Koner, Pauline

Pauline Koner, one of America’s foremost modern dance choreographers and performers, was born in New York on June 26, 1912 to Russian immigrants Samuel and Ida Ginsberg Koner. Unlike most American modern dancers, she did not trace her artistic beginnings to Isadora Duncan or Ruth St. Denis. In fact, she was already an established figure in the modern dance movement when she affiliated with the Humphrey-Limón Dance Company in 1946. Yet this was not the style in which she initially trained. She studied at thirteen with the celebrated ballet choreographer Michel Fokine and danced in his company. Finding ballet too restrictive of a dance language, Koner decided to work with dance pioneers Michio Ito and Yeichi Nimura.

At her first solo concert on Dec. 7, 1930, John Martin, noted New York Times dance critic, remarked that the event “exhibited her unquestionable right to stand alone.” In 1935, she was the first American dancer to be asked to perform in the Soviet Union. Koner gave solo concerts in the U.S. and the Near East from 1930 to 1945. Her solos then included Yal-lel, Chassidic Song and Dance, Bird of Prey and Three Funeral Marches .

From 1943 - 1947, Koner headed a production company called Choreotones with Kitty Doner (former vaudeville headliner). They staged productions for the Roxy Theatre and Holiday on Ice, and pioneered television dance choreography for CBS - TV in 1945.

As guest artist for the Humphrey-Limón repertory from 1946 to 1960, she created memorable roles in such dances as The Moor’s Pavane, La Malinche, The Visitation, There Is a Time, Ruins and Visions, and Ritmo Jondo . All along she continued to choreograph for herself creating in the 1950s and 1960s such notable works as Cassandra, Concertino, and The Shining Dark . To these she added the widely proclaimed pas de deux, Poéme, and Fragments, composed on a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1962, Koner honored the memory of Doris Humphrey life with her acclaimed piece The Farewell.

In 1975 she focused her attentions on her newly formed dance company, The Pauline Koner Dance Consort. Formed of students from the North Carolina School of the Arts, Koner continued to exert her influence on the dance world through her students and her choreography. Koner’s dance techniques and stylization were revealed in such works as Solitary Song, A Time for Crickets, Cantigas and Flight .

Koner received the Dance Magazine Award of the year in 1963. She lectured widely on dance at home and abroad, including a 1965 assignment to Tokyo on a Fulbright senior lectureship. She served on the faculties of the North Carolina School of the Arts, the Jacob’s Pillow University of the Dance, Brooklyn College Dance Workshop, Texas Women’s University, and the Accademia Nazionale of Rome, Italy. In addition to teaching, Ms. Koner released her autobiography Solitary Song in 1989 and a text based on her teaching ideology entitled Elements of Performance .

Pauline Koner, who was married to noted conductor Fritz Mahler, died on Feb. 8, 2001.

From the guide to the Pauline Koner papers, 1905-2000, (The New York Public Library. Jerome Robbins Dance Division.)