Erika Thimey
German dancer and dance educator (1910–2006)
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Erika Thimey (1910 – September 20, 2006) was a German dancer and dance educator, based for most of her career in Washington, D.C.
Erika Thimey | |
|---|---|
Erika Thimey, from a 1941 American newspaper. | |
| Born | 1910 Itzehoe |
| Died | September 20, 2006 (aged 95–96) Hagerstown, Maryland |
| Occupations | Dancer, dance educator |
| Years active | 1930s–1990s |
| Known for | Modern dance, liturgical dance |
Early life
Thimey was born in Itzehoe, Germany in 1901. She trained as a dancer in Berlin, and in Dresden with Mary Wigman and Hanya Holm.[1][2]
Career
Thimey performed one season with an opera in Dessau, before she moved to the United States in 1932.[3] In 1936, she danced the lead role of Undine in a large summer spectacle involving over 100 dancers and a live orchestra, celebrating the fountains in Chicago parks.[4] She was dance director at the North Shore Conservatory in Chicago, before she moved to Boston in 1938, to teach and dance with Austrian dancer Jan Veen.[5] She performed with the Boston Pops Orchestra, and toured the United States with Veen.[6][7]
Beginning during her Chicago years,[8] Thimey was known for her works in liturgical dance,[9][10] and was an active member of the Sacred Dance Guild of America.[1] "She regards sacred dancing simply as a modernization of the age-old pageantry of the church," explained a Chicago newspaper in 1941.[11]
Thimey was a dance teacher and choreographer in the Washington, D.C. area for most of her career. She was dance instructor at King-Smith Studio School.[12] She opened her own school, Dance Theatre Studios, in 1944, with classes for adults and children. Her students performed as the Washington Dance Theatre.[13][14][15] She also taught modern dance at Howard University,[16] and at various schools, camps, and community organizations.[1][17] Among her notable students were Paul Sanasardo[18] and Susan Rethorst.[19]
She was a co-founder of the Modern Dance Council of Washington in 1953. She retired from teaching in 1979. There was a retrospective concert of her works in 1980, at an art gallery on Capitol Hill.[20]
Personal life and legacy
Thimey retired to Smithsburg, Maryland in 1979, and lived in a converted church with her sister, Hertha Woltersdorf.[21] The sisters offered their unusual home for performance and exhibit space,[22][23] and Thimey worked with local churches on liturgical works until 2001. She died at a nursing home in Hagerstown, Maryland, in 2006, aged 96 years.
Thimey's papers, including films, videotapes, and sound recordings, are in the Historical Society of Washington, D.C.[1] There is a 1980 interview with Thimey on video in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library.[24] There is also a 1985 interview with Thimey (audio only) in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.[25] and some correspondence in the Pola Nirenska collection at the Library of Congress.[26]
The Erika Thimey Dance and Theatre Company, co-founded by James E. Mayo, continues to perform in the Washington area.[27] There is an Erika Thimey Scholarship in Dance at the University of Maryland.[28]
