Susanna Egri, Italian dance pioneer, turns 100

Susanna Egri, a Hungarian-born Italian dancer, choreographer, and teacher, celebrated her 100th birthday on February 18, 2026, with a gala at Teatro Maggiore di Verbania organized by her company EgriBiancoDanza, co-founded with her protégé Raphael Bianco. The evening featured a revival of her 1953 choreography "Istantanee" set to music by Paul Arma, and a new work "Cantata profana: il cervo fatato" by Bianco, inspired by Hungarian folklore and Béla Bartók. Born in Budapest in 1926 to a Jewish-Hungarian family, Egri fled fascist Italy with her father, football coach Ernő Erbstein, who died in the 1949 Superga air disaster that killed the entire Torino FC team. After studying at the Budapest Opera, she returned to Italy in 1947 and pioneered dance on Italian television. She founded the Centro di Studio della Danza in 1953, later the Fondazione Egri per la Danza (1998), and directed her company until 2012. Her style blends classical technique with experimental music and jazz, marked by spatial inventiveness and irony.