Pola Nirenska arrived in Washington D.C. in 1951. Modern dance was still in its early years; an art form of pioneers. The District was open territory for the development of Modern Dance. There was no Kennedy Center nor Washington Performing Arts Society. Pola brought with her the artistic heritage of Europe and the burden of historical, personal and familial demons. Pola was born in 1910 in Warsaw, Poland. She moved to the United States in 1949 at the invitatin of Ted Shawn.
She moved to Washington, DC at the suggestion of Doris Humphrey. Pola became a cultural force, developing a method of modern dance training, teaching hundreds of students age four though professional. She also directed a company that performed regularly, and a was a leading choreographer in an era when modern dance was a little known and dimly understood art form in the district.
Pola’s dance training was in Europe. She studied Dalcroze and dance as a child, but did not receive professional training until she attended the Mary Wigman School in Dresden, Germany at age 17. Her parents were reluctant to let her leave home at such a young age but, as Pola told the story, she locked herself in the bathroom and would not come out until they acquiesced. She graduated the Wigman School in 1932 and toured with the Wigman Company in the United States in 1933.
Upon returning to Germany, Ms. Wigman fired the Jewish members of her company in compliance with Nazi regulations. Although Pola’s roots were in Poland, she relocated to Vienna which was a cultural hub of Europe. She established herself as a prominent figure in dance in 1934 with a solo titled “Cry” which won first prize for choreography in the International Dance Congress. Pola became recognized in Europe as a solo choreographer and performer, and toured as a soloist. The Nazi occupation forced Pola to escape to Italy and, ultimately, to London. Most of her family was not so fortunate. Seventy-five family members were lost in the Holocaust, although her parents and one of her three siblings survived and immigrated to Israel.
In Britain, Pola worked with Kurt Joos and Sigurd Leeder. In later years she spoke of the horror of the London Blitz. Although she never recreated the prize-winning solo “Cry,” she later express a similar sentiment in “Shout,” a solo choreographed for Sharon Wyrrick in 1987. That solo was based on the terror she experienced while under the rain of Nazi bombsArriving in DC with an introduction to Evelyn De La Tour, Pola taught for La Tour for a few years and lived in a back room of the Studio. A photograph in the Washington Star in 1953 depicted the formation of the Modern Dance Council and placed Pola with other pioneers of modern dance in DC: Evelyn DeLa Tour, Erika Thimey (also a graduate of the Mary Wigman School), Ethel Butler, Hedi Pope, Mary Craighill, Virginia Freeman, Miriam Rosen, and Mary-Averett Seelye (among others). By 1957 Pola developed her own following of students and formed a performing company. They helped her raise funds to build a dance school on Grant Road, NW, which provided a home from 1959-69 for her teaching, performing company, and a modest but comfortable apartment.
Aside from her teaching at the studio, she taught at private preparatory schools in the metropolitan area, and at the Washington School of Ballet.In the nineteen-sixties there were three major modern dance companies in the DC area. Ethel Butler was an early Graham Dancer, taught Graham Technique, and brought the legacy of Martha Graham to the community. Erika Thimey had also graduated from the Wigman School and developed a gentle dance training. Pola’s system of training demanded endurance, strength, physical power, and a dramatic intensity. Her natural musicality lent an affinity toward Doris Humphrey’s style, yet there was a dark and passionate current that permeated her work. With the Grant Road studio she now had the facility to create group works and experiment with American philosophies of choreography. Pola’s leading company members included: Beth Chanock, Nicole Pearson, Virginia Freeman, Rhona Sande, and Naima Prevots.
