Ode to Gertrud Leistikow | Thanks to her, dance became a respectable art

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Gertrud Leistikow (Bückeburg, Preussen, Germany, 1885 - Amsterdam, 1948) was a famous solo dancer and pioneer of German modern dance also called Ausdruckstanz. She created her own choreographies and was known, among other things, for her faundans and butterfly dance. Her dance career started around 1910 and ended in 1929. In her time, she was very innovative.

At first she performed mainly in Germany, but she also toured other European countries and Russia. Between 1918 and 1921 she often traveled between Germany and the Netherlands where she had already performed in 1914 and 1917. Eventually she settled in the Netherlands where she was very popular as a dancer. She performed in Amsterdam at the Panopticum ( this later became the Centraal Theater), Carré, the Concertgebouw and the Stadsschouwburg, among others. 
She also gave dance lessons among others in Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam. Thanks to her, dance had become a respectable art so that girls, even from well-to-do families, were allowed by their parents to take dance lessons more often than before. The dance lessons were also popular in the artistic milieu.

In 1921 Gertrud Leistikow married Piet Jongman who grew roses in Aalsmeer. This was her second marriage. She divorced her first husband after falling violently in love with Piet. Gertrud soon became the breadwinner and remained so, which regularly gave her a hard time. 
It is very special that the little house on Oosteinderweg in Aalsmeer where they lived for several years is still there and has hardly changed on the outside in all that time. In her letters to friends in Germany, she waxes lyrical about the then picturesque Aalsmeer, which she describes as a floating fairyland. Roses, water everywhere, boat trips both during the day and under the moonlight through ditches and canals and along “flower islands,” she found everything unutterably beautiful.
In 1926, when Gertrud was already 40, Pete and she had a son, Igor Bogdan Jongman, who later became a dancer himself.

Gertrud found herself frequently in artists' circles in Amsterdam, Laren, Blaricum and Bergen. Many artists were very impressed by her and her art of dance and, each in their own way, paid tribute to her, such as Max Ernst, Edmund Möller, Theo Vos, Elfriede Lohse Wächtler, Hugo Erfurth, Hanns Holdt and Harmen Meurs. She was painted by Jan Sluijters, Hildo Krop made masks for her performances and Bertolt Brecht wrote a poem about her. There have been numerous drawings, photographs, paintings, poems and even figurines and sculptures of her. Her name also appears in a children's book by Emmy Lingdon. 
Mommie Schwartz made posters for her performances as well as a calendar. Gertrud and Pete were friends with him and his wife, painter Else Berg. The latter and graphic designer Tine Baanders, painter Dien van Hoorn and painter Teun Timmer took dance lessons with Gertrud in addition to being friends of hers.

In 1924 there was a successful month-long tour of Indonesia. Later, in 1937, Gertrud even emigrated to Indonesia with her husband and son. She had a dance school in Malang and for financial reasons was forced to teach in different places until her husband died in 1939. Then she returned to the Netherlands where she started teaching dance in Amsterdam and Zaandam. However, her health increasingly failed her. In 1933 she had suffered a slight brain hemorrhage during an operation in which a kidney was removed. From this she never fully recovered. In the last years of her life she suffered another brain hemorrhage, her remaining kidney no longer worked properly and she had difficulty moving. She died in Amsterdam in 1948 at the age of 63 and was buried in the artists' village of Bergen.