Dancer, choreographer, artist and writer Eileen Kramer died peacefully last Friday (15 November) aged 110.
“She will be dearly missed by those who knew her and those inspired by her across the world,” her legal guardians said in a statement.
After training in the dance style known as Central European Expressionism in the 1940s, Kramer toured both nationally and internationally, going on to perform in the jazz bars of Paris and later working as an artists’ model in Paris and London. She also met jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald and comic actor Chico Marx and was taught the twist by Louis Armstrong.
Kramer eventually moved back to Australia aged 99, arriving in Sydney with only a suitcase.
Writing in 2023, aged 108, she said, “I’ve been dancing for more than 100 years, and I like to think I’m getting the hang of it. I am not old. I’ve just been here a long time.”
She is remembered as a beautiful soul, an inspirational choreographer, an extraordinary artist, a committed and supportive mentor and a force of nature.
A life well lived
Born on 8 November 1914, Kramer grew up in the Sydney suburb of Mosman and originally trained at Sydney Conservatorium as a singer and pianist in in the 1930s; she also worked as an artist’s model for the Australian etcher, sculptor and writer, Norman Lindsay.
Kramer discovered her love for dance in her mid-20s, in 1940, after attending a performance by influential modern dance company Bodenwieser Ballet (founded by expatriate Viennese dancer, choreographer and teacher Gertrud Bodenwieser, who arrived in Sydney in 1939 after fleeing the Nazis the year prior).
“My mother took me to a concert at the Conservatorium and I saw these wonderful girls coming on stage in the Blue Danube and the next day I was taking classes with Madame Bodenwieser… I’d had a few [dance] classes as a child, but it didn’t satisfy me very much. But as soon as I saw Madame’s work I knew that’s what I’d been waiting for,” Kramer said in an oral history interview recorded in 2003 at the National Library of Australia.
Asked what it was about the Bodenwieser Ballet’s dance style that inspired her, Kramer replied, “Well, Blue Danube is beautiful and flowing and expressive and not at all tight and rigid, so I just fell in love with it. Another dance they performed at that concert was the Slavonic, those great big skirts with big motifs on them, and that struck me because when they came onto the floor they took wonderful poses that looked as though they were accidental, but of course it was art. So I went immediately to become a student.”
After eventually moving back to Sydney in 2013 because she “missed the kookaburras and the smell of gum trees”, Kramer continued to choreograph, give workshops and perform; she also wrote several books, including a fantasy novel The Heliotropians (2009), Eileen: Stories from the Phillip Street Courtyard, chronicling her bohemian life in inner-Sydney in the 1930s (Melbourne Books, 2018, co-written with Tracey Spring) and 2023’s Life Keep Me Dancing (Pan Macmillan).
In 2019, Kramer submitted a self-portrait to the Archibald Prize, becoming the oldest-ever entrant to the prestigious painting competition in the process.
“None of us are Picasso or Matisse or Brecht or any of those people,” she told the ABC at the time. “Just do it if it makes you feel happy.”
Kramer also appeared in short films, including Eileen (2017) directed by her regular collaborator Sue Healey, and appeared as herself in the 2020 documentary, The Witch of Kings Cross, the story of avant-garde Sydney artist Rosaleen Norton.
She celebrated her 110th birthday on 8 November this year.
An enduring legacy
A recent tribute by Ausdance noted: “Eileen is featured as one of six ‘Icons‘ in Sue Healey’s wonderful film of the same name (soon to be shown again in Melbourne), and was present at its launch in Sydney in January this year. She participated in the DaCi international and World Dance Alliance conference Panpapanpalya 2018 in Adelaide, and in the ABC’s Compass program a decade ago, having provided inspirational leadership to generations of young (and not-so-young) dancers over many years.
Read: Vale Roz Hervey
“Former Bodenwieser dancer and recently-retired QL2 artistic director Ruth Osborne farewelled Eileen Kramer with this post: ‘Thank you dear Eileen for inspiring so many and reminding us of the Bodenwieser legacy. Your passion for an artistic life was inspirational.”
Eileen Kramer can be seen performing in choreographer and filmmaker Sue Healey’s ON VIEW: ICONS at Melbourne’s Dancehouse from 28-30 November, and in the Sydney Festival production AFTERWORLD from 7-11 January, a collaboration between Healey and composer Laurence Pike, in which Kramer appears in a pre-recorded video – her final performance – as the ancient Greek princess Eurydice.
