The missing piece of the puzzle

Had long wanted to make up a page about Moa Mandu and his lover, Erwin Dominike “mime” van Osen; the dancer and the mime, who inspired some of the most iconic Schiele’s, drawings in which there’s shown twitching movements of eroticism with which the pair conjured the absurd act of living, but there is a lot of gaps on trying to reconstruct the story of their lives, however I will try to share the data I have achieved about them, hopping, in the same way, collect more info by getting in contact with the possible audience whom may get another piece of the jigsaw puzzle. By now I’m not alone in my seeking. On this journey, I’ve got someone as companion, Markus, so this space is not only my space, this corner of my attic belongs him too.

About Erwin Osen, It’s seems that his mother was from an old Japanese nobility, called the O-Sen. His father died, while she was pregnant, his mother died during giving birth to him.Even though his unfortunate life as an orphan boy, with the age of six, Erwin was member of a ballet-class and performed in the public. It’s is known that he was inscribed in the Vienna’s Opera ballet by the time Gustav Mahler was the director of this institution, it is supposed that Mahler found on him as well some qualities concerning drawing skills so Mahler decide introduce him to Gustav Klimt. Then, in 1909 he took part in the Nutcracker and he got in touch with “the wild boys”, a gang of young people who studied at the Academy, despite of they felt disappointment with it, and later on founded the Neukunstler, having a memorable exhibition in 1909.

Osen, definitively, prefer visit asylums rather to assist to de Academy, because he was interested on capture the movement of the madmen both for his sketches and his performance and. On running the same year, at the Steinhoff hospital, he was asked to illustrate a lecture untitled “Pathological Expression in the Portrait”. All the things that could be reveal by the gestures of these desperate souls, become a great concern to him, this interest was shared by Egon Schiele, who become his best friend. The two guys love to go to the cafes wearing pretty extravagant clothe and behaving in an odd way, but the art critic Arthur Roessler, who sponsors Egon career, was always between them, he was very jealous about this great friendship. At one point Egon felt so annoyed by all kind of chip talk and also felt frustrated by the hostile environment that start to flow trough the fake open minded society, even in his cluster, so he decided go to Kramau and asked Osen to joining him in his attempt to move out along with Moa, but that story end with Egon imprisonment. Arthur Roessler before the dead of Egon publicated the text that Schiele wrote during his time on jail, but they were reedited by him in ways that he appears as Egon best friend, meanwhile he called betrayers to someone who really was his friend: Erwin.

The first clue I’ve got from Moa’s life is the moment she left Bosnia at the beginning of the called Annexation crisis, it means about the end of 1908. She went to Austria alone, I don´t know anything about his family or her roots, maybe her hometown was Mostari, and maybe, she was Muslim because Erwin used to say that she came from the race of the Ottoman caliphs (obviously, he always put a bit of fantasy on his relaters). It’s supposed they met at The Opera Theater of Vienna where she was trying to join it. I’ don’t know if she reached this goal, but it seems they get attracted each other, and I know that she were working at café kabaretos as exotic dancer, taking advantage of her rare facial features and the path opened by Mata Hari. There, she performance Javanese and Balinese dances and also Masmoudies, but soon, by the guidance of Erwin she started in the mime stuff. She learnt a lot about improvisation by the hand of Erwin.

I imagine that the time that Erwin, Moa spent along with Egon and Wally in Kramau was the apotheosis of their relationship, because there  they had the opportunity to be free and express themselves openly in all levels; speakin about artistic, psychological, sexually terms.

Erwin was so interested in filmmaking by then, and there in Kramau, Egon got this drawing with this bird-view perspective, they get up in a ladder and draw the body of the model. Moa was a great model for both of them because she loved express with his body; just as the name that she choose for her and her new life (the real one I don’t know what could it be), which also is the name of a river in Sierra Leone, (I don’t know either if she knew that, maybe Erwin did) she symbolized to his lover the constant change, the being flowing and transforming, running free, always free…

Moa had known very important people. Once she collaborate with a well know theater director, more over because he settle the basis for the Actor's Studio, back then in New York, I´m talking about Erwin Piscator, he was born in 1893 and died in1966, but she met a lot of people when she held this relationship, also she works in a role play in The drawn ship  (Das trunkeene Schiff ) written by Paul Zech, and, of course, directed by Piscator when he managed the group called Volksbuhne. That was in may 21st of 1926, she act along with Leonard Stockel and Carl Ludwig (the first one play as Verlaine, and the other as Rimbaud, and guess who was the stage designer...Georg Grosz!