Schönberg, Bessie

Born in Hanover, Germany, Dec. 27, 1906, Bessie Schönberg was the daughter of American born Rose MacGrew and the German engineering student Alexander Schönberg. The family moved often as MacGrew pursued a career in opera but the effort was abandoned apparently due to illness and MacGrew left the family to return to the United States. When Bessie's father was called into active service in World War I, she and her sisters were left in the care of Gertrude Bierschenk, a young woman who had been originally hired as her mother's companion. At age nineteen, encouraged by her father and at the invitation of her mother, Bessie moved to Eugene, Oregon to pursue university studies. It was there she was able to pursue the study of dance, an activity of which her father had disapproved. Initially dissatisfied with the teachers, her attitude changed when Martha Hill joined the University of Oregon faculty in 1927. In 1929, Schönberg followed Hill to New York City to pursue her studies. Hill arranged for her to meet Martha Graham and soon Schönberg joined the Graham company, performing in the original casts of Primitive mysteries and Heretic. Schönberg's performing career was cut short by a knee injury. During this same period she met her future husband, Dimitry Varley and they married in Jan. 1934. Martha Hill invited Schönberg to be her assistant at Bennington College's School of the Dance, teaching there from 1933-1941. In 1941, she was appointed chairperson of the Sarah Lawrence College Dance Department, a position she held until 1975. She developed long-term relationships with many key institutions in the field of modern dance including the American Dance Festival, Jacob's Pillow, and Dance Theater Workshop. In honor of her contributions to the field, the New York Dance and Performance awards given annually by Dance Theater Workshop were dubbed the "Bessies". She remained an advisor, friend, and teacher until her death in 1997.

Dancer, choreographer.