Palucca Endowment Fund wants to find new supporters

Ballet fans can continue to support the Palucca University of Dance in Dresden. On April 7, a benefit event for the Palucca Foundation Fund is planned in the DenkRaum of the Sophienkirche. It operates under the umbrella of the Bürgerstiftung Dresden and specifically supports young dancers at Germany's only independent dance academy. Next Sunday, renowned artists such as jazz drummer Günter "Baby" Sommer, dancer and choreographer Katja Erfurth and violinist Florian Mayer will perform a musical-dance matinee.

"Dance and music tell of the big and small themes of life, of love and pain, of doubt and hope, of passion and happiness. Wordless stories, full of subtlety, thoughtfulness and humor, spiced with a pinch of poetry," says the announcement. Admission is free and donations are requested for the endowment fund. "It is a great pleasure for me, as a student of Gret Palucca, to support the endowment fund as a member of the advisory board and as a dancer and choreographer and to use my dance art to raise money for the endowment fund," explained Katja Erfurth.

The endowment fund is named after Gret Palucca (1902-1993), who is still known today as a legendary expressive dancer and dance teacher. She founded her school in Dresden in 1925. This became the Palucca University of Dance in 1999. Currently, 170 young men and women from 34 countries, including Australia, Peru, Mexico and Saudi Arabia, study here. The university offers a bachelor's degree in dance, master's degrees in dance education and choreography as well as a master class program.

The endowment fund initially amounted to 36,000 euros and was established by a woman who was passionate about dance: Ingeborg Zinnert was herself a student at Palucca in the 1950s, but had to give up her studies due to illness. She died in 2012 at the age of 76. Two years earlier, she decided to invest her savings in a dream that she could not live out herself. She wanted to invest her money in the future of the next generation of dancers. Zinnert thus laid the foundations for the endowment fund. It has since grown to 48,000 euros thanks to several large donations.

Since its foundation in 1995, the Palucca e.V. has supported talented students at the university and sponsored artistic, educational and scientific projects. The focus is on the "day-to-day business" with rather small amounts of funding, said Christina Flume, head of the association: "For example, we refinance two pairs of pointe shoes or dance shoes per semester, support participation in summer schools and provide grants for the production costs of final theses." On a smaller scale, help can also be provided in social emergencies.

"The endowment fund is aimed at larger individual projects such as major scholarships. To this end, we first want to increase the endowment capital in order to continuously draw on the income," emphasized Flume. This tends to appeal to a target group for whom permanence and sustainability are more important, such as testators or individual donors who want to make a donation for a special occasion. The association and the endowment fund are two pillars that are committed to the same goal and complement each other: promoting the education of talented students and preserving the legacy of Gret Palucca.