Jean Weidt

(1904-1988)

German dancer, choreographer and teacher from a working-class background, Jean Weidt dedicated his art to the political dimension of the body and to the proletarian cause in particular.

In 1929, under the Weimar Republic, he created the ensemble “Die Roten Tänzer” (The Red Dancers), a group of politically-engaged dancers who took the initiative to tackle political and social questions on stage through the artistic means of expressionist dance. As a member of the communist party, he fled Germany in 1933 and lived between Paris, Moscow and Prague. At the start of the Second World War, he was deported to a stateless persons’ refugee camp in Algeria before joining the British Army.

In 1946 he founded the Ballet des Arts and won the gold medal at the International Dance Archives Competition in Copenhagen with “La Cellule” in 1947. He returned to Berlin in 1949, where we worked for the Comic Opera in particular.

Last update : November 2010