Greta Wrage von Pustau (2 August 1902 – 20 March 1989) was a Chinese-born German dancer and dance teacher.

Biography

Von Pustau was born on 2 August 1902 in

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...

. Her parents, Antonia and Alfred Julius Engelbrecht von Pustau, were merchants from

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

. In 1921 she married Klaus Wrage, a landscape painter. They had three children. Von Pustau studied dance under

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 the 1920s. In 1932 she graduated from

Folkwang University of the Arts The Folkwang University of the Arts is a university for music, theater, dance, design, and academic studies, located in four German cities of North Rhine-Westphalia. Since 1927, its traditional main location has been in the former Werden Abbey in E ...

and, in 1933, opened her own

Laban Laban is a French surname. It may refer to: Places * Laban-e Olya, a village in Iran * Laban-e Sofla, a village in Iran * Laban, Virginia, an unincorporated community in the United States * 8539 Laban, main-belt asteroid People Surname *Ahm ...

dance school in

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

. She performed Laban's original choreography in the

1936 Summer Olympics The 1936 Summer Olympics (German: ''Olympische Sommerspiele 1936''), officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad (German: ''Spiele der XI. Olympiade'') and commonly known as Berlin 1936 or the Nazi Olympics, were an international multi-sp ...

opening ceremony. In 1953 sculptor Luis Rauschhuber created a bust of her. Her work is archived at the

Deutsches Tanzarchiv Köln The Deutsche Tanzarchiv Köln (German Dance Archive Cologne) is a national information and research centre for concert dance in Germany. It is located in the MediaPark in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, with an archive, library, video library an ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Von Pustau, Greta Wrage 1902 births 1989 deaths Dance teachers Expressionist dancers German female dancers Laban movement analysis People from Guangzhou Folkwang University of the Arts alumni German expatriates in China