Holm, Hanya b. March 3, l893;Worms, Hesse d. November 3, 1992; New York City
German choreographer who became famous for her work on Broadway where she choreographed thirteen musicals from 1948 to 1965. Born Johanna Eckert, Holm was schooled at a Catholic convent and began piano lessons at the age of ten.
Her love of music led her first to the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt am Main to study music and then, after graduation, to the Institute of Emile-Jaques Dalcroze. She studied the Dalcroze method of eu- rhythmics (a means of learning music through movement) for four years, at Frankfurt and Hellerau, until graduation from the institute. Holm was briefly married to the artist Reinhold Kuntze, with whom she had a son, Klaus, whom she raised alone.In 1921 Holm attended a dance concert in Dresden by Mary Wigman, the German pioneer of Ausdrucktanz (expressionist dance), which proved to be life changing. At the same time that her marriage ended, she began to study with Wigman, but also served as an instructor, teaching the Dal- croze method of music and movement to dance students at the Wigman Institute in Dresden. While a student teacher, Holm performed in small school dance revues. She started to choreograph in 1929, first for a production of Bacchae and later for a performance of Plato’s Farewell to His Friends, both in an outdoor theater in Holland. Her first major role also came in 1929, with LHistoire du Soldat by Stravinsky. Her only major production with Wigman’s company occurred in 1930, when Holm served as associate director and appeared as the leader of the chorus in what was arguably Wigman’s greatest work, Das Totenmal (The Death Monument, 1930).
In September 1931 impresario Sol Hurok brought Hanya Holm to America to open the Mary Wigman School of Dance in New York City. The first year was full of students and publicity, as it came on the heels of a successful tour by Wigman of the states. Yet the second year of the school was more difficult for Holm—Hurok’s support faded, and the number of pupils dwindled as the school lost its novelty status.
Throughout the next few years, Holm did not stay only in New York, but traveled throughout America. She faced another difficult decision in 1936, as Mary Wigman did not leave Germany when Hitler came to power, and the school was viewed with some suspicion. After discussing the matter with Wigman, Holm changed the name of the school to the Hanya Holm School of Dance. This break with Wigman also marked a change in pedagogical direction, as Holm began to develop what she deemed a more American style of dance instruction. She also became involved with a number of summer dance institutes. From 1934 through 1939, Holm taught at the summer Bennington School of Dance at Bennington College, along with Doris Humphrey, Martha Graham, and Charles Weidman. She also taught summers at the Hanya Holm/Colorado College Summer Dance Program in Colorado Springs, Colorado, from 1941 to 1983. Her own school of dance survived until 1967.Holm’s first major American piece came in 1937 with Trend, which was originally choreographed for the summer Bennington Festival and moved to New York later that year. She choreographed a number of pieces over the next ten years with her small company. Holm is best known, however, for her work on Broadway, choreographing thirteen musicals from 1948 to 1965. Her choreography for Cole Porter’s 1948 musical Kiss Me, Kate was recorded in Labanotation and is now located at the Library of Congress. Her greatest success came in 1956 with My FairLady by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, a musical adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, for which she received a Tony Award nomination.
Hanya Holm received a number of prestigious dance awards, including a New York Drama Critics’ Award for Kiss Me, Kate (1948—1949); a Critics’ Circle Citation for The Golden Apple (1954); an honorary doctorate from Colorado College (1960); and the Dance Magazine Award (1990) for lifetime achievement.
Erika Elizabeth Hughes
References and Further Reading
Gitelman, Claudia. Dancing with Principle:
Hanya Holm in Colorado, 1941—1983. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2001.
Sorell, Walter. Hanya Holm: The Biography of an Artist. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University, 1979.