered the entire spectrum of dance, with a focus on composition (tänzerische Gestaltung), expression (Ausdruck), and technique (Technik). Both "technical skills lessons" and "class (compositional) lessons" used improvisation as the basic teaching method. Circling, locomotive scales, spinning, and vibration were some of the technical skills taught, while the interplay of energy, space, and time were explored in class lessons. To complete their studies, a student had to present a concert of group and solo works, as well as submit to a written thesis. When Nirenska enrolled at the Wigman School, there were about 360 students (several dozen of them professionals seeking additional training) and 14 teachers. Nearly all the students were women and middle-class, even though the school's cost was rather high. A certificate from the Wigman School was highly regarded in Germany, and many graduates went immediately into teaching or choreography (foregoing a dance career).

Pola Nirenska was one of the most prominent students at the Wigman School, but not the top student. She was not a disciplined dancer, and reacted negatively when punished. Wigman considered Nirenska "pudgy" and too much of a beginner. The top student was Rosalia Chladek, whose sparse movement was highly evocative. Nirenska's best marks were in her dance and percussion classes.

European career First professional tour and dismissal by Wigman

After graduating from the Wigman School in 1932, Nirenska joined Wigman's 14-member all-women modern dance group. Wigman had toured the United States in a critically acclaimed tour from December 1930 to March 1931. She made a second solo tour from December 1931 to April 1932. By mid-1932, the Great Depression had caused many students to drop out of her school and financing for dance performances had become scarce in Germany. In July 1932, American producer Sol Hurok traveled to Germany to interest Wigman in a tour of South America. Instead, Wigman proposed creating a 12-member group of her most advanced students and touring the United States with her new piece, Der Weg (The Journey). Nirenska was one of the 12 dancers admitted to the new troupe. Wigman began rehearsing Nirenska and the 11 other dancers in September 1932. Reaction to previews in Dresden and Berlin in December 1932 were mixed. The Wigman Dance Group arrived in New York City just before Christmas 1932. Audiences were disappointed, finding the 12 dancers who moved around Wigman to be not up to professional standards. Wigman herself appeared only sparingly in the piece. The tour ended on 5 March 1933. Hurok sent her last paycheck for the tour to Nirenska's now-impoverished parents in Warsaw. She received a first prize for choreography and a second prize for performing for her original solo work Cry, which she debuted at the International Dance Congress in Vienna, Austria, in early June 1934. (She never performed Cry again.)

The Theater in der Josefstadt brought Nirenska to Vienna in May 1935 for a series of concerts. Each performance consisted of 12 solos. Shortly thereafter, Angelo Sartorios, choreographer at the Teatro Comunale (the state opera house in Florence, Italy), asked her to perform as a soloist dancer in a production of the opera Aida. She taught dance classes for children, but the language barrier proved insurmountable; Nirenska called her classes "awful". Nirenska left Florence after just three months when the Mussolini regime invaded Ethiopia in October 1935 (causing strained relations with Poland). All her costumes were stolen during her flight to Vienna. She asked her father for financial assistance. He agreed, provided she never dance in public again. Nirenska declined. Her parents and brother escaped death by fleeing to Mandatory Palestine. She went on a British-sponsored series of performances in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in March and April 1947.

Nirenska divorced Justin in 1949, and emigrated to the United States that same year.

American career Studying: 1949–1950 Charles Weidman. Nirenska studied under him for about two years, and said he was her favorite teacher Nirenska was invited to move to the United States by dancer Ted Shawn, who wanted her to perform at the 1950 Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Efn|One of Nirenska's friends, and Weidman. Her program included Eastern Ballad, A Scarecrow Remembers, St. Bridget: Stained-Glass Window, Sarabande for the Dead Queen, La Puerta Del Vino, Peasant Lullaby, Mad Girl, Dancer's Dilemma, and Unwanted Child, and was critically acclaimed. To earn a living in Massachusetts, she taught at the Berkshire Playhouse Drama School in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Her program consisted of Dancer's Dilemma, Street Girl, Eastern Ballad, Village Beauty, and A Scarecrow Remembers.

Her old teacher, Rudolf von Laban, introduced Nirenska to his eldest daughter, Juana de Laban, in 1951. Dr. de Laban was head of the dance department at Adelphi University in New York City and hired Nirenska to teach in the college's summer program in 1951. She also taught in the dance arts program at Carnegie Hall.

Dancer Evelyn de la Tour asked Nirenska to teach modern dance at a summer school near her home in Sedgwick, Maine. De la Tour was so impressed with Nirenska's abilities that she invited her to become co-director of and a partner in the de la Tour dance studio in Washington, D.C. The two also taught dance at four area private schools: Madeira School and Potomac School, both located in McLean, Virginia; the National Cathedral School for Girls in Washington, D.C.; and Piedmont Day School in Alexandria, Virginia. Life was not easy: Nirenska lived in a small room at the back of the studio which contained her bedroom and a kitchenette. She had to share a bathroom with the students. She learned how to teach children and beginning students from de la Tour, who also encouraged her to teach less and choreograph more. Soon, she was choreographing solo and group works for advanced students.

She made her professional Washington debut on May 29, 1953, at Cardozo High School. Ethel Butler, a former pupil of Martha Graham's, presented dances in the style of Graham, while Nirenska performed dances in the style of Expressionism. She performed several times at the Pageant of Peace near the National Christmas Tree in December 1954.

Nirenska partnered with Butler to form their own dance troupe, the Washington Dance Company, in the spring of 1956. She choreographed mostly group dances during this period, and only a single solo. In her own dancing, Nirenska worked to reduce her dependency on Wigman and Expressionism and embrace the more lyrical, emotional style then present in American modern dance. Naima Prevots, who danced with Nirenska in the 1960s, believes that not only was Nirenska embracing America and American culture and feeling more American herself, but she felt antagonistic to Wigman and German Expressionism for betraying Jewish dancers in 1933. Nirenska was invited to the 1958 American Dance Festival in New London, Connecticut, where she performed two solo pieces, Vigil By The Sea and The Eternal Fool. In the summer of 1959, she taught dance at a summer program held at Utah State University.

Her success as a teacher had parents pressing her to open her own studio in 1956. Three years later, a group of parents loaned her $15,000 ($ in dollars), Her studio proved so popular that Nirenska was able to repay the loan within six years.

First retirement Nirenska and her husband, Jan Karski, took a vacation in Mexico in the summer of 1966, during which she took film of their vacation. Encouraged by the reaction to her films, Nirenska began an intense study of photography and filmmaking,

During 1967 and 1968, Nirenska entered her photographs in several shows, winning a number of awards and prizes. She began making portraits of friends, which led to an emerging career as a portrait photographer. Her reasons for doing so remain unclear. Nirenska set an older solo piece "The Eternal Insomnia of the Earth" on Lerman. Shortly after, creative differences led to a break between Nirenska and Lerman. Lerman suggested that Nirenska seek out local dancer Jan Tievsky, who had recently founded Glen Echo Dance Theater in Glen Echo, Maryland. Nirenska initially remounted (and, on occasion, reworked) older dances for the troupe. She also created new works for members of the company and guest artists. The first of these, a modified version of Nirenska's 1965 work Three Sculptures, debuted in August 1980. Four months later, Glen Echo Dance Theater announced the appointment of Nirenska as a resident choreographer. Glen Echo Dance Theater presented the world premiere of her The Divided Self (with Jan Tievsky and Cheryl Koehler) at the City Dance '81 dance festival in April 1981. It was her first new work in 13 years.

Grave of Pola Nirenska and her husband, Jan Karski, at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Nirenska had a major concert of her work was presented on March 9, 1982, at the Marvin Theater at George Washington University. The concert was produced by Jan Tievsky and featured dancers from Glen Echo Dance Theater, in addition to guest artists. The program featured both old and new works. a satirical group piece, The Tired Magician, in March 1984 in which she herself appeared, seated; a new work, Trapped, set to music by Philip Glass, in December 1985; a solo piece, Exuberance, in 1986 choreographed specifically for dancer Laura Schandelmeir; Woman, a trilogy of linked solos, and the solo work Shout, in June 1987; and Out of Sorts, which debuted at the Terrace Theater at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in February 1988. As art critic Pamela Sommers said, these new compositions were "a powerful collection...concerning war, memory, desire and death."

Throughout the 1980s, Nirenska was at work on a major piece, In Memory of Those I Loved...Who Are No More (known as the "Holocaust Tetralogy"). Jan Karski had testified before Congress in 1980 to promote federal funding for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Karski was also interviewed in his home for the documentary film Shoah. This sparked a flood of memories for Nirenska, which she began to turn into dance compositions. She began work on the final piece in the tetralogy, The Train, in 1988. Her intention was to complete it and have it performed at the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theatre before the end of the year. The stress of revisiting memories of the loss of her family proved too much, and Nirenska had a severe nervous breakdown and extended paranoid episode. Karski told dancers, then in rehearsal, that Nirenska had fallen ill, and the concert was cancelled. About 18 months passed before Nirenska had recovered enough to finish The Train and complete rehearsals for the tetralogy. The concert, "An Evening of Choreography", The "Holocaust Tetralogy" consisted of three group and one solo dance depicting the emotions Nirenska felt as a refugee who lost almost her entire family in the Holocaust. Critic Anna Kisselgoff, writing for The New York Times, called the tetralogy "compelling".

Personal life Nirenska married John Justinian de Ledesma (aka "John Justin") in 1946. They divorced in 1949.

She married Jan Karski in 1965. He saw her again on stage during her Washington debut in May 1953. He later sent her a fan letter.

Nirenska's early performance style was heavily rooted in the German Expressionist dance style of Mary Wigman and others. This style of dance emphasized the truthful expression of emotion. and often used "sculptural" masses of performers in group dances. She required an even higher level of craft from herself and her performers. Her technique now incorporated fall-and-recovery, opposition-and-succession, more urgent movement, clarity of gesture,

In 1994, Karski also established the Pola Nirenska Award for Outstanding Contribution to Dance. Administered by the Washington Performing Arts Society, this $5,000 prize is given to an individual (usually from the D.C. area) who has made outstanding contributions to dance. A second award, the Nirenska Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement, was established about 2009.