Obituary for Beatrice Cordua

We mourn the loss of Beatrice "Trixie" Cordua, who passed away in July 2025. Her departure leaves a deep void in the world of dance and at ImPulsTanz.

A woman with long brown hair and red lipstick wears a black faux fur coat and holds a lit cigarette. She stands on a stage with a dark background and bluish lighting, a headset microphone attached to her cheek. Smoke visibly rises from the cigarette. — Beatrice Cordua in Florentina Holzinger's TANZ © nada zgank

Back in 1972, she attracted attention by dancing nude in John Neumeier’s Le sacre du printemps – a feminist statement, a scandal, a milestone. She was the first German dancer at the ballet of the Hamburg State Opera, a long-time companion of John Neumeier, and performed in France, Italy, Brazil and the US before becoming an actress at the Volksbühne Berlin. She shared a wild artistic friendship with choreographer Florentina Holzinger. For more than a decade, Trixie had been an integral part of her creative work – including in TANZ, a radical reckoning with the ballet canon, which was presented at ImPulsTanz at the Volkstheater in 2022, among others. In 2020, the documentary Trixie by Bastian Genoux and Nicole Seiler was released, portraying her life in and with dance and her extraordinary personality.

Our thoughts are with all those who loved and miss her – especially her family, her close companions from the dance world around Florentina Holzinger, and all those she awakened through her art.

Karl Regensburger and the entire ImPulsTanz team