Valeska Gert

Valeska Gert (1892−1978) always stunned her audiences, even at her first public performance in 1916. She pushed her body, her face and her voice to the limits. Her “Tontänze” (sound dances) were ungraceful, grotesque depictions of urban characters. She lent expression to existential conditions such as birth and death. From the mid-1920s she also took on roles in silent movies like “The Joyless Street” in 1925 and “The Threepenny Opera” in 1930/31. Kurt Tucholsky, Bertolt Brecht and Sergei Eisenstein were enthusiastic fans of the eccentric performer.

Paintings, drawings and photographs by Jeanne Mammen, B. F. Dolbin, Umbo and others reveal Gert not only in theatrical poses but as a specimen of her era.

Even at a ripe old age, Valeska Gert inspired young people who rebelled against conventions in their chosen lifestyle or their art. In West Berlin’s alternative art scene of the early 1980s, Gert was still a key reference after her death, influencing the world of punk music through people like Frieder Butzmann and Wolfgang Müller, founder of the band “Die Tödliche Doris”.

She was born as Gertrud Valesca Samosch in Berlin to a Jewish family. Showing no interest in academics or office work,she began taking dance lessons at the age of nine. This, combined with her love of ornate fashion, led her to a career in dance and performance art.

In the 1920s, Gert premiered one of her more provocative works, titled "Pause". Performed in between reels at Berlin cinemas, it was intended to draw attention to inactivity, silence, serenity, and stillness amid all the movement and chaos in modern life. She came onstage and literally just stood there."It was so radical just to go on stage in the cinema and stand there and do nothing," said Wolfgang Mueller. Also in the 1920s, Gert's other progressive performances included dancing a traffic accident, boxing, or dying. She was revolutionary and radical and never ceased to simultaneously shock and fascinate her audiences. When she danced an orgasm in Berlin in 1922, someon in the audience called the police.

Valeska Gert could be by turns grotesque, intense, mocking, pathetic or furious, performing with an anarchic intensity and artistic fearlessness which also recommended her to the Dadaists.

An exhibition on Valeska Gert at Berlinische Galerie

Valeska on Youtube