Georgi, Yvonne (1903–1975) By Toepfer, Karl Eric
Yvonne Georgi was a major figure in the evolution of modern dance in Germany. She amplified the scale of modern dance performances by expanding the size of ensembles operating in a modernist idiom, enlarging the narrative structures that motivated dance performances, and by increasing the complexity of the movement vocabulary used in modern dance performances. In pursuing these ambitions, she strove to reconcile ballet techniques with modern dance theory, so that ballet would assume greater significance in the modernist project. Modern dance in turn would achieve greater impact institutionally when it incorporated the organizational and choreographic discipline of ballet to build large-scale works with large ensembles for theater audiences generally, not just dance audiences. Georgi was also important in deepening appreciation of German modern dance in the United States when she toured the country with Harald Kreutzberg in 1929–30 and in developing a distinctly modernist ballet in the Netherlands, where she worked during the 1930s and 1940s.