Eugene von Grona(1908-2000)
- Actor
As a child Eugene von Grona (born in Berlin, 1908) was fascinated with
"cakewalk" music (ragtime) and dreamed about traveling to the country
that spawned the new music. In the 1920s von Grona and his wife, Leni,
came to the U.S. with a very open mind for modern music. He and his
wife, also a dancer, were especially fascinated by the music heard in
Harlem, such as the compositions of Duke Ellington. Some critics
remarked that his style of dance composition relied heavily on German
modernism, but that he had acquired for himself a remarkable, physical
suppleness that he conveyed to his twelve girls. Their contortions
proved to be extremely difficult feats of balance and strength,
including back bends. It was in 1934 that von Grona and his wife
(billed as Leni Bouvier) appeared as
themselves in a film short for the Vitaphone Company in Brooklyn. The
film starred Lillian Roth and was released
April 7, 1934 as
Story Conference (1934). Since
von Grona's career was focused on the stage and recital hall, it is
fortunate that this film exists of him and his wife. Had the times been
different, his Negro troupe might have made an appearance in films. In
1934 he placed an advertisement in a Harlem newspaper offering
scholarships. 150 people responded. After many days of auditions, he
selected 22 dancers to train. He resisted offers from Hollywood,
preferring his exciting life full of discovery. Three years later, on
November 21, 1937, they gave their first public performance at the
Lafayette Theatre in Harlem. Dances were choreographed to the music as
W.C. Handy, Reginald Forsythe, J.S. Bach, Ellington and Stravinsky. The
first night audience was more enthusiastic than the downtown newspaper
reviewers. Their applause convinced Leni and Eugene that their Negro
ballet had a future. Von Grona accepted an offer to help Erwin Piscator
form a dance school in Houston, Texas. This led to the staging of dance
numbers in early American television. His life and career are quite
hazy after his first work in Harlem. Although it is known that The
Negro Art Theatre Dance Group was founded in the 1920s by Helmsley
Winfield, von Grona's attempt at mixing ballet and Harlem blazed a
trail for others who would become more successful. Evidently von Grona
returned to Berlin in 1965 to work on a film with Erwin Piscator.
Sadly, Piscator died before his project could begin. von Grona
subsequently created a jazz school, wrote a musical show and faded into
obscurity in a Berlin sanitarium.