Míra Holzbachová and Radical Performance in the Interwar Avant-Garde

This talk offers a history of performance in interwar Czechoslovakia that centers on the figure of the dancer, choreographer, and anti-fascist activist Míra Holzbachová (1901-1982). Despite the popularity she enjoyed during her long lifetime, Holzbachová has been only nominally referenced in writings on the avant-garde stage. My ongoing research and writing on Holzbachová aims to correct this omission, foregrounding a life that can be characterized by its avant-garde approach to dance, intertwined with radical politics. For this lecture, I will focus on the first chapter in Holzabchová’s long career, as a member of the avant-garde group Devětsil and head of her own dance school and company as I argue for her essential place in historical accounts of dance and performance in Czechoslovakia between the two World Wars.

Meghan Forbes holds a PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She has held postdoctoral fellowships at the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Currently, Dr. Forbes is at the University of Iowa pursuing a joint program in the School of Library and Information Sciences and the Center for the Book. She publishes regularly in a range of academic and popular publications and has contributed to monographs and exhibition catalogues on the artists Alice Trumbull Mason, Toyen, and Władysław Strzemiński.