(Lecture in German)

In 1921, Kurt Tucholsky described Valeska Gert in an article in Die Weltbühne as a ‘great performer, an outstanding dancer, an extraordinary woman’. The Performing Arts Archive of the Academy of Arts Berlin preserves documents left behind by the artist in the Valeska Gert Archive. What remains for posterity of this dazzling personality, incomparable dancer and interesting woman? What survives of an artistic personality in the archive? Can the ephemeral art form of dance even be represented in an archive? Who does the material inspire today? Helene Herold, head of the Performing Arts Archive, provides an insight into the material in the Valeska Gert Archive.

Helene Herold has been working in the Performing Arts Archive Department of the Academy of Arts since 2018 and has been the head of the archive department since summer 2025. She is also responsible for the dance collections and, in addition to the Valeska Gert Archive, also looks after the archives of Mary Wigman, Gret Palucca, Johann Kresnik, Gerhard Bohner, Susanne Linke, Reinhild Hoffmann and Arila Siegert, to name but a few.

This lecture is a part of the series Valeska Gert and her Afterlives. FU Berlin / AdK / DAAD: Celebrating 20 years of the Valeska Gert Professorship.