70 years and no standstill – Gert Hölzel – a life for dance
Publication in the DNN of 13.07.2009
He certainly wouldn’t do much differently than before, said Gert Hölzel at the end of an interview on the occasion of his 70th birthday today. Dance defines his life. Right from the start, in fact. My parents came from the Wandervogel movement, so the Dresden family was close to folklore, they danced and sang here, and my father led a dance group. It was almost predictable that the son would soon follow a similar path.
He tried out his talents in two amateur dance groups in Dresden, but completed an apprenticeship as a cabinetmaker for interior fittings at the Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau at his parents’ request. At that time, every large company that was self-respecting had a cultural group, so the young man was also able to dance at the Bau-Union, and the desire to professionalize the hobby grew stronger. The introduction of compulsory military service, of all things, helped him to do so. He was now too old to study directly, but in the Erich Weinert Ensemble of the People’s Army, you could turn art into a weapon. You can’t help but smile, but it was all about a danced brotherhood in arms, folklore, if at all, then as a means of class struggle. “Sieg durch List”, a choreography by Ruth Berghaus, is remembered by Gert Hölzel, who then becomes a member of the Neustrelitz folklore ensemble that emerged from the state village ensemble. Rosemarie Ehm-Schulz directed this professional dance ensemble, and Hölzel was able to build on his foundations here so well that, after training as a senior teacher in Güstrow, he was immediately offered a place to study dance education at the Leipzig College of Dance.
D
er However, he was only allowed to change his studies on condition that he returned to work as a dance teacher at Güstrow University. Now married, Hölzel had made his first connections in Dresden. In 1971, he began working with the then FDJ dance ensemble of the central FDJ student ensemble at the TU Dresden. Three years later, he took over the direction of the ensemble, which emerged from the folklore dance ensemble founded in 1950 by Wigman student Thea Maass.
Under Hölzel’s direction, the children’s dance group was added in 1977, which today has almost 130 members. A good 40 dancers and musicians belong to the folklore dance ensemble, which has been named after its founder since 1990, and former members meet regularly and dance for their own enjoyment.
The impressive list of awards and prizes, performances throughout Europe, in the USA and Israel, and participation in international competitions document the success story of a Dresden ensemble that is closely linked to the work of Gert Hölzel. And since the national “Jugend tanzt” competition, which he was instrumental in initiating, has been held, the young talents, who are virtually unrivaled in folklore, have already won first prize three times.
It is not so easy with folklore in Germany, the appropriation by the Nazis destroyed a lot, disregard and negation were followed by ideologization in the GDR. In the West, associations cultivated their traditions, while artistic developments in the sense of contemporary design and choreographic exploration remained the exception. It was quite different abroad, in the East or the West, in guest performances and at competitions, where German ensembles were often confronted with an open and relaxed approach to tradition. In the meantime, the Dresden ensemble of the TU is probably one of the few, if not the only one in Germany that has succeeded in creating an aesthetic of choreographed folklore that is far removed from the rigid preservation of customs and the roots of this art and cannot be seen in isolation from contemporary and international influences of jazz and street dance. This is particularly important when working with children and young people, who, surprisingly, are also extremely open to dance forms of national and international folklore in this context.
For Gert Hölzel, this kind of artistic and creative engagement with one’s own history, traditions and forms is a good opportunity for children and young people to ask themselves important questions about identity and origin. In 1990, he was one of the co-founders of the Saxon Dance Association, remained its first chairman until 2004 and is now its honorary chairman. It co-initiates the Saxon dance festivals and creates a lobby for a considerable number of larger and smaller dance groups in the Free State. Three years ago, he handed over the management of the TU Dresden dance ensemble to dance teacher and choreographer Maud Butter after a good five years of collaboration. He has not retired, he teaches, is in demand as a consultant and artistic assistant and takes on new rehearsals of pieces from the repertoire, including choreographies by Thea Maass, whose motto that you can only dance what you have experienced yourself, he has made his own and is happy to pass on. Congratulations!
Boris Michael Gruhl
