Anna Fligg, known as Anny Fligg or Annie Fligg, was a German dancer and dance educator, who taught the methods of

Rudolf von Laban Rudolf von Laban, also known as Rudolf Laban (German; also ''Rudolph von Laban'', hu, Lábán Rezső János Attila, Lábán Rudolf; 15 December 1879 – 1 July 1958), was an Austro-Hungarian, German and British dance artist, choreographer an ...

in London and in Australia in the 1930s.

Early life

Fligg was from East Prussia. She studied dance with choreographer Rudolf von Laban in Berlin.

Career

Anny Fligg taught dancing as a public art and health project, to beachgoers in Swinemunde. She danced with the

Berlin State Opera The (), also known as the Berlin State Opera (german: Staatsoper Berlin), is a listed building on Unter den Linden boulevard in the historic center of Berlin, Germany. The opera house was built by order of Prussian king Frederick the Great from ...

, and at

Bayreuth Bayreuth (, ; bar, Bareid) is a town in northern Bavaria, Germany, on the Red Main river in a valley between the Franconian Jura and the Fichtelgebirge Mountains. The town's roots date back to 1194. In the 21st century, it is the capital of U ...

. In 1928 she was one of the principal dancers in an experimental work by

Hertha Feist Hertha Feist (1896–1990) was a German expressionist dancer and choreographer. She established her own school in Berlin, combining gymnastics with nudism and dance. In the 1930s, her ambitions were seriously curtailed by the Nazis. Biography Born ...

, ''Die Berufung'', with music by Edmund Meisel, and costumes by Thea Schleusner. Fligg first danced in London in 1930. She opened the first school for Laban's methods in London, and was a teacher at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art beginning in 1931. "Fräulein Fligg beat a drum and away we went," recalled actress Joan Littlewood, one of her students there. "Up! Down! Leap! Stretch! ... It was great. I'd never felt so alive." One of her other London students was Australian dancer Irene Vera Young. At the invitation of Thea Stanley Hughes, Fligg danced and lectured in Australia in 1937 and 1938, with accompanist Kurt Herweg-Hirsch. She demonstrated the "ikosaeder" or "wooden crystal", a geometric device used in the Laban method for teaching about space. "My art has no relation to health at all," she explained, "but those who aim at physical perfection through exercise must gain inspiration from the natural beauty of flowing rhythm, which draw all anatomical muscles into play while dancing."

References

External links

A 1915 letter from Anny Fligg to David Simonsen
in the David Simonsen Archives, Royal Library Denmark. {{DEFAULTSORT:Fliig, Anny 1862 births Year of death missing People from Lidzbark County People from East Prussia German female dancers Royal Academy of Dramatic Art German emigrants to the United Kingdom