Tilla Durieux als Delila
Category: role portrait, Rollenporträt, characterization
Tilla Durieux als Circe, ca. 1912
Tilla Durieux as Clytemnestra
![Tilla Durieux, German actress. Photography.1914. [Tilla Durieux, deutsche Schauspielerin. Fotographie. 1914.] Vielleicht : Becker & Maaß (?)](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52786057997_51ded28058_o.jpg)
Tilla Durieux in Josephslegende
Tilla Durieux als Circe
Tilla Durieux als Circe, um 1912
Als Schauspielerin wurde die in Wien als Ottilie Godefroy geborene Tilla Durieux (1880–1971) ab 1903 an der Bühne von Max Reinhardt in Berlin berühmt. Sie ist vielfach dargestellt worden, allein drei Künstler widmeten sich dieser Aufgabe im Jahre 1912: Ernst Barlach modellierte auf Wunsch von Paul Cassirer, dem zweiten Ehemann Durieux’, eine Büste, die noch im selben Jahr in Porzellan und in Bronze gegossen wurde. Ebenfalls 1912 stellten Hugo Lederer und Stuck sie in der Rolle der Circe aus dem gleichnamigen Stück von Pedro Calderón dar, mit der sie im Münchner Künstlertheater großen Erfolg hatte. Lederer schuf eine Statue. Stuck ließ die Schauspielerin, entsprechend einer häufig von ihm angewandten Arbeitsweise, in seinem Atelier fotografieren, in für das geplante Bild effektvollen Posen. Eine dieser fotografischen Studien (Nachlass Franz von Stuck, Nr. 47 A, Museum Villa Stuck, München) diente dem Gemälde als direkte Vorlage. Im Bild hebt sich Tilla Durieux als Circe in scharfem Profil vom dunklen Grund ab. Gleichermaßen schön und gefährlich, mit lauernd-lockendem Blick reicht sie ihrem imaginären Gegenüber eine goldene Weinschale. Else Lasker- Schüler dichtete: „Barlach formte den Kopf / In bläulich Porzellan, / Als Kleopatra malte sie Slevogt. / Senken sich ihre witternden Vogelaugen, / Dann schwankt die Bühne vor Todesbeben: / Alkestis“ (Der Querschnitt, 2. Jg. [1922], Weihnachtsheft, S. 179). Die suggestive Darstellung suchte Stuck mit einem eigens entworfenen Rahmen noch zu verstärken. | Angelika Wesenberg für Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
SEE ALSO: Malerei und Photographie im Dialog von 1840 bis heute. Ausstellung im Rahmen der Junifestwochen, Zürich, Kunsthaus Zürich, 13.05.1977-24.07.1977
Tilla Durieux (1880-1971), born Ottilie Godefroy in Vienna, became famous as an actress from 1903 on the stage of Max Reinhardt in Berlin. She has been depicted many times, with three artists dedicated to this task in 1912: Ernst Barlach modeled a bust at the request of Paul Cassirer, Durieux’s second husband, which was cast in porcelain and bronze that same year. Also in 1912, Hugo Lederer and Stuck presented her in the role of Circe from the play of the same name by Pedro Calderón, with which she had great success at the Munich Art Theater. Lederer created a statue. Stuck had the actress photographed in his studio, in accordance with a working method he often used, in effective poses for the planned picture. One of these photographic studies (Franz von Stuck estate, no. 47 A, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich) served as a direct template for the painting. In the picture, Tilla Durieux as Circe stands out in sharp profile against the dark background. Equally beautiful and dangerous, with a lurking, alluring look, she hands her imaginary counterpart a golden wine bowl. | From Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Pfundmayr in Mädchen aus Palästina
Vaudeville dancer Ann Linn, 1922
Alexander Rumnev, ca. 1920
Why little Sasha start dancing? (text updated 2020)
Soviet dance pioneer Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Ziakin (1899-1965), known as Rumnev or Alexander Rumnev, took his pseudonym from the family estate: Rumnia.
Rumnev started dancing after Duncan’s show in 1905. Little Sasha Zyakin (Rumnev) had not seen Duncan’s performance in Moscow in 1905 (he only heard his parents talk about it), the boy «stripped himself of all his clothes, wrapped into a sheet and attempted to reproduce her dance in front of the mirror».
From an early age, Aleksandr Rumnev (1899-1965) dreamt of dancing, yet he could do it only after graduating from high school. In 1918 he took up ballet classes, and a friend brought him to Liudmila Alekseeva’s studio. For the talented student, Alekseeva choreographed several dances to the music by Rakhmaninov and a dance of the ocean wave to the etude by Carl Czerny. Tall, slim and flexible, Rumnev was a born dancer, and within a year he had already founded his own company. He also performed with other companies including Lev Lukin’s Free Ballet (see below). The art critic Aleksey Sidorov found him «stunning»; he believed that «even the West» could be proud of such dancer.
During the Civil War private dance studios experienced hard times for the shortage of rooms with heating. As a matter of survival, Rumnev suggested to create an umbrella-studio, A Search in Dance. The space was provided by Alekseeva, there Rumnev taught dance and pantomime, and other dancers gave classes of gymnastics, modern dance, rhythmical gymnastics, «expression» and «musicality». Yet in winter it was so cold that, sprayed with water to prevent sliding, wooden floor was quickly covered with ice.
In 1920 Rumnev joined the Chamber Theatre (Kamernyi Teatr) as a pantomime actor and teacher. He also choreographed his own «grotesque» dances commenting that «this was a tragic grotesque». One of his solos, The Last Romantic, to music by Scriabin, was about a «contemporary Don Quixote». Yet, for the new proletarian culture, Rumnev was «too refined, he moved too elegantly, waving with aristocratic narrow hands, striking with broken movement of long arms and legs». Critics found him old-fashioned and ‘decadent’. He was also gay which became criminalized under Stalin. In 1933 Rumnev fled Moscow. Several years later he was arrested in the provinces and served a prison sentence. In 1962 he finally succeeded in founding the Experimental Theatre for Pantomime, the genre he had been committed to from the beginning. Sadly, Rumnev died two years later, and his theatre did not survive his death.
quoted from Irina Sirotkina: The Revolutionary Body, or Was There Modern Dance in Russia?
Margo Lion dressed as a poodle
un regard oblique 