Leila Bedirxan: ‘My dance and my dreams are of the East’
Leila Bedirxan was born in Istanbul in 1903 to an Austrian Jewish mother, Henriette Ornik and a father of Kurdish nobility, Abdürrezzak Bedirxhan - a descendant of Kurdish mîr Bedirxan Beg. They met in Pera, Istanbul, where Henriette was an Austrian expatriate. She is sometimes referred to as the ‘Kurdish Princess Ballerina’ as she became famous in the Ballet Russes, dancing across the stages of Europe in the 1930s and 40s.
Her father was quite absent from her life, as he was detained in prison in Libya between 1906 and 1910. Leila moved from Istanbul to Egypt with her mother, while still a child. After her father's death, she went to live in Vienna, the location of her first ballet classes. She started a dancing career following this, and by 1924 she starred at the Vienna Konzerthaus. In Vienna, she had several portraits with celebrity photographer of the time, Madame D’Ora, in striking headdresses and draping garments.
Leila left for Paris shortly after to pursue her dancing career, in 1926. Leila also did tours in the United States in 1927 and then Europe in 1929/30, stopping in exuberant places like Salzburg, Biarritz and Monte Carlo. She returned to Paris in 1930 and continued seasons at theatres across Europe. At the renowned theatre La Scala, in Milan on 23 January 1932, she danced the role of Belkis in Ottorino Respighi's ballet Belkis, Regina di Saba (Belkis, Queen of Sheba), a premiere with the choreography of Leonide Massine. Belkis, Queen of Sheba was one of the most ambitious works staged in the art world of the 1930s. There was innovative use of wind machines, and non-western classical instruments, such as the sitar played in the orchestra.
There is only one known footage of her dancing, sinuously in front of a mirror, in a glittering dark leotard, her movement at once balletic and exotic.
And this is what Leila became known for; her trademark elegance with a splash of orientalism, something very in Vogue on the 1930s stages she performed. The newspapers at the time gave her glowing reviews for her famously ‘expressive arms’, one news report even claiming she had them insured for £10,000 each.
Leila Bedirxan died in Paris in 1986, not before having a daughter, Nevin with her husband, a French man, Henri Touache.
