Anita "Angna" Enters (April 18, 1897 – February 25, 1989) was an American dancer, mime, painter, writer, novelist and playwright.Biographical note, Angna Enters Papers, Jerome Robbins Dance Division. The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts She studied at the

Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school in the American Fine Arts Society in Manhattan, New York City. The Arts Students League is known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may study f ...

and was a 1934

Guggenheim fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon individuals who have demonstrated d ...

. She wrote a novel and three autobiographies as well as the films '' Lost Angel'' (1943) and ''

Tenth Avenue Angel ''Tenth Avenue Angel'' is a 1948 American drama film directed by Roy Rowland and starring Margaret O'Brien, Angela Lansbury, and George Murphy. It chronicles the life and family of Flavia Mills ( Margaret O'Brien) in the late 1930s. Filming to ...

'' (1948).

Early life

Enters was born in

Milwaukee, Wisconsin Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...

and graduated from North Division High School in

. She saw the first

Denishawn The Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts, founded in 1915 by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn in Los Angeles, California, helped many perfect their dancing talents and became the first dance academy in the United States to produce a professional ...

concert tour in 1925, and the following year, an American tour of

Sergei Diaghilev Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev ( ; rus, Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев, , sʲɪrˈɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪdʑ ˈdʲæɡʲɪlʲɪf; 19 August 1929), also known as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario an ...

's ''Les Ballets Russes''.

Emergence as a dancer

Enters moved to New York to study at the

in 1920, and began to study dance with

Michio Itō was a Japanese dancer who developed his own choreography style in Europe and America. He was the son of Kimiye Iijima and architect Tamekichi Ito who was educated at the University of Washington; he was one of nine children, and the brother of d ...

the following year, eventually performing as Michio's partner in 1933. That year she created her first piece, an evocation of a statue of a Gothic Virgin, entitled ''Ecclesiastique''. The piece later became ''Moyen Age''. In 1934, she borrowed $25 with which to present her first solo program at the

Greenwich Village Theatre Greenwich Village Theatre (GVT) was an arts venue in Greenwich Village, New York which opened in 1917 and closed for the last time in 1930. Herman Lee Meader was the architect and it was located in Sheridan Square at 4th Street and Seventh Av ...

.Dunning, Jennifer (March 1, 1989). "Angna Enters, 82, Dancer, Mime and Artist Known for Characters". ''New York Times''. Her solo program, ''The Theatre of Angna Enters'', toured the United States and Europe until 1939 and was performed, though less often, until 1960. In 1934, Enters was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

to study

Hellenistic art Hellenistic art is the art of the Hellenistic period generally taken to begin with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and end with the Roman Greece, conquest of the Greek world by the Romans, a process well underway by 146 BC, when the G ...

forms in

Athens, Greece Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

."Mime Enters" ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

''. (December 17, 1934).

Visual artist

Enters created a large body of visual art, including sketches, landscape drawings, archaeological studies, costume plates, water colors and oil portraits. Many of her sketches and paintings were exhibited in the United States and Europe. Her sketches were often costume designs for characters of her mime performances or set designs for plays. The

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

in New York holds selected works by Enters, as do other museums.

Personal life

Enters met journalist Louis Kantor in 1921. The two began dating secretly in 1924, wed quietly in Spain in 1936 but maintained separate households. In 1924, Enters changed her first name to Angna and began using 1907 as her birth year. Kantor also changed his name to Louis Kalonyme in 1924 and began writing art criticism for ''Arts and Decoration'' magazine. Kalonyme was friends with many notable thinkers of the day:

Eugene O'Neill Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of Realism (theatre), realism, earlier associated with ...

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 188 ...

, and

Georgia O'Keeffe Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 March 6, 1986) was an American Modernism, modernist painter and drafter, draftswoman whose career spanned seven decades and whose work remained largely independent of major art movements. Called the "M ...

among them. The couple did not have any children and Kalonyme died in 1961 after a long illness. In 1924, the realist painter and printmaker

John Sloan John French Sloan (August 2, 1871 – September 7, 1951) was an American painter and etcher. He is considered to be one of the founders of the Ashcan school of American art. He was also a member of the group known as The Eight (Ashcan School), T ...

, along with his fellow artists

Robert Henri Robert Henri (; June 24, 1865 – July 12, 1929) was an American painter and teacher. As a young man, he studied in Paris, where he identified strongly with the Impressionists, and determined to lead an even more dramatic revolt against A ...

and

George Bellows George Wesley Bellows (August 12 or August 19, 1882 – January 8, 1925) was an American realism, American realist painting, painter, known for his bold depictions of urban life in New York City. He became, according to the Columbus Museum of Art ...

, attended one of Enters’s shows. They were enchanted. The following year Sloan asked Enters to pose for him in one of her dance routines, “Contre Danse.” Sloan’s etching of this subject was the first of seven etchings that he produced, from 1925 to 1930, showing Enters performing various of her compositions. Although Enters posed for Sloan’s etching of Contre Danse, his six subsequent etchings were done from drawings executed by him while he was attending her shows. These etchings convincingly portray the attitudes of the characters that Enters created, and they convey a vivid sense of what must have made “The Theatre of Angna Enters” so compelling.

Writing

Enters wrote three volumes of autobiography – ''First Person Plural'' (1937), ''Silly Girl'' (1944) and ''Artist's Life'' (1958). She also wrote a novel, ''Among the Daughters'' (1956), and a book on her work, ''On Mime'' (1966). Her plays, ''Love Possessed Juana: A Play of the Inquisition in Spain'', co-written with Louis Kalonyme, and ''The Unknown Lover'', were presented by the Houston Little Theater in 1946 and 1947. Enters is also credited with having co-written two Hollywood films, '' Lost Angel'' (1943) and ''

'' (1948).

Teaching

Enters' first teaching work came at the Stella Adler Studio, where she taught from 1957 to 1960. She was artist-in-residence at the Dallas Theatre Center in 1961 and 1962, and taught mime at

Baylor University Baylor University is a Private university, private Baptist research university in Waco, Texas, United States. It was chartered in 1845 by the last Congress of the Republic of Texas. Baylor is the oldest continuously operating university in Te ...

during that year. She spent the following school year at

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the Methodi ...

Middletown, Connecticut Middletown is a city in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. Located along the Connecticut River, in the central part of the state, 16 miles (25.749504 km) south of Hartford, Connecticut, Hartford. Middletown is the largest city in the L ...

. In 1970 and 1971 she was

artist-in-residence Artist-in-residence (also Writer-in-residence), or artist residencies, encompass a wide spectrum of artistic programs that involve a collaboration between artists and hosting organisations, institutions, or communities. They are programs that pr ...

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...

, during which time she gave her last known public performance.

Enters' books

* ''First Person Plural''. New York: Stackpole Sons, 1937. * ''Love Possessed Juana'' (queen of Castile) a play in four acts. New York: Twice a Year Press, 1939. * ''Silly Girl, a Portrait of Personal Remembrance''. Cambridge, MA: Houghton Mifflin company, 1944. * ''Among the Daughters, a Novel''. New York: Coward-McCann, 1955. * ''Artist's Life''. New York: Coward-McCann, 1958. * ''On Mime'', second edition. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1968 (first edition 1965).

References

External links

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second-largest public library in the United States behind the Library of Congress a ...

, Archives and Manuscripts
Angna Enters collection, 1922-1962
at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

Angna Enters collection, 1929-1962
at

Houghton Library Houghton Library, on the south side of Harvard Yard adjacent to Widener Library, Lamont Library, and Loeb House, is Harvard University's primary repository for rare books and manuscripts. It is part of the Harvard College Library, the library s ...

, Harvard University
Angna Enters and Louis Kalonyme papers
at the

Beinecke Library The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library () is the rare book library and literary archive of the Yale University Library in New Haven, Connecticut. It is one of the largest buildings in the world dedicated to rare books and manuscripts and ...

, Yale University.
Angna Enters photographs, 1897-1989
held by the Jerome Robbins Dance Division
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

Additional reading

* Mandel, Dorothy (1986). ''Uncommon Eloquence: A Biography of Angna Enters''. Arden Press. . {{DEFAULTSORT:Enters, Angna 1907 births 1989 deaths Wesleyan University faculty American female dancers Dancers from New York (state) American mimes American autobiographers Art Students League of New York alumni Burials at Kensico Cemetery Actresses from Milwaukee Musicians from Wisconsin Artists from Wisconsin Writers from Wisconsin Actresses from New York City Musicians from New York City Painters from New York City Writers from New York City University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee alumni 20th-century American actresses American women autobiographers 20th-century American painters 20th-century American women painters 20th-century American musicians Federal Art Project artists 20th-century American dancers North Division High School (Milwaukee) alumni American women academics