Gertrud Kraus (1901-1977)
Born in Vienna, she studied the piano at the State Academy of Music and Dance and worked as an accompanying pianist in silent movies and dance lessons. Upon her graduation in 1922, she enrolled in the academy once more, this time in the Modern Dance Department directed by Gertrud Bodenwieser. After completing her studies, she joined Bodenwieser’s company. After several months, she opened a dance studio and began choreographing and performing solo dances.
In 1929, she founded a dance company which participated, among other things, in the Third International Dancers Congress in Munich, which was one of the most important conventions of the expressionist dance movement (Ausdruckstanz). Following this performance her company was invited to perform in various countries in Western Europe. During the first half of the 1930s, while working with her company, she also worked as Rudolf von Laban’s assistant in organizing parades and marches of German trade unions, and choreographed for the theater, including for Max Reinhardt’s The Miracle.
In 1935, at the peak of her professional success, Kraus decided to immigrate to Palestine, and her arrival was a turning point in the history of the local dance scene. She rented a studio in a cellar apartment on 24 Frug St. in Tel Aviv and began teaching and training dancers in expressionist dance techniques, mainly improvisation, while accompanying her lessons on the piano. Kraus was extensively educated in various arts, and her dance pieces were grounded in her profound knowledge of literature, music and fine arts.
In December 1935 she established a company and created two programs for it until 1937. In 1940 she established a new company for three joint programs with the Palestine Symphony Orchestra (now Israel Philharmonic Orchestra), as well as a girls’ company. In 1941, the Popular Opera was founded, and Kraus’s company (a union of the adult and junior companies) became its resident company, with Kraus choreographing for most opera performances. In late 1947, the Popular Opera was disbanded and taken over by the Israeli Opera under Edis de Philippe, and the collaboration with Kraus was terminated and her company was closed. In 1948 Kraus was invited to California to choreograph for the Brandeis Jewish Youth Camp. She remained in the US thanks to a scholarship, and trained with the grand masters of American dance, including Martha Graham, Antony Tudor and Agnes de Mille.
Upon her return to Israel in 1950, Kraus founded the Israel Dance Theater and became its artistic director. The company was closed after a year, and since then Kraus focused on painting in the Ein Hod Artist Village where she lived. Nevertheless, over the following decades continued teaching dance and choreographing for herself and her students in her Tel Aviv studio, in various kibbutzim and at the Jerusalem Music and Dance Academy (JMDA), where she was nominated dance professor in 1962.
Throughout her life, Kraus cultivated young dancers and choreographers and was a member of award committees and public councils of dance organizations, including Batsheva. In 1968, Kraus received the Israel Prize for dance. She was one of the most influential figures in the Israeli dance scene until the late 1950s, and many local choreographers and dancers where among her students, including Hasia Levi-Agron, Mirale Sharon, Rina Shaham, Oshra Elkayam Ronen and Yonatan Karmon. Until her death in 1977, Gertrud Kraus continued to teach dance at JMDA. She bequeathed all her property to JMDA, where an annual choreography contest is held in her name.