Voo Doo - Dancing with Snakes

The sensation of Europe!

The best Indian snake dancer of the season!

A dancing marvel from One Thousand and One Nights!

The great international sensation!

A performance of fairy-tale beauty and splendour!

On the stage of the grand variety theatre stands a female figure. Her slender body is barely covered by shimmering fabrics. A richly decorated turban sits atop her long, dark curls. A live python winds itself around her neck in slow, sinuous movements. The audience holds its breath as the dancer moves in perfect harmony with the snake, writhing and twisting her body, letting it circle in undulating movements. The dance grows ever wilder, the movements more contorted and daring. At the end of the performance, there is thunderous applause. When the dancer suddenly clutches her head and rips off her turban and wig, the sensation is complete: the dancer is, in fact, a man.

A fateful visit to a hotel

When a young, well-dressed lady entered the Hotel Roter Adler in Berlin on 20 September 1909, no one could have imagined that a tragedy was about to unfold. The following morning, when a chambermaid heard alarming noises coming from the lady’s room – sounds that resembled crying and faint cries for help – the staff opened the door without further ado. The young woman was lying on the floor in a pool of blood; she had attempted to take her own life. She was given first aid immediately and taken to hospital. There, it soon transpired that she was not a woman at all, but an 18-year-old man named Willy Pape.

A photograph by Willy Pape dedicated to Magnus Hirschfeld; here he is already using his stage name, Voo Doo.

Magnus Hirschfeld at a patient's bedside

The story of the young man’s suicide attempt whilst dressed in women’s clothes made the rounds of all the Berlin newspapers. The reasons cited for this act of desperation were the frustration and fears Pape felt about his future. His parents had rejected his dream of becoming a (female) dancer in a variety show and had instead forced him into a painting apprenticeship. Even as a child, Pape had had a fondness for dresses and would cry when he had to wear a suit. The prospect of a life bound by conservative norms, where there was no place for his inclinations, was apparently too much for him.

The famous sexologist Dr Magnus Hirschfeld, who had already made a name for himself at the turn of the century for his campaign to decriminalise homosexuality, heard about Pape’s case and visited him in hospital. From the young man’s account, it emerged that whilst he felt more comfortable in women’s clothes, he had no sexual interest in men and was even engaged to a woman. This fascinated Hirschfeld, who was conducting research into the erotic urge to cross-dress (German: erotischer Verkleidungstrieb) at the time and had put forward the theory that there were both homosexual and heterosexual transvestites. According to him, wearing clothing not considered to belong to one’s own gender did not necessarily have to be linked to a different sexual orientation. Hirschfeld enthusiastically included Willy Pape’s case in his work The Transvestites (German: Die Transvestiten), which was published just one year later.

It all started at the Trocadero

Unfortunately, it is not known exactly what happened to Willy Pape after his stay in hospital. What is certain, however, is that in 1911 he made his first appearances as a snake dancer at the Trocadero entertainment venue in Munich. In the programme, he initially appeared under the stage name Sura Voodoo. The fascination with cultures that seem foreign and exotic (more on this here) is very evident in the choice of this name. Sura is an Indian first name which can be translated as angel or the glorious one. Voodoo refers to the religion practised primarily in Haiti, in which snakes play an important role. It is questionable to what extent these two elements fit together, but a few years later, Pape would drop the name Sura and perform solely under the name Voo Doo (sometimes with a hyphen, sometimes without).

The Invisible Man (German: Der unsichtbare Mensch) at the Schumann Circus helps Voo Doo achieve great success

The Breakthrough with The Invisible Man

The year 1912 brought Voo Doo further performances in Hamburg and his home town of Berlin. There, he could be seen at the Albert Schumann Circus for four months in the show The Invisible Man, a huge spectacle featuring lighting effects, pyrotechnics and the participation of countless dancers, extras and wild animals such as monkeys, tigers, crocodiles and elephants. As the show featured a sort of Indian fairy tale or adventure story, Voo Doo’s snake dance fitted in perfectly, as one can imagine. His performances were repeatedly praised in reviews, which ultimately led to his international breakthrough. Over the next few years, he would take on engagements in Strasbourg, Prague, Vienna, London and Budapest, and be promoted as The Sensation of Europe.

Advertising poster for Voo Doo, drawn by Adolph Friedländer

Military and Transvestite licence

When Willy Pape was summoned for a medical examination at the start of the First World War, he turned up there dressed in women’s clothing. As transvestism was regarded at the time as a nervous disorder or mental illness, he was subsequently deemed unfit for military service and was able to continue his career as a dancer, albeit only within Germany’s borders for the next few years.

It is not known whether Pape always wore women’s clothing. It is, however, a matter of record that he held a so-called transvestite licence (German: Transvestitenschein) – an official certificate granting a person permission to appear in public wearing clothing not considered to correspond to their own gender. Although wearing such clothing was not generally prohibited by law in Germany, people could still be arrested and interrogated by the police for doing so, and could, for example, be fined for disorderly conduct (German: Grober Unfug). The transvestite licence gave people like Pape at least a little more security, though unfortunately it did not provide guaranteed protection against persecution.

Transvestite licence granting a woman permission to wear men’s clothing (1928)

Career peak in the 1920s

After the war, Voo Doo’s career gained fresh momentum. He resumed performing abroad, now always accompanied by his manager and partner Emil Schmidt (usually referred to simply as Mr Schmidt). Magnus Hirschfeld’s hope that he had found in Willy Pape a representative for his theory on heterosexual transvestites was ultimately not borne out. The two had met at a performance of The Invisible Man (Mr Schmidt had been one of the extras) and remained a couple until the end of their lives.

Voo Doo’s performances in the 1920s were characterised by the fact that he had recently begun to reveal himself as a man after his dances, presumably to create an even more astonishing final effect on the audience. However, this was not equally well received by everyone. Some newspapers reported that many were disappointed to discover that the graceful and elegant dancer was not a woman at all. In other newspaper articles, however, this surprise at the end was hailed as a sensation, and readers were urged to make sure they saw the show if they wanted to experience something special.

Advertising poster of Voo Doo

Between 1920 and 1929, Voo Doo performed in 35 different citites, in some of them on several occasions and at various theatres. The posters advertised a fairy-tale-like luxury act that was unrivalled internationally and always booked for the very finest venues. The name Voo Doo said it all, complemented by stage photographs showing the dancer in costume and sometimes with a snake, which magically captivated the audience and took him as far as Paris and Nice. Nevertheless, Voo Doo ended his active dancing career at the height of his success, as he was increasingly plagued by injuries. In 1929, he was to perform one last time as a snake dancer.

Voo Doo with a snake

The bar at 7 Skalitzer Strasse

As early as the end of 1928 (even before his final performance), Voo Doo and Mr Schmidt wanted to break new ground together. They therefore decided to open a bar at 7 Skalitzerstrasse in Berlin-Kreuzberg, which was to become a well-known meeting place for the gay community until 1933. Officially, the venue was called Zum Kleinen Löwen (English: The Little Lion Bar), but this name was never used; instead, people simply referred to it as Skalitzerstrasse 7, and this is how it was advertised in the newspapers. What made it special was that the evenings always had a theme. Among other events, there was the Grosser Betrieb (English: Bustling business) the Spring Festival, a celebration in Sicily beneath orange trees, New Year’s Eve parties and the Kaschemmenfest (English: pub festival) these were often accompanied by piano music.

Advertisement for the Sicilian festival at 7 Skalitzer Strasse

Among the most famous guests were Klaus Mann (more about him here) and the writer Curt Moreck, who gathered material here for his book A Guide to Depraved Berlin (German: Ein Führer durch das lasterhafte Berlin, published in 1931). Guests from France, such as Louis-Charles Royer (another writer), also found their way to 7 Skalitzerstrasse. The fact that the bar became so well-known that it even attracted people from beyond the country’s borders may, on the one hand, have been due to Voo Doo’s international fame. On the other hand, however, there were also many rumours that aroused curiosity: Whether Voo Doo appeared as a woman or a man (accounts vary on this point), whether it was a bar for male sex workers (this cannot be confirmed either), and finally, the mysterious death of a transvestite caused a further stir. Interestingly, it was Voo Doo’s partner, Mr Schmidt, who ended up in the defendant's dock in this case, but he was acquitted due to lack of evidence.

Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 spelled the end for the pub at 7 Skalitzerstrasse. Voo Doo and Mr Schmidt moved back to the little village of Zerpenschleuse, where the Pape family had lived in the past. They tried their luck again in 1939 with a bar in Berlin’s Wilmersdorf district (the couple even lived there for a time with Voo Doo’s father, Ernst Pape), but Voo Doo died of malaria in 1940, aged just 48.

Willy Pape, also known as Voo Doo, in later years (top left), with Mr Schmidt standing to his right

We owe it to the Gay Museum Berlin (German: Schwules Museum Berlin) that Voo Doo’s astonishing life has not been completely forgotten; in 1987, as part of the exhibition 750 Warm Berliners, the museum discovered a photograph of Voo Doo which eventually became so popular that it continued to be used on leaflets, posters, and magazine and book covers.

If this has piqued your curiosity and you’d like to find out more about the fascinating life of Willy Pape, alias Voo Doo, I recommend the book You’ve Never Seen a Dancer Like Voo Doo – The Incredible Life of Willy Pape by Jens Dobler (vbb Verlag), unfortunately, I think it is only available in German so far.

I hope you have enjoyed reading my article, and as always, with warm regards,

Marleen Tigersee