Australia Dancing - Exiner, Johanna (Hanny) (1918

Exiner, Johanna (Hanny) (1918 - 2006)

Born in Vienna, Hanny Exiner (nee Kolm) studied dance with Gertrud Bodenwieser from the age of four. She continued this training throughout her school years, completing a four year diploma at the Wiener Akademie fur Musik und Darstellende Kunst (the Vienna State Academy for Music and Drama) where Bodenwieser was professor of dance. After two years of tertiary medical study Exiner left Vienna at the age of nineteen to join Bodenwieser's company, touring in Europe and then in South Africa and South America.

After the outbreak of World War Two, Exiner and Bodenwieser both, separately, travelled to New Zealand. They met by coincidence in Wellington where Exiner was invited by Bodenwieser to illustrate her lectures with dance practice. Exiner then settled in Melbourne where, after a brief interlude touring with the Bodenwieser company to Western Australia, she joined her childhood friend Daisy Pirnitzer at her Studio of Creative Dance (also known as the School of Viennese Creative Dance and the School of Creative Dancing) in Collins Street. In addition to providing day and evening classes, the studio hosted a performance group which presented both charity and paid public performances. Pirnitzer retired from the partnership after the war, and in 1953 Exiner established the Modern Ballet Group with Margaret Lasica as co-director. Both the Studio of Creative Dance and the Modern Ballet Group were central to the Melbourne modern dance scene.

Exiner's interest in child development and education had seen her teaching dance classes at the Melbourne Kindergarten Teachers College in addition to her studio commitments in the mid 1940s. She went on to complete her teacher training and then in 1961 travelled to London to study the work of Rudolf von Laban. On her return she became a member of staff at the Kindergarten Teachers College (from 1973 the State College of Victoria - Institute of Early Childhood Development) where, in conjunction with her colleague Phyllis Lloyd, she established the Graduate Diploma in Music and Dance. Her skills and insights into dance and education led her to the belief that the aesthetic experience of dance was inherently a healing medium. As a result she became a key innovator and influence in the development of dance-movement therapy in Australia. She published widely in this area as well as in the more general field of creative movement education.

After retiring from full time work in higher education in 1982, Exiner opened the George Street Studio for Dance and Well-being where, along with other alumni of the Graduate Diploma in Music and Dance, she ran community classes. In 1987 she was involved in the development of a Graduate Certificate in Dance Therapy which was offered periodically by the University of Melbourne until 1999.

In 2001 a fund was established in Exiner's name by her husband and sons. Now a foundation, its major purpose is to provide financial assistance for people undertaking research in the field of Dance-Movement Therapy, and to encourage greater understanding of the effects of this discipline in the wider community. The achievements of Exiner's life and work were honoured in a dedicated edition of 'Moving On', the journal of the Dance-Movement Therapy Association of Australia (DTAA) in September 2008.

Bibliography:

Karen Bond, 'Honoring Hanny Kolm Exiner: Dancer, Philosopher, and Visionary Educator', in Thomas K Hagood (ed), Legacy in Dance Education - Essays and Interviews on Values, Practices and People (NY: Cambria Press, 2008) pp 99-112.

Edited excerpts from Michelle Potter's 1994 interview with Hanny Exiner appear in 'Recollections of Gertrud Bodenwieser', Brolga 8 (June 1998), pp. 18-23.

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