When I met Irmgard Bartenieff, she was in her 70s. Although obviously elderly, her hands were remarkably strong. They appeared large, almost out-of-proportion with her slender figure. Since she had been a masseuse and physical therapist, it is perhaps natural that Irmgard had strong hands. Yet it is their expressivity that I also remember keenly.
Irmgard did not dwell in the past, and her younger American students never asked much about what her life had been like in Germany. Yet Irmgard was a young adult when the Weimar Republic was created. As one of Laban’s students, she was embedded in the Expressionist dance movement of the 1920s.
I like to think that these experiences were woven into her being, giving a larger-than-life expressivity to her hands. Find out more in “Irmgard Bartenieff: In Her Own Words.”