Costume Illustrations for “Hassid” for the Vera Shabshay Dance Troupe

Must Know

The choreographer and dancer Vera Shabshay (1905-1988) was the founder of the Jewish Dance Laboratory active in Moscow in the 1920s and 30s. her modernistic productions, which reflected on traditional Jewish dance and the Jewish township, combined movement, music, pantomime and acrobatics. her contemporaries considered her works stark and original experimentations in “undeveloped” choreography. Shabshay worked with musicians and composers from the Jewish Music Association, and visual artists from the Vkhutemas (Soviet Art and Technical Studios, similar in many aspects to the Bauhaus) created sketches for her production costumes. Shabshay’s artistic activity ended with the rejection of the Avant-Garde under Stalin’s rein.