Eva Kröschlová, key figure of czech dance, has passed away

Eva Kröschlová

With deep grief we announce that Mrs Eva Kröschlová, an important figure of Czech dance culture, died on 10 July 2019 at the age of 92. She contributed significantly to the renaissance of the interest in early music and historical dance, and throughout her teaching career she raised the whole new generation of successors.

Eva Kröschlová, born Schürerová, was a Czech dancer, choreographer, teacher. director and publicist. as well as the founder (together with Miroslav Venhoda) of the Early Music Society and of the famous International Summer School of Early Music in Valtice.

Pupil of her mother, Jarmila Kröschlová, she was a member of her dance group (1939-1949) and from 1949 to 1952 she attended numerous courses of kinetography, historical dance and dance pedagogy.

She collaborated with many dance and music ensembles, namely Schola cantorum, Theatre of Music, New Madrigal Singers (under the leadership of Ladislav Venhoda), Slavonic Dances Ensemble, Jiří Srnec Black Theatre, Otomar Krejča’s Gate Theatre, La Fiamma dance group and others. In 2000, she founded her own ensemble of historical dance. Chorea Historica.

Eva Kröschlová also devoted herself to theatre directing, she collaborated on more than sixty productions. She was a respected educator within her field, and she taught in many institutions, including DAMU in Prague (active from 1952). For ICTM (International Council for Traditional Music) she elaborated a methodology of structural analysis of folk dances. She led a number of specialist courses at home and abroad, for example in Antverpy, Göteborg, Oslo or Budapest.

Kröschlová published a series of specialist titles: Polka (Prague, 1961), Tance osmi století (Prague, 1963), Pohybové etudy (with V. Urbánková and L. Vašek, Prague 1963), Hudební výchova pohybem (Prague 1969), Kontratance různých končin (Prague 1979), Dobové tance 16.–19. století (Prague 1981), Jevištní pohyb (Prague 1988), Psychosomatická příprava herce (Prague 1998). She wrote articles for daily newspapers and journals (Taneční listy and others)

At the 1950 World Festival of Youth and Students she won the first prize, and five years later in Warsaw, she won the second prize, along with Karel Bednář. In 1996, she became an honourable member of Rosalie Chladek Company in Vienna and in 2014, she received the Special Thalia Collegium Award.