Kurt Jooss

Kurt Jooss (1901-1979)

Born in Wasseralfingen, German, he began studying dance at the Stuttgart Conservatory with Greta Heid. She introduced him to Rudolf Laban, with whom he began to train in 1920. In 1921 he began to dance in Laban’s company and began trying his hand in choreography. In 1924 he left Laban’s company to serve as ballet master and choreographer at the Münster Opera, where he met composer Fritz A. Cohen, with whom he was to collaborate throughout his career. In I25-27, Jooss directed a dance school based on Laban’s method together with Sigurd Leeder, whom he met in Laban’s company. In the summer of 1926, the two left for Paris for further training with Lobov Egorova.

In 1927, Jooss moved to Essen with his school, which was renamed the Folkwang Schule. In July 1928, he organized Germany’s second dance conference (the first was held in 1927), where he presented together with Laban and Mary Wigman. The conference began establishing Jooss’s status as a force to be reckoned with in the German dance scene, rather than just Laban’s student. In 1929, he established the Folkwang Tanztheater. At the end of the year, he Laban’s school moved to Essen and Jooss became its director. In 1930, Jooss began creating for the Essen Opera, which was later consolidated with his company. In 1932, Jooss choreographed The Green Table, which won first prize in the Paris Choreography Competition managed by Rolf de Maré. This choreography was to become Jooss’s best-known dance – it was reproduced in many versions and won him glory. The company went on a world tour but in 1933 all its members moved to Holland out of sympathy with Cohen, after the Nazis sought to remove his name from the credit list. The company changed its name from Folkwang Tanztheater to Ballet Jooss.

In 1933 and 1934, Ballet Jooss toured in the US and Europe, and subsequently the company disbanded. At the end of that year, Jooss and Leeder reestablished their school at Dartington Hall, Devon. In 1935, Jooss reestablished his ballet, which toured the world throughout the 1930s and ‘40s. Jooss himself could not leave the UK as a German citizen, because he would have lost his rights to British citizenship, which he only obtained in 1947. Accordingly, Jooss established another company which toured the UK, in which both he and Leeder also danced. This company was disbanded in 1947.In 1947, Jooss traveled to South America and choreographed in Chile, and then returned to Folkwang Schule in Essen, where he directed the dance department until his retirement in 1967, apart for a short stint as director of the Düsseldorf Opera Ballet in 1954-56. In 1962, he reestablished the Folkwang Tanztheater. This time, one of his leading dancers was Pina Baush, who had been his student.

In 1971, after his wife passed away, Jooss retired from his activities in Essen and moved to Bavaria. Since then, he has served as an artistic consultant for many companies and lectured worldwide, as well as created a few choreographies. In 1975, is daughter Anna Markard arrived in Israel and taught Batsheva The Green Table choreography. Jooss himself arrived one week before the premiere to work with Batsheva’s dancers on the reproduction of this dance, considered a canonical dance work.

Jooss passed away in 1979 after a traffic accident.