Jean Weidt(1904-1988)

Jean was a German dancer and choreographer. He first danced with a youth folk dance troupe and later studied with Leeder and Olga Brandt-Knaack. He gave his first solo concert in Hamburg in 1925, including the first version of his signature piece, The Worker. In the same year he formed his own company, with which he moved to Berlin in 1929 where it became known as the Red Dancers. The political content of his works grew stronger with the rise of fascism and he was briefly arrested in 1933. He then lived and worked in Moscow, Prague, and Paris, continuing to choreograph work with intense political and humanitarian concerns, such as The Cell (1947). From 1948 to 1950 he directed the Dramatic Ballet at the Volksbühne in E. Berlin, then worked at opera houses in Schwerin and Karl-Marx-Stadt and at Berlin's Komische Oper (1958-66 and 1978-80).