Ingeborg Heuser (died February 14, 2022) was a German dancer, choreographer and teacher who worked primarily in the

Southwest United States The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that generally includes Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent portions of California, Colorad ...

. She is credited with popularizing and promoting

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...

El Paso, Texas El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the county seat, seat of El Paso County, Texas, El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau w ...

Biography

Heuser was born in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

and her mother encouraged her love of the arts at a young age. Heuser began training in ballet at the age of seven. She started as an apprentice in the Deutsche Oper Corps de Ballet when she was 12 and made her solo debut at age 15. Heuser moved to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

in 1949. First she worked in

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

and later she attended the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

Tucson , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive map ...

as a "special student." In Tucson, she met her first husband, Joe Weissmiller, who was drafted into the Army not long after their marriage. Heuser moved to El Paso in 1953. She started teaching at the YWCA and then at Virginia Weaver's dancer studio. In 1955, she opened her own ballet center in El Paso. Her ballet center performed at the Magoffin Auditorium in 1958, where E. A. Thromodsgaard, the chair of the music department at Texas Western College, which later became the

University of Texas at El Paso The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) is a public research university in El Paso, Texas. It is a member of the University of Texas System. UTEP is the second-largest university in the United States to have a majority Mexican American stud ...

(UTEP), was impressed by her. Heuser joined UTEP in 1960. The Texas Western Civic Ballet began performing annually in 1960 with Heuser as the leader of the company. The ballet company was formed through a partnership between the city of El Paso and UTEP. Heuser was appointed to the Dance Advisory Panel of the Texas Commission on the Arts and Humanities in 1974. In 1975, the '' El Paso Herald-Post'' wrote that Heuser "has single-handedly made El Paso a ballet-loving town." Heuser was further praised by the ''El Paso Herald-Post'' for her choreography of the 1976 El Paso production of ''

The Nutcracker ''The Nutcracker'' ( rus, Щелкунчик, Shchelkunchik, links=no ) is an 1892 two-act ballet (""; russian: балет-феерия, link=no, ), originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchai ...

'', calling it a "party we cannot resist." In 2007, Heuser retired from teaching at UTEP. After retirement, Heuser continued to teach at the El Paso Conservatory of Dance. Heuser was inducted into the El Paso Women's Hall of Fame in 2009. Heuser died in El Paso on February 14, 2022.

References

External links

Heuser Retirement
(2008 video)
Heuser Dance Center
(1965 ad)
Ingeborg Heuser's obituary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Heuser, Ingeborg Year of birth missing 20th-century births 2022 deaths Dancers from Berlin University of Texas at El Paso faculty German ballerinas People from El Paso, Texas German women choreographers German emigrants to the United States 20th-century German ballet dancers