Hellerau-Laxenburg

100 Years of the Educational Institution Hellerau-Laxenburg and its Significance for the Cultural Capital of Vienna
Project head: Andrea Amort
Assistance: Sonja Browne
Publication (completion 2025)
 

In 2025, it will be 100 years since the Austrian federal government invited the institution for rhythm, gymnastics and dance, originally located in Hellerau near Dresden and founded by the Vienna-born musician and rhythmist Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, to move to Laxenburg. The institution, which also included the internationally performing dance group Hellerau-Laxenburg, was closed in 1939 by Nazi cultural policy.

What is of interest today is, on the one hand, the teaching in Laxenburg, which focuses on the creative dance aspect within the interdisciplinary approach of promoting a balanced artistic life (including psychoanalysis), which was aimed at amateurs and aspiring professionals. On the other hand, (there are also) the career paths of numerous women who studied at Hellerau-Laxenburg between 1925 and 1939. A large number of these are preserved through correspondence in Rosalia Chladek's multifaceted estate, which Amort, Browne & Team have compiled and made accessible in their archival work. In addition, this extremely rich collection also contains references to and previously unknown correspondence with the Jewish students and teachers who had to flee in the wake of the Nazi dictatorship in 1938, including the overall artistic director Ernst Ferand and his wife Emmy, ceramicist and costume designer for the Hellerau-Laxenburg dance group, as well as the composer Arthur Kleiner.

The project is funded by the cultural department of the city of Vienna (MA 7) and the state of Lower Austria.