Irene Vera Young (1895 – 19 June 1975), born Irene Vera Carter, was an Australian dancer and dance educator.
Early life
Irene Vera Carter was born in
Bowral,
New South Wales, the daughter of Arthur Edward Hanslow Carter and Emily Pryor Barton Carter. She attended a convent school in
Wagga Wagga. From 1926 to 1932, she lived in New York City, training in modern dance as a member of the
Sara Mildred Strauss Dancers.
[Irene Vera Young - papers, 1901-1964](_blank)
State Library of New South Wales.
Career
After she returned to Australia from New York in 1932, Young ran a dance and movement school in Sydney. She gave modern "German dance" performances and lectures as a solo artist, and with her Motion Choir. Her style of dancing was likened to (or sometimes contrasted with) that of
Mary Wigman. "Dance, for Miss Young, is not primarily, or necessarily, a matter of the legs," explained a 1934 reviewer, adding that in one work, "all the dancers stood rooted to the spot with widely-spread green skirts to emphasize their stationary state."
In 1934, she danced the title role in
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...
's ''
Salome
Salome (; he, שְלוֹמִית, Shlomit, related to , "peace"; el, Σαλώμη), also known as Salome III, was a Jewish princess, the daughter of Herod II, son of Herod the Great, and princess Herodias, granddaughter of Herod the Great, an ...
'', in a production created by Raoul Cardamatis, with original music by Ramsay Pennicuick. Young "proved herself to be not only a dancer of genius, which is already well known, but an actress of marked ability," commented the report in the ''
Australian Women's Weekly''. She danced in a
Doris Fitton
Dame Doris Alice Lucy Walkden Fitton, (3 November 18972 April 1985) was an Australian actress of stage and film and theatrical director and producer who founded and for 35 years headed The Independent Theatre Ltd. in Sydney, New South Wales.
...
production of
George Bernard Shaw's ''
Candida'' in 1937.
Young toured in Japan in 1935. She won a gold medal for her dancing at the International Dance Competition, held in conjunction with 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 ...
in Berlin. In 1941, she and Austrian dancer
Gertrud Bodenwieser
Gertrud Bodenwieser (3 February 1890 – 10 November 1959), also known as "Gertrude", was a dancer, choreographer, dance teacher and pioneer of expressive dance.
Early life
The daughter of Theodore and Maria Bondi, a wealthy Jewish couple, ...
organized the Australian Association of the Creative Dance. She later published a guide, ''A System of Body Culture for Young and Old''.
Personal life
Irene Vera Carter married solicitor Charles Throsby Young in 1914. Their daughter, Barbara, born in 1915, danced with her mother's Motion Choir in the 1930s.
Irene Vera Young died in 1975, aged 80 years. Her papers are in the
State Library of New South Wales
The State Library of New South Wales, part of which is known as the Mitchell Library, is a large heritage-listed special collections, reference and research library open to the public and is one of the oldest libraries in Australia. Establish ...
.
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Young, Irene Vera
1895 births
1975 deaths
People from Bowral
Australian female dancers