Dancing under Bodenwieser​
In the 1930s New Zealand teenager Shona Dunlop studied at the Vienna State Academy with expressionist dancer and choreographer Gertrud Bodenwieser, later joining the Bodenwieser Ballet. Forced out of Vienna in 1938 as many of the dancers were Jewish, the company first toured to South America, then based itself in Australia, touring New Zealand in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In 1986, Shona researched and wrote a book on Bodenwieser, ‘An Ecstasy of Purpose’, which was also translated into German.
During the flight to Bogota, Columbia, the plane suddenly plummeted thousands of feet. “We stepped on Terra Firma with enormous relief, incapable of making the sort of glamorous impression we had intended upon a large reception committee awaiting us. However, most of us managed to turn angelic faces to the camera and receive bouquets of exotic sprays of orchid with grace.”
-An Ecstasy of Purpose: The Life and Art of Gertrud Bodenwiser by Shona Dunlop MacTavish (p. 55)
Bodenwieser’s Dancers on Rooftop 
Shona in South America 
Life Among the Insects