Australia’s oldest dancer and choreographer died “peacefully” just a week after celebrating her 110th birthday.
Eileen Stellar Kramer, believed to be the oldest woman in New South Wales, was remembered as a “pioneer” and a national treasure after her death on Friday.
The beloved artist was born in Sydney on November 8, 1914 and dedicated much of her life to performing in Australia and the world.
She first made her mark in ballet in Australia when she turned 27 and then toured the world, living and working in Paris, London and New York, before finally returning to Sydney at the age of 99.
True to form, Mrs. Kramer expressed her love of dance to the end.
In an interview to mark his centenary celebrations 10 years ago, he said he had never shied away from advancing age or used it as an excuse to give up his morning pliés.
‘I don’t mind. I have 100!’ he said. ‘I am liberated. “I don’t have to be 35 all the time.”
She attributed her unusual life trajectory to seeing, at the age of 24, a performance by Sydney’s Bodenwieser Ballet, directed by the Viennese immigrant Madame Gertrud Bodenwieser, who had fled to Australia via Colombia after escaping the Nazis. .
Australia’s oldest dancer and choreographer, Eileen Kramer, performs during a dress rehearsal of her play The Early Ones at a northern Sydney theater in 2015. She died on Friday, just a week after celebrating her 110th birthday.
Mrs. Kramer auditioned for the group and was accepted into the classes.
He recalled that after his first session he felt ‘free’ and after three years he was already a member of the company.
Although called Bodenwieser Ballet, the company was credited with being Australia’s first truly influential modern dance company and, despite her lack of classical training, Ms Kramer discovered she had talent.
‘It was not a wild and unfettered movement; There was a definite technique to do. It just suited me,’ he said.
As she grew into her later years, she said she still worked on her ballet exercises, although admittedly from the comfort of her bed most mornings.
‘But I do get up and do pliés and stuff. “Some of the foot exercises in classical ballet are very, very good for strengthening the feet,” he said in 2015.
“And I need it now because I can only see with one eye, so my balance is affected.”
Ms Kramer attended the 50th anniversary celebrations at the Sydney Opera House last year.
Kramer recalled traveling through Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India with the Bodenwieser group before founding his own company.
“I was always interested in India and when we toured there, I guess I liked India,” she said.
‘In Pakistan, someone told me I knew how to paint. The next thing I did was find myself in a pavilion… painting scenes of Paris. I had two assistants. So I got to work and did it.
In Europe he earned money as an artist’s model, something he had done in Sydney for the Australian painter Norman Lindsay.
The globe-trotting artist has been remembered as a pioneer and a national treasure.
Kramer then married and moved to New York with her filmmaker husband, but she stopped dancing when he suffered a stroke and she cared for him for 18 years until his death.
He later returned to acting, but at the age of 99, after the death of another colleague, he decided to return to Australia.
‘I started thinking about kookaburras. The smell of rubber trees,” he said.
“It’s natural to return to your own country.”
In a statement, Kramer’s legal guardians told ABC on Friday that she was a “pioneer” and a “true creative spirit” and said she died “peacefully.”
“She is the last dancer of the Bodenwieser era, she was the oldest woman in New South Wales and probably the oldest dancer internationally.”