{{Short description|German expressionist dancer and choreographer}} {{Infobox dancer |bgcolour = |name = Dore Hoyer |image = Hoyer, Dore.jpg |imagesize = |caption = |birth_name = |birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1911|12|12}} |birth_place = Dresden, German Empire |death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1967|12|31|1911|12|12}} |death_place = Berlin, West Germany | occupation = Dancer, choreographer }}
'''Dore Hoyer''' (12 December 1911 – 31 December 1967) was a German expressionist dancer and choreographer.<ref name="CDC" /> She is credited as "one of the most important solo dancers of the Ausdruckstanz tradition."<ref name=Giersdorf /> Inspired by Mary Wigman, she developed her own solo programmes and toured widely before and after the Second World War. Wigman called Hoyer "Europe's last great modern dancer."<ref name="Bell-Kanner1991">{{cite book|last=Bell-Kanner|first=Karen|title=The Life and Times of Ellen Von Frankenberg|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P6OOR0lplq0C&pg=PA118|date=1 January 1991|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-3-7186-5110-8|page=118}}</ref>
== Biography == 240px|thumb|right|Sculpture in tribute to Dore Hoyer, by Gerlinde Beck
Dore Hoyer was born in Dresden to a working-class family on 12 December 1911. As a young girl, she learned rhythmics and gymnastics.<ref name=Giersdorf /> She trained in the style of Hellerau-Laxenburg in 1927–1928, before studying expressionist dance or ''Ausdruckstanz'' for a year with Gret Palucca in 1929–1930.<ref name="Bell-Kanner1991" /><ref name=partsch/> In 1931, she was engaged as a soloist in Plauen, and in 1933 she became a ballet mistress in Oldenburg.<ref name="German" /> In 1932 Hoyer met and fell in love with an 18-year-old musician, Peter Cieslak. Cieslak composed a number of solo dance pieces which Hoyer choreographed and performed. He died on 5 April 1935, possibly a suicide.<ref name="German" />
In 1935–36, with the dance group led by Mary Wigman, Hoyer toured Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden.<ref name="Bell-Kanner1991" /> She and other dancers were photographed by artist Edmund Kesting. In 1937 Hoyer was portrayed by the Dresden expressionist painter Hans Grundig on a desolate country road at twilight, utterly alone in the gathering darkness.<ref name=Toepfer>{{cite book|last=Toepfer|first=Karl|title=Empire of ecstasy : nudity and movement in Germany body culture, 1910–1935|year=1998|publisher=University of California Press|location=Berkeley|isbn=0-520-20663-0|url=https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft167nb0sp}}</ref>
In 1940–1941 Hoyer joined Hans Niedecken Gebhard's short-lived ''Deutsche Tanzbühne'' in Berlin.<ref name=partsch/> During World War II, she performed in various locations including Graz in 1943.<ref name=ar>{{cite dictionary|url=https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/sfz33995.html|author=Alexander Rudin|title=Hoyer, Dore|dictionary=Neue Deutsche Biographie|page=667|accessdate=19 February 2014 |language=German}}</ref> After the war, she took over what had been the ''Mary Wigman-Schule'' in Dresden as the renamed ''D.-Hoyer-Studio''. This school had been lost by Mary Wigman for political reasons.<ref name="Bell-Kanner1991" /><ref name=Wigman>{{cite book|last=Newhall|first=Mary Anne Santos|title=Mary Wigman|year=2009|publisher=Routledge|location=London|isbn=978-0-415-37527-6|url=https://archive.org/details/marywigman0000newh|url-access=registration}}</ref> Under Hoyer's direction, the school created ''Dances for Käthe Kollwitz''. The elderly German artist Käthe Kollwitz was a kindred spirit as she shared Hoyer's dislike for violence and elitism while experiencing empathy with the underprivileged.<ref name=partsch>{{cite book|last=Partsch-Bergsohn|first=Isa|title=Modern dance in Germany and the United States : crosscurrents and influences|year=1994|publisher=Harwood Acad. Publ.|location=Chur|isbn=3-7186-5557-8|page=122|url=https://books.google.com/books?isbn=3718655578}}</ref> By 1948 the D.-Hoyer-Studio closed, as German currency reform made it difficult for groups without state funding to survive.<ref name=partsch/>
In 1949, Hoyer became director of ballet at the Hamburg State Opera where she was given complete artistic freedom.<ref name=partsch/> She left in 1951 after her ambitious plans failed to succeed.<ref name=partsch/> She went on to pursue her own career as a soloist and choreographer.
Hoyer spent seasons in Mannheim (1952), Ulm (1954), Athens (1956), Berlin (1957), Salzburg (1963) and Frankfurt (1965). By 1963, she had made five tours to South America and from 1962 she lectured at the Hamburg Academy of Art.<ref name=ar/>
Her choreographic cycle "Affectos Humanos" (1962) was composed by her long-time collaborator, Dimitri Wiatowitsch. It consists of five dances, each focused on one of the 48 types of human affect identified in Spinoza's philosophical writings: "Eitelkeit" (vanity), "Begierde" (lust), "Angst" (fear), "Hass" (hatred), and "Liebe" (love). A highly technical and abstract movement composition, it prefigured post-modern dance styles. It has been studied and reconstructed as recently as 2010.<ref name=Giersdorf>{{cite book|last=Giersdorf|first=Jens Richard|title=The body of the people: East German dance since 1945|year=2013|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press|location=Madison, Wis.|isbn=978-0-299-28964-5|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3RK6ZZsLVYAC}}</ref><ref name=Fisher /><ref name=Nachbar>{{cite web|last=Nachbar|first=Martin|title=A Contemporary Body Made History Dance reconstruction as artistic re search practice into the history of dance techniques and choreography|url=http://media.researchcatalogue.net:8080/rclive/master/32_18927_01329797656_00001.pdf?key=396d0fb47d355a2252e6e7e939445bd1&timeout=1392858000|accessdate=13 March 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140314013639/http://media.researchcatalogue.net:8080/rclive/master/32_18927_01329797656_00001.pdf?key=396d0fb47d355a2252e6e7e939445bd1&timeout=1392858000|archive-date=14 March 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=Gehm>{{cite book | last=Gehm | first=Sabine | title=Knowledge in Motion | publisher=Transcript Publishing | publication-place=Bielefeld | date=2007 | isbn=978-3-89942-809-4 | page=}}</ref><ref name=NYT1989>{{cite news|last=Anderson|first=Jack|title=Review/Dance; Premiere Honors a German Choreographer|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/19/arts/review-dance-premiere-honors-a-german-choreographer.html|accessdate=14 March 2014|newspaper=New York Times|date=October 19, 1989}}</ref>
Hoyer last performed on 18 December 1967 at the Theater des Westens in Berlin.<ref name=Bohn>{{cite journal|title=Cultural news from Germany|year=1967|volume=10–11|journal=Cultural news from Germany|publisher=Inter Nationes|location=Bonn|pages=6}}</ref> She bore all the costs of the performance, which was poorly attended.<ref name="German">{{cite web|url=http://www.sk-kultur.de/tanz/hoyer.htm|title=Dore Hoyer (1911–1967)|accessdate=13 March 2014|language=German|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110912092036/http://www.sk-kultur.de/tanz/hoyer.htm|archive-date=12 September 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref> In debt and facing the possibility that she would no longer be able to dance because of a knee injury,<ref name=Giersdorf /> she committed suicide in Berlin on 31 December 1967.<ref name="CDC">{{cite web|url=http://depts.washington.edu/uwdance/cdc/archive/repertoire.php?t=chor&id=6|title=Dore Hoyer / Choreographer|publisher=Chamber Dance Company|accessdate=19 February 2014|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140223085255/http://depts.washington.edu/uwdance/cdc/archive/repertoire.php?t=chor&id=6|archivedate=23 February 2014}}</ref> In one of the last letters she wrote before her death, she lamented: "Only in dance could I communicate."<ref name=partsch/>
After her death, Hoyer's papers and archives were held by Waltraud Luley, executor of her estate, who has since donated them to the Deutsches Tanzarchiv Köln.<ref name=Fisher>{{cite book|last=Fisher|first=Betsy|title=Creating and re-creating dance : performing dances related to Ausdruckstanz|year=2002|publisher=Teatterikorkeakoulu, Näyttämötaide ja Tutkimus|location=Helsinki|isbn=952-9765-31-2|url=http://www.teak.fi/general/Uploads_files/Acta%20Scenica/creating_and_re-creating_dance_AS12.pdf}}</ref><ref name=Koln>{{cite web|title=Deutsches Tanzarchiv Köln|url=http://www.sk-kultur.de/tanz/dtk-english.html|publisher=Deutsches Tanzarchiv Köln|accessdate=13 March 2014}}</ref>
==See also== *List of dancers *Women in dance
== References == {{Reflist}}
== Literature == * {{cite book|last=Bell-Kanner|first=Karen|title=The Life and Times of Ellen Von Frankenberg|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P6OOR0lplq0C&pg=PA118|date=1 January 1991|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-3-7186-5110-8|pages=118–}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hoyer, Dore}} Category:1911 births Category:German female dancers Category:Expressionist choreographers Category:Expressionist dancers Category:Dancers from Berlin Category:People from Dresden Category:German women choreographers Category:German choreographers Category:1967 deaths Category:Dancers from Saxony Category:1967 suicides Category:Suicides by poison Category:Suicides in West Germany Category:Female suicides