Frost flower. Photo: Nils-Albert Eriksson
For the Flower and the Fool. Photo: Hans Flodqvist

THE DANCER WITH THE DOLLS
Annelise Frankfurt 1926-2007 – a singular life story
A mini-exhibition, continuing to the end of 2008

Annelise Frankfurt was born in 1926 in Vienna, where she grew up together with her brother Heinz, 6 years her senior, in one of the cultivated Jewish middle-class homes which did so much to inform the artistic refinement of pre-war Vienna. Her father worked in a bank. Her mother died in 1934, and when Anschluss came in 1938 the children were sent to Sweden to escape the persecution of the Jews. Annelise was taken in by a family in Frösunda who, her brother records, treated her like a daughter. She had already danced as a child, and at the age of 19 she began to study dance in Sweden, first for a few years under Lilian Karina, then with Birgit Åkesson and in 1953-54 with Rosalia Chladek in Vienna. Her début took place with Dansfrämjandet at the Royal Swedish Opera in 1952, in two of her own choreographic compositions: “Am I Alive?” and “Little Bird”. Critics praised her, though herself she modestly describes her début works as nothing but a hesitant attempt at expressng in movement her experiences of nature and mankind. In 1954 she gave her first whole-evening performance in the Small Auditorium of the Stockholm Concert Hall (Konserthuset), performing dance compositions of her own – “dance mimes” as she called them in the programme. That year she also performed at the Atelier Theatre in Vienna.
She featured in a television broadcast in 1955, and in 1956 she danced at Nya Teatern, once again in a group composition, “Tears in the Wind”, in which a couple of her young pupils showed that they had assimilated her teachings. That composition included one of her own poems, recited by Eva-Lisa Lennartsson, who also performed a fairytale by Frankfurt, “The Heart and the Bird”, illustrated with her own drawings. These and her original dolls were displayed in the foyer in conjunction with the performance. For Annelise’s artistry also included the creation of fantastic small dolls whose lives she portrayed in some of her choreographies.
After this she did not appear on stage again until 1963, in the Stadsteatern (Stockholm City Theatre), and this performance too was combined with an exhibition of her dolls, of which she says, in an interview published by Dagens Nyheter on 8th December: “Perhaps having made these dolls, this small embroidery, is a kind of madness. It’s romantic. It’s because I have trouble fitting in. I’m romantic. I was born in Vienna. My grandmother was tragically romantic and told me a lot about the court balls. We lived in a romantic part of the city. Then my romantic childhood was cut short by the occupation of Austria. I came to Sweden and because I could not speak Swedish I started making dolls. Those dolls remain the fruit of isolation and alienation.”

“The doll and the bird are central themes of Annelise Frankfurt’s choreography. The precious, mechanical movements of the doll form a casing for her irony and the bird’s trembling wing can be sensed from vibrant movements which often come at emotionally charged moments. The doll and the bird can be taken to symbolise the essence of this artist.
“Her dance mimes are strictly personal. True, one can see that she has been a pupil of Birgit Åkesson’s, but an independent, talented pupil going her own way. But in her new compositions especially, a powerful feeling bursts forth, tearing aside the excessively brittle pattern and commanding grand expressive movements. Her dance to the Jewish tragedy, ‘Flower for Jewish Memory’, was an overpowering experience.” Anna Greta Ståhle, Dagens Nyheter, 10th December 1963.

In Stockholms Tidning that same day, Robin Hood wrote: “The dolls reveal a good deal about her nature, the lyrical fantasy, the refinement of taste, which readily express themselves in miniature format. In her dance this frilly brittleness forms an original union with a “large” complete form of Birgit Åkesson cut. She can be funny too. In “Two Fleas at the Court of Spain” she conveyed, with supreme economy of means, excellent lampoon portraits of court dignitaries, in dances which had difficulty in retaining their ceremonial dignity when assailed by the fleas.”

Another programme about Annelise was telecast in 1967, but by then she had retired from the stage.

Annelise married a Swede, Bo Stenberg. Her brother Heinz became an actor and returned to Austria but is now living in Dortmund.

The Dance Museum now owns a large collection of Annelise Frankfurt’s dolls, a number of costumes and archival materials including photographs and books of press clippings, among other things.