106 Facts About Pola Nirenska

Pola Nirenska, born Pola Nirensztajn, was a Polish performer of modern dance.

Pola Nirenska 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.

Pola Nirenska spent 14 years in the United Kingdom, primarily entertaining refugees, troops, and war workers.

Pola Nirenska emigrated to the United States in 1949 and settled in Washington, DC, where she was widely acknowledged as the city's leading choreographer and performer of modern dance until her death.

Pola Nirenska exhibited a strong interest in dance from a very early age.

Pola Nirenska was nine years old when she received her first formal training in dance, and 15 years old when she choreographed her first work.

Pola Nirenska asked permission to attend one of these schools, and her parents refused.

Pola Nirenska locked herself in her bedroom for three days, refusing to eat or sleep until they relented.

Pola Nirenska's father sold a building which he had purchased in Berlin, and agreed to use the profit he made to finance her dance training.

Pola 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.

Pola Nirenska began her studies in 1929 at the age of 18.

When Pola Nirenska enrolled at the Wigman School, there were about 360 students and 14 teachers.

Pola Nirenska was one of the most prominent students at the Wigman School, but not the top student.

Pola Nirenska was not a disciplined dancer, and reacted negatively when punished.

Indeed, in her second year, Pola Nirenska taught percussion classes on her own.

Pola Nirenska made a second solo tour from December 1931 to April 1932.

Pola Nirenska was one of the 12 dancers admitted to the new troupe.

Hurok sent her last paycheck for the tour to Pola Nirenska's now-impoverished parents in Warsaw.

Pola Nirenska continued to admit Jews as students to her school and as dancers in her troupe because, Kant concludes, Wigman believed they were "purified" by submitting to her purist dance ideology.

The Nazis' rise to power prompted Pola Nirenska to leave Germany and settle in her native Warsaw, where she taught dance for a year at the Warsaw Conservatory and established her own small modern dance group.

Pola Nirenska 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.

When Pola Nirenska saw a Nazi flag hanging outside Wigman's home and Wigman's secretary wearing an SS uniform, she left without seeing her former teacher.

Pola Nirenska received a grant from the Polish government to further her studies in dance.

Pola Nirenska relocated to Vienna, where she studied dance with Rosalia Chladek.

Pola Nirenska taught dance classes for children, but the language barrier proved insurmountable; Nirenska called her classes "awful".

Pola Nirenska agreed, provided she never dance in public again.

Pola Nirenska was alarmed by rising anti-semitism in Europe, and decided to leave the continent.

Pola Nirenska modeled for fashion designers and for artists like the sculptor Jacob Epstein.

In 1940, Pola Nirenska learned that more than 75 members of her extended family were murdered in The Holocaust.

Pola Nirenska danced in the 1942 revue Waltz Without End at the Cambridge Theatre in 1942.

Pola Nirenska later said that she danced more frequently during the war than at any other time in her life.

In 1946, Pola Nirenska married John Justinian de Ledesma, a film and theater actor who used the stage name John Justin.

Pola Nirenska opened a dance studio and began creating new solo pieces again.

Pola Nirenska went on a British-sponsored series of performances in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in March and April 1947.

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

Pola 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, held in the summer at his Jacob's Pillow Farm near Becket, Massachusetts.

For much of 1949 and 1950, Pola Nirenska lived in New York City, washing dishes to earn money.

Pola Nirenska was extremely poor; she often had too little to eat, and her weight dropped to 105 pounds.

Humphrey and her dance partner, Charles Weidman, assisted Pola Nirenska and looked out for her.

Pola Nirenska learned Humphrey's theories and techniques of fall-and-recovery and opposition-and-succession, which helped add more powerful movements to her performance, and was so excited by Humphrey's course on composition that she took it twice.

Pola Nirenska spent most of the summers of 1950,1951, and part of 1952 as a guest at Humphrey's home in New London, Connecticut.

Humphrey oversaw the summer dance school there, and Pola Nirenska learned how to do reconstruction of dances and received feedback regarding her own choreography.

Pola Nirenska made her professional North American debut under the auspices of the Boston Dance Theatre on February 16,1950.

Pola Nirenska's 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.

Pola Nirenska's program consisted of Dancer's Dilemma, Street Girl, Eastern Ballad, Village Beauty, and A Scarecrow Remembers.

Dr de Laban was head of the dance department at Adelphi University in New York City and hired Pola Nirenska to teach in the college's summer program in 1951.

Pola Nirenska taught in the dance arts program at Carnegie Hall.

Pola Nirenska made her New York City debut on May 1,1952.

Dancer Evelyn de la Tour asked Pola Nirenska to teach modern dance at a summer school near her home in Sedgwick, Maine.

Pola Nirenska herself knew that with so many dancers in New York City, finding performance and teaching opportunities would be difficult.

Pola Nirenska taught at de la Tour's studio, Dance Workshop, which was located at 1518 Wisconsin Avenue NW.

Life was not easy: Pola Nirenska lived in a small room at the back of the studio which contained her bedroom and a kitchenette.

Pola Nirenska had to share a bathroom with the students.

Pola Nirenska learned how to teach children and beginning students from de la Tour, who encouraged her to teach less and choreograph more.

Pola Nirenska 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 Pola Nirenska performed dances in the style of Expressionism.

Pola Nirenska performed several times at the Pageant of Peace near the National Christmas Tree in December 1954.

Pola Nirenska partnered with Butler to form their own dance troupe, the Washington Dance Company, in the spring of 1956.

Pola Nirenska choreographed mostly group dances during this period, and only a single solo.

Pola 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.

Pola Nirenska's studio proved so popular that Nirenska was able to repay the loan within six years.

Pola Nirenska stopped performing about 1960 as well, devoting herself to choreography.

Pola Nirenska began making films of dances, most of them featuring young performers.

Pola Nirenska filmed Marian Scott performing Three Energies; Murray Louis performing Chimera; dance phrases developed by Norman Walker and performed by Walker and dancer Ruth Currier; selections of performances by Erick Hawkins and Don Redlich; and improvisations by some of her students.

Pola Nirenska began making portraits of friends, which led to an emerging career as a portrait photographer.

Pola Nirenska abruptly retired in 1968, even though she was still very highly regarded as a teacher, choreographer, and dancer.

Pola Nirenska accompanied her husband on a State Department tour of Greece, Lebanon, and Turkey from December 1966 to January 1967, during which she gave lectures on dance and modern dance workshops.

Pola Nirenska finally made her decision to retire when her husband asked her to.

In retirement, Pola Nirenska engaged in volunteer work such as chauffeuring older women and answering a hotline.

Pola Nirenska devoted time to gardening, travel, and working on her photography.

Pola Nirenska suffered from severe depression and mental illness, and spent years undergoing inpatient and outpatient treatment at St Elizabeths Hospital, the large federally run psychiatric facility in DC.

In 1977, Pola Nirenska sought out dancer Liz Lerman, then teaching a rudimentary dance class for senior citizens at a local residential hotel.

Pola Nirenska set an older solo piece "The Eternal Insomnia of the Earth" on Lerman.

Pola Nirenska initially remounted older dances for the troupe.

Pola Nirenska created new works for members of the company and guest artists.

Pola Nirenska had a major concert of her work was presented on March 9,1982, at the Marvin Theater at George Washington University.

Pola Nirenska composed a number of new works over the next several years.

Pola Nirenska began work on the final piece in the tetralogy, The Train, in 1988.

Pola Nirenska's intention was to complete it and have it performed at the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theatre before the end of the year.

Karski told dancers, then in rehearsal, that Pola Nirenska had fallen ill, and the concert was cancelled.

About 18 months passed before Pola Nirenska had recovered enough to finish The Train and complete rehearsals for the tetralogy.

In July 1990, Pola Nirenska gave a "farewell concert" in which her In Memory of Those I Loved.

The "Holocaust Tetralogy" consisted of three group and one solo dance depicting the emotions Pola Nirenska felt as a refugee who lost almost her entire family in the Holocaust.

Pola Nirenska committed suicide on 25 July 1992 by leaping from the 11th-floor balcony of her home in Bethesda, Maryland.

Pola Nirenska was interred at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, DC.

Pola Nirenska married John Justinian de Ledesma in 1946.

Pola Nirenska saw her again on stage during her Washington debut in May 1953.

Pola Nirenska then met her at a party in Washington, and asked her to dinner.

Pola Nirenska thought it more proper for them to have lunch.

Pola Nirenska never read Karski's book, Story of a Secret State.

Who Are No More, and Pola Nirenska was reluctant to let him see it.

Pola Nirenska said her mentors included Doris Humphrey, Kurt Jooss, Charles Weidman, and Mary Wigman.

Pola Nirenska's Expressionism utilized muscle tension, stark movement, circling, locomotive scales, spinning, and vibration.

In composition, Pola Nirenska's Expressionism was highly dramatic, and often used "sculptural" masses of performers in group dances.

Pola Nirenska embraced the humanistic tradition of Humphrey and Weidman, and continued to express raw emotion in her work even as she introduced warmer, more compassionate emotion and even extreme tenderness into her performances.

Pola Nirenska introduced lyricism into her work, infusing it with compassion and refusing to allow it to mask the truth she sought to convey.

Rather, it was because Pola Nirenska was convinced it had meaning and that it allowed her to best express her own feelings.

Pola Nirenska required an even higher level of craft from herself and her performers.

Pola Nirenska's works retained an emphasis on depicting basic emotion, but she began to address social issues.

Pola Nirenska's choreography was increasingly guided by three elements: Truthfulness, the depiction of emotion, and references to her flight from Nazism and the loss of her family.

Pola Nirenska adopted a thematic device where sequences of movement were repeated with different levels of energy.

Pola Nirenska became particularly skilled at composing pithy, intense solos.

Dance historian Susan Manning has argued that Pola Nirenska made important contributions to American dance.

Pola Nirenska was a major force in the modern dance community in Washington, DC She was a leader in choreography, direction, performance, and teaching.

Pola Nirenska believed that every dancer should be able to read music and play an instrument.

Pola Nirenska was well-known, said critic Alan Kriegsman, as one of the most creative people in the city.