Margarete Wallmann

Margarete Wallmann or Wallman (aka Margarethe Wallmann, Margherita Wallman or Margarita Wallmann) (22 June or July 1901 or 1904 – 2 May 1992) was a ballerina, choreographer, stage designer, and opera director.

Born probably in Berlin, Wallmann received classical dancing education from Eugenia Eduardowa (1882–1960) in Berlin, and later from Heinrich Kröller (1880–1930) and Anna Ornelli in Munich. From 1923, she attended Mary Wigman's ballet school in Dresden and for a time belonged to Wigman's touring company, whose members included such future dance stars as Hanya Holm and Gret Palucca. In 1928 she traveled to New York and held lectures there on Wigman's Ausdruckstanz. In 1929 she became head of the Wigman School in Berlin.

In 1930 she founded her own company Tänzer-Kollektiv which in 1931 had already grown to 37 members. Their first production was the "movement drama" Orpheus Dionysos by Felix Emmel () with Wallmann as Euridike and Ted Shawn as Orpheus. Shawn invited Wallmann to teach at his Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts in Los Angeles. In 1931 the company staged Emmel's Das jüngste Gericht (The Last Judgement) for the Salzburg Festival and performed there again the following year. Due to an accident, however, Wallmann had to quit dancing.

In 1933 she moved to Vienna, and in 1934 became ballet master at the Vienna State Opera and head of its ballet school. In 1938, after Austria's Anschluss to Nazi Germany, due to her "non-aryan" descent, she was let go, as was her soon to be divorced husband, Hugo Burghauser. While Burghauser, on 12 September 1938, fled via Hungary, Yugoslavia and Italy to Canada and finally to the United States, Wallmann found employment as ballet director at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and became a leading figure of dance in Argentine.

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