Finding a Place for Hanya Holm

Claudia Gitelman
Standardhistories of modern dance have tended to regardHanya Holm
as an extraneousfigure,creditingher with having adaptedGermanmethods of dance trainingfor Americaneducationalconsumptionand for influencing an arrayof studentswho became famous. History texts, which
group Holm with other artists who taught at the Bennington School of
the Dance (1934-1942), marginalizeher for the fluid scenarioof her career after Bennington. Holm's complex career is intriguing for what it
suggests about issues of nationalism,regionalism, elitism, and popular
culture in moderndance historicalorthodoxy.
Holm can be seen as havinghad fourchoreographiccareers.From
1935 to 1944, while she maintaineda company, first under Mary Wigman's name and then her own, she presentedseasons in New York and
undertookfive national tours, winning the New York Times Award for
best Group Choreographyin 1937 with Trendand the Dance Magazine
Award for Best Group Choreographyin 1939 with Tragic Exodus. In
Holm's second choreographiccareer, which began in 1941, she made
worksfor advancedstudentsandguest artistswho attendedher forty-three
summersof instructionand dance productionin Colorado;Glen Tetley,
Alwin Nikolais, Ray Harrison,FredBerk, KatyaDelakova,MurrayLouis,
Joan Woodbury,David Wood, Don Redlich, Jeff Duncan,and JanetCollins are just a few of the well-known dancers who performedthere.

? 2000 by Claudia Gitelman

Publishedby Marcel Dekker, Inc.

www.dekker.com

49

50

DANCE CHRONICLE

Roy Harris,Arch Lauterer,and Hanya Holm in 1942, conferring on theirtwo collaborations,WhatSo Proudly WeHail and
Namesake. Photographby Loyde Knutson.By courtesy of the
Hanya Holm family.

FINDINGA PLACEFOR HANYAHOLM

51

Holm's third,and overlapping,choreographiccareerwas in commercial theatre.Beginning with Ballet Ballads, the play Insect Comedy,
and Kiss Me, Kate in 1948, she choreographeda parade of Broadway
musicals through the 1950s, peaking with My Fair Lady in 1956, and
continuinginto the mid-1960s. During that time she also choreographed
a film musical and television specials and directedopera.Finally, in 1975
Holm returnedto concert choreographyin a wider arena and made four
works for the Don Redlich Company,one of which touredthe world with
Mikhail Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project. Immigrantsurvival
strategies may have been responsible for the range of Holm's achievements.
JohannaKuntze had entered the professional world of modem
dance in Dresden in 1920, when, a twenty-seven-year-olddivorcee responsible for an infant son, she petitionedthe greatGermandancerMary
Wigman, for instruction.She was alreadylicensed to teach the Dalcroze
method of rhythmictrainingfor musicians and dancers,and a year after
accepting her as a student, Wigman appointedher an assistant teacher.
Takingthe stage name HanyaHolm, she dancedin the companyWigman
formed in 1923, not only performing,but also managingtravel and baggage transporton the group's many tours. In 1929 Wigman asked her to
assume co-directorshipof her school. Independentprojects outside the
Wigman School were of a dance/dramanature, staging Euripides' The
Bacchae in Holland and Stravinsky'sL'Histoire du soldat in Dresden.
When she came to New York in 1931 to direct the newest in the
networkof Wigman schools, she probablyknew thatshe would not return
to Germany.While teaching and performingwith Wigman she had lived
throughthe hyperinflationof the early 1920s andexperiencedthe political
and economic chaos ignitedby the crashof 1929. She had seen nationalistic displaysin the beer halls of Munichwhile rehearsingWigman's Totenmal for the ThirdDancers Congressof 1930 and was foresightedenough
to think that such rowdiness and hate could consume Germany.
Professionally, Holm had worked so deeply in the shadow of
Wigman that it was unlikely that she would be able to establish an independentcareerin Europe,as had some otherWigmanstudents:the electric
GretPalucca,the intense HaraldKreutzberg,the drivenMargaretheWallmann. But remainingwith Wigman had become painful. Holm's threeyear love affairwith an intelligent,worldly industrialisthad broughtsatisfaction, stability, and excitement, but when her lover became Wigman's

52

DANCE CHRONICLE

financial adviser, he and Wigman discovered an instant,mutualinfatuation. In his anguished letters to Holm (now in the Dance Collection of
the New York Public Libraryfor the PerformingArts) we hear through
them her desperationas he pulled away. While her move to Americaprovided a clean break with some problems,it ensnaredher in others.
Holm may not have expected the strength of competition she
would face from Americandancerswho had made the leap into modernism when Wigman was alreadyat the peak of her creative powers. The
cachet of Wigman's name put Holm in the first rankof teachersand authoritieson the new dance, but she had not had as much experiencewith
concert choreographyas her New World counterparts.MarthaGraham,
Doris Humphrey,and Helen Tamirishad full concerts of solo and group
worksbehindthem;they hadbegunto build audiences,andthey had partisans.
AnothercalculationHolm and Wigman could not have made in
1931 was the barbarisminto which their homeland would sink, making
a pariahof things German.First Jewish students,then liberals, and soon
all politically alert artistsbegan to shun the New York Wigman School
until, in 1936, Holm found it necessary to cut ties to her source. The
companythatwas touringas the Groupof the New York WigmanSchool
of the Dance became the Hanya Holm Company.
Holm had made friends by that time. John Martin championed
her workandhelpedherto sanitizeherbackgroundby extolling herAmericanness.The foundersof the BenningtonSchool of the Dance recognized
her gifts as a teacherand felt that associatingher with fascism was unfair;
they invited her to be one of the "Big Four" aroundwhom the summer
curriculumwas organized. A studentand friend, MarthaWilcox, paved
the way for the debutof the HanyaHolm Company.A benefactressmade
it possible for her to bringher son out of Germany.In 1936 Holm became
a United States citizen.
By the mid-1930s dancersandcritics were inventingan American
genesis for moderndance and denying influencefrom exchange with Europe. Motives behind this nationalisticurge of the dominantAmerican
dance communitywere many. First, no doubt, was an artisticconfidence
that led to a vision of uniqueness.Second was the well-worn battle with
ballet, in some eyes a decadent form of the Europeanaristocracy.The
fascist ascendancyin Europe,which caused enrollmentin Holm's school
to fall before and even after she broke her business ties with Wigman,

FINDING A PLACE FOR HANYA HOLM

53

did not figure overtly in maneuversto nationalizemoderndance, for the

moderndance establishmentalso wished to distance itself from a group
of radicaldancerswho were using theirplatformsand stages to fight social
injustice and denounce fascism.
The strengthof anti-Germanfeeling in dance in 1936 bubbled
into the mainstreampress in a diatribeby Ted Shawn, who, ironically,
denouncedhis own formerstudents-Martha Graham,Doris Humphrey,
and CharlesWeidman-as well as Holm when he wrote that "although
they have been thoroughlygroundedin the rich andinclusive styles which
I taughtthem, [they] have remainedstrongly on the side of the German
extremeleft wing-dynamism, distortion,'abstract'and 'absolute'dance
being preachedby them, with a paralleldenial of all else in the dance as
having value." With the phrase"extremeleft wing" Shawnwas not writing about politics; his lengthy article was critical of his former students'
devotion to individualexpression. In rejectingthe Germandance for its
aim to "evolve movements from an inner, dynamic, kinetic impulse,"
he rejected all that his own students were striving for, their own contemporary and national voice. He also confirmed that, in his view,
Americandance had acceptedtoo much influencefrom the dance culture
of Europe.
Wigman's three United States tours from 1930 to 1933 had been
preceded by visits of the German dancers Eugene von Grona, Harald
Kreutzberg,Yvonne Georgi, and Hans Wiener(laterknown as JanVeen).
Many others came later to performand teach. Americanstraveledto Europe to see dance andto study.One motive for the foundingof Bennington
was admirationfor Europeandance congresses and the desire to provide
domestic competitionwith Germanschools and summercourses;just before Holm set out for New York, Americanshad composed fully half of
the summercourse at the Wigman CentralInstitutein Dresden.
But many Americandance artistsrejectedthe suggestionof EuroIn an essay publishedin 1935 MarthaGrahamcriticized
influence.
pean
those who went abroad"to acquirean alien mannerand form," writing,
"We cannot transplantthe foreign dance-forms,and we fight in a vain
effort to breathelife into them." She arguedthat enthusiasmfor German
dance was "misdirection."2 Graham's need to disputeEuropeaninfluence
is evidence that it was prevalent.
How was Holm's craftingof an Americanidentity influencedby
the hostility she confrontedin the 1930s and how did she respondas an

54

DANCE CHRONICLE

Hanya Holm (far right) and her company, probablyin Dance

of Workand Play in 1938. Photographyby Ralph Samuels. By
courtesy of the Hanya Holm family.

artist? Her first strategy was to place the sunny side of her personality
center stage. While Grahamand Humphrey,the two leading women fig-

uresin Americanmodemdance,appearedaustere,calculating,andaloof,
Holmwas affable,guileless,andcharming.Herspeechandthe earlyessaysshewrotewerehumbleandpatientin tone.Suggesting,nevercriticizing, she presentedherselfas a learnerwiththe responsibility"to underEdnaOcko,the leadingdancejournalistof
standas well as to instruct."3
theradicalpressduringthe 1930s,saidin 1996, "No one accusedHanya
of beinga Nazi but she was in a difficultposition.She had splitloyalty
to GermanandAmericandanceandshehadto be carefulnotto offend."4

FINDING A PLACE FOR HANYA HOLM

55

Holm did her best to take a nonthreateningstance toward American

dancers.
Holm first put dancerson stage not in choreographedpieces, but
in lecture-demonstrationsthat used Rudolf Laban's movement analysis
and Wigman's stage sense, and also capitalizedon Americanvitality and
exuberance.Dancers explored relaxationin swings and the elasticity of
jumps, investigated gravity by plunging to the floor and springingfrom
it; they shatteredspace in crescendosof skips and leaps cued and accompanied by Holm, who sat surroundedby her famed collection of percussion instruments.The dancers also performedstudies they had created
themselves, for her trainingdemandeddiscovery.
Holm's first choreographyfor her lecture-demonstrationprograms was Dance in Two Parts: A Cry Rises in the Country; Toward New
Destinies, followed by Primitive Rhythm and Salutation. All three group

works were in the repertoirewhen she began to present fully choreographedconcerts in 1936, to which she added City Nocturneand Festive
Rhythm. The solos Drive, Saraband, In a Quiet Space, and Four Chro-

matic Eccentricitieswere less successful than her group dances. Holm's

own movement quality was light, skimming, quick, and delicate. While
thrilling in the classroom, it did not match the strengthand intensity of
the American and European artists who were concertizing in seasons
heady with risk and ambition.
The photographicrecord of early group works shows dancers
sweeping across the stage. Geometricformationsand stolid body shapes
seem not to have been in her choreographictool kit. Holm's dancerswore
generousskirtsthatflew aroundthem to enlargethe open, athleticlyricism
of the choreography.She saved stark,close-fittingjersey tubes for later
comic works; there were to be several in Colorado,and later Capers, the
last work she gave the Don Redlich Company.
The Denver audience that saw the 1936 debut of the company
she called her own respondedexuberantlyto Holm's "finding of joy in
America." Apparentlythey were relieved at being allowed to laugh and
enjoy kinetic virtuosityas well as ponderdeep intentions.Holm built her
program,the first half of which a critic called "taxing," to end with the
rambunctious Primitive Rhythm and Festive Rhythm. Denverites found

satire in City Nocturne and "roaredwith laughter." The local reviewer

suggestedthataudiencesin Holm's six sold-outhouses were in a receptive
mood as they enteredthe theaterbecause they had previouslyseen "none

56

DANCE CHRONICLE

of the abortive attempts to create an essentially American dance."5

Holm's outsider status gave her the ability to see with an objectivity difficult for natives, and perhaps she recognized excesses in her new dance
environment, leading her to program accessible work along with dances
on more difficult themes.
In the next several years writers increasingly criticized the cultist
nature of modern dance and cautioned against its sealing itself off. Margaret Lloyd wrote in 1938 that "unless the modern dance appeals directly
to the layman, without cult or pretense, without artificial bags of information to plow through, it is not fulfilling its obligation or possibilities as
art."6 The dance critic Walter Terry used one of his columns in the New
YorkHerald Tribune to deplore cultism and fanaticism that were "holding
back the modern dance." He criticized artists who had no regard for the
understanding and enjoyment of their audiences.7
John Martin identified in Holm's first program the principles distinguishing Wigman's and Holm's dance creation from those of American
pioneers who were developing strongly personalized vocabularies as
teaching tools and creative foundations: "There are no bits of technique
transferred bodily from the practice room, no combinations of isolated
gestures." 8He reinforced the point when he reviewed her second program.
He found her choreography, although motivated by a central principle, to
be "without set vocabulary, and [it] ranges freely in response to inner
direction, always with authority because so closely related to natural function."9
Margaret Lloyd saw a difference, too. Examining Holm's lecturedemonstrations and her classes, she marveled at "an approach unlike any
other" for exhilaration achieved by kinesthetic means, without emotional
underpinnings.'? Like her mentor, Holm neither formulated a lexicon of
movements for use in teaching and choreographing nor found it necessary
to move directly from an emotional state. A theory of space and dynamics
gave the artist tools with which to craft motion ideas that alone carried
the subject. When Joseph Arnold Kaye awarded Holm the Dance Magazine Award for Tragic Exodus in 1939, he acknowledged that craftsmanship. The dance had "emotional appeal and topical significance," he said,
without submerging itself in its subject."
During the mid-1930s Holm watched as her family, her childhood, and all that had formed her as an artist became engulfed by fascist
hate and aggression in Germany. Her direct connection to the disasters

FINDING A PLACE FOR HANYA HOLM

57

A rehearsalof Trend at Bennington. Photographby Thomas

Bouchard.? Diane Bouchard.By courtesyof the HanyaHolm
family.

of Europemay be the crucible out of which she created Trend,a moder

dance masterpiece.With the resources available to her at Bennington in
the summerof 1937, she createda wide-angle vision of social destruction
and rebirth.From the degradationof conformity comes catastropheand
ultimate annihilation,but out of that is born a fragile consciousness of
unity in life. Women who danced in Trend reportthat Holm was deeply
concernedaboutaffairsin Europe.All artistswere, but Holm's connection
was personal. She had rescued her son just before he could have been
drafted;she felt wretchedaboutnot being able to help Wigman,her artistic
mother.The finality of separationfrom her homeland was traumatic.

58

DANCE CHRONICLE

Trendhad two performancesat Benningtonandtwo in New York,

but its cast of thirty-threemade it too largeto tourandHolm made another
programof shorterworks. Two premieredat Benningtonduringthe 1938
session, the robust Dance of Workand Play and Dance Sonata. Other
new works that season were Dance of Introductionand Etudes. Her second tourwas anothersuccess. In Chicago,Cecil Smithwrote, "Miss Holm
has always been the finest choreographeramong modem dancers, and
now that she is gaining a theatersense MarthaGrahamwill do well to
look to her laurels."12In 1939 Holm added MetropolitanDaily to her
concerts;it stayed in the repertoirefor many years and was the firstmodem dance to be televised in the United States. MetropolitanDaily was a
lighthearted,sometimes hilarious gloss on the foibles of city dwellers,
andit also contained"WantAds," a poignantduet suggestingthe distress
of worldwide unemployment.
In 1939 and 1940 Holm made Tragic Exodus and They Too Are
works
Exiles,
respondingto world tragedyas Hitler marchedacross Europe. While the first, a meditationon loss and displacement,was universally admired,the second received a mixed response.WalterTerryfound
it unconvincing,13
but EdwardBarrypraisedits referenceto people living
underthe lash of tyranny:"Besides the dignity and strengthbefittingits
subject, the piece had a freedom and momentumcalculated to increase
greatly its impact ...

it became human and direct and moving."14

The creationof Holm's next workbroughther morepublicitythan

ever before and also garneredher firsttrulynegativereviews. The Golden
Fleece, an Alchemist Fantasy was the brainchildof the surrealistKurt
Seligmann,who concocted a scenariobased on a fourteenth-centurylegend. He also constructedcostumes that were irresistibleto photographers
and descriptive writers, but that proved ruthless to dancers and buried
Holm's choreography. "A Cosmic Oven," "A Self-Grinding Mill,"
"Bushel of Wings," and the otherconstructionsmade the dancersillegible undertop-heavy headgearand paddedlimbs. Seligmann constructed
the costumes on the dancers,insensitive to their pain as he pinned, tied,
painted, and glued. Many left the company after the ballet was toured.
(Five years later George Balanchinehad the confidence to hack away at
Seligmann'scostumesfor his ballet TheFour Temperaments,andhe later
droppedthem altogether.)
Despite the criticalfailureof The GoldenFleece, 1941 was a year
of opportunityfor Holm. She acceptedthe invitationof ColoradoCollege

FINDING A PLACE FOR HANYA HOLM

59

The Hanya Holm Dance Companyin Parable-with reference

to the popular incident of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, 1942.
The Wise Virgins (top row) are MildredKaeser,Molly Howe,
and Reba Koren;the Foolish Virgins are Mary Anthony, Joan
Palmer, and Hanya Holm. Photographby Loyde Knutson.By
courtesy of the Hanya Holm family.
to stable her company there in the summers and to create a Program of
Instruction and Dance Production that would be entirely her own. Holm's
assistants represented her at Bennington for the last two years of the
school's existence; her own program in Colorado endured until 1983.
The president of Colorado College, Thurston Davies, was establishing a center for the arts in the Rocky Mountain region. His close friend
Martha Hill, co-founder of Bennington, advised him to invite Holm to
direct the dance component because, she said, of the anti-German senti-

60

DANCE CHRONICLE

ment Holm was battlingin the East.'5Hill's concern was, withoutdoubt,

sincere,but she may also have seen an opportunityto clean house at Bennington.In offering Holm a new path, she fell in with the projectto construct an American heritage for modern dance and to abandonforeign
influence.
Professionalrivalriesat Benningtonand East Coast anti-German
sentimentgave Holm good reasonto acceptthe offer of ColoradoCollege.
However, establishingan artisticbase in the middle of the continenttook
courage and the ability to recognize that the United States is a collection
of regions. She also knew that she would have to work collaboratively,
for part of Davies' bargain was that she create a new work with the
composer-in-residence,Roy Harris.
In 1941 Holm made From This Earth, the first of four ballets on
American themes with Harris,deftly massaging her sponsor's expectations of a ruggedpiece aboutColoradomining into a storyof Everyman.16
The next year Arch Lauterer,the stage architect,designer, and theatre
visionary,joined Holm and Harrisin Colorado,designing two pieces of
Americana,the dance suite WhatSo Proudly We Hail and Namesake, a
theatre dance of his own conception. All three works succeeded when
shown in New York, helping to confirman Americanidentity for Holm.
Early in 1943 Holm turnedto the Europeancanon with the frivolous Parable-with reference to the popular incident of the Wise and
Foolish Virgins.Duringthe summershe undertooka large-scaleretelling
of Greek tragedywith Orestes and the Furies. It succeeded with her regional audience but failed in New York and may have been a factor in
the decision to dissolve her company, which gave its last performance
February5, 1944, at HamptonInstitutein Virginia. On the programwas
anotheruse of Greek legend, Vigil, in which Holm comparedthe doubts
and emotionsof Penelopewith those of contemporarywomen in wartime.
For the remainderof the decade Holm's Coloradoprogramswere
described in The Dance Observer,even though she did not bring them
to New York. In 1944 George Beiswanger reviewed WhatDreams May
Come, in which Holm seems to have dealt with her anguish about the
failure of the preceding year, moving through nightmarishincidents in
which she tried, but never succeeded, to attractthe attentionof an audience.'7The next year Holm and Harrisreturnedto Americanthemes, but
insteadof treatingthe gay and lusty, they collaboratedon threewarpoems
from Leaves of Grass. Reviewing for The Dance Observer,Doris Baker

FINDING A PLACE FOR HANYA HOLM

61

Hanya Holm's Xochipili, producedin Colorado in 1948, with

scenes and costumes by Ricardo Martinez. The "Men of
Earth" are Leo Duggan, Marc Breaux, Oliver Kostock, and
Glen Tetley. Photographby Fritz Kaeser. By courtesy of the
Hanya Holm family.

found WaltWhitmanSuite a thrillingand beautifulwork of heroic stature,

while of Holm's 1946 premiere,Windows,Baker wrote that "Miss Holm
proved her great skill as both dramaticdancer and choreographer."18
The first summer after the war saw Holm's summerenrollment
more than double and many professionals, including a number of war
veterans, come for study. To celebrate, she explored partneringtechniques. In New York she formed the Hanya Holm WorkshopGroupand
createdOzarkSuite, which was premieredon an orchestralprogramat the
BrooklynAcademy of Music in 1947. The three-partwork was performed
throughthe 1948-49 season, once on a benefit for The Dance Observer

62

DANCE CHRONICLE

and then on the New York Dance Theaterseries in sharedprograms,first

with Merce Cunningham,Doris Humphrey,Jose Limon,andJaneDudley,
then with Charles Weidman, Eve Gentry, Sophie Maslow, and Limon,
and finally with Limon, Maslow, Weidman, Humphrey, and Valerie
Bettis. OzarkSuite always met with good reviews, which noted its cast
of glamorous Broadway dancers, Annabelle Lyon, Joan Kruger,Bambi
Linn, ZacharySolov, Ray Harrison,and Glen Tetley among them.
Holm's studiohad begun to attractthe attentionof dancersin the
professional world of ballet and musical comedy. In 1.993,a year after
Holm's death, Sybil Shearerwrote of her admirationfor Holm and of
suggesting classes of her favorite Benningtonteacherto a friend, Annabelle Lyon, a dancerin Ballet Theatrewho was frequentlyon Broadway.
Lyon, wrote Shearer,"came underthe spell of this wonderfulfree movement and Hanya's enthusiasm for it." Lyon passed the word to other
dancersand Shearerclaims that in two years "250 dancersfrom Broadway were pouringthroughthe doors of the Hanya Holm studio." 9 It is
believable that the excitement of dancers led to Holm's first Broadway
opportunities;Ray Harrison,who had danced in Ozark Suite, was the
partnerof Arnold Saint Subber,co-producerof Kiss Me, Kate.
When it opened in December 1948, Kiss Me, Kate salvaged the
flagging reputationof the composer-lyricistCole Porterand gave Holm's
name nationalrecognition.An explosion of rave reviews often mentioned
the choreography:"joyous," "has imagination," "infinitevariety," and
"animatedand virtuosic" were descriptorsthe critics used. None of them
mentionedHolm's Germanorigins, and the irony of her success in a form
that is an Americaninvention was, of course, lost to all. America,confident and expansionistafter economic and militaryvictory in Europeand
Asia, was not in an asking mood about its identity.
Two major New York dance critics credited Holm's success to
her skill at subsumingthe dance to the service of the other art forms and
to the total project. Walter Terry wrote, "There is no ballet as such in
Kiss Me, Kate, but there is dancing, all of it firmly integratedinto the
show to contributeto the achieving of a total theatricalimpression.The
dancing gives flow to the musical, it provides the means for transitions
in pace or in mood or in style, it accounts for the production'snecessary
flashes of physical virtuosity."20He counted classical ballet, modern
dance,jitterbugging,soft-shoe, acrobatics,courtdance, and simple rhyth-

FINDING A PLACE FOR HANYA HOLM

63

mic playfulness in "an amazing arrayof styles," all employed without

interruptingthe course of the show.
John Martinremarkedon the excellence of Holm's researchand
her faithfulnessto the style of the production.He wrote that she had "not
been temptedto superimposeherself upon the production,but has given
her attentionwholly to bringing out and pointing up what is inherentin
it." 21 One can readin a comparisonto Agnes de Mille, the most dynamic
of Broadwaychoreographers,who, some felt, did "superimposeherself."
Revisitingthe show a monthlater,Martinremarkedat how gracefully Holm had stepped into a new field: her dances "have about them
the ease and finish of a veteran. What is equally noteworthy,they have
retainedthe taste, the formal integrity and the respect for movement of
the humanbody which belongs to the concertstage."22 His remarksshow
that Holm had succeeded in a quintessentiallyAmerican popular form
withoutlosing her credentialsas a concertartist,and they also reveal that,
for Martin,dance was compartmentalizedand that the concert stage was
the form against which others were measured.
Martinreinforcedhis view in a series of articlesin 1953 in which
he consideredthe "state of health" of moderndance. In Junehe lamented
that Tamirisand Holm had turnedto films and Broadway, "a secondary
medium," while extolling Holm's "incomparableknowledge of the body
in relationto dance movement.'"23
In July he criticizedyoung choreograhe
"are
phers,who, wrote,
presentingus with theirclassroomexercises,"
and he called for Holm's returnto choreography.24
Martin's comments,
while flatteringto Holm's artistry,show his prejudiceagainstpopulartheatre forms.
There is evidence that Holm saw the Broadwaymusical as a folk
artthatwas importantfor America's artisticdevelopment.25
Her firstcommercial venture, "The Eccentricitiesof Davey Crockett" in Ballet Ballads early in 1948, was conceived as serious dance-opera.JeromeMoross
and John LaTouche,the composer and lyricist, planneda progressivefusion of text, music, and dance throughthe show's three segments, so that
by the last, "Davey Crockett,"action and charactermoved free of logical
space and time. It is as a folk genre thatHolm approachedmusical shows
when she threw herself into the pressuredhigh-stakes arena of professional theatre.Ballet Ballads, then the Karel and Josef Capek play The
Insect Comedy, producedby Jose Ferrerfor City Center TheaterCom-

64

DANCE CHRONICLE

pany, and Kiss Me, Kate all opened in 1948. She also contributedto a
nonmusicalplay by Hallie FlanaganDavis, andearlyin 1949 she arranged
dances for a musical version of Blood Weddingat New Stages. Meanwhile, she was directingthe TheaterWing's Dance Division, an institution
set up to retrainveteranswho had been dance professionalsbefore their
induction. In 1949 and 1951 she supervised road shows and a London
productionof Kate.
In 1950 she staged musical numbersfor Alfred Drake's musical
version of Carlo Goldoni's play The Liar and choreographedher second
Cole Portershow, Out of This World,directedby Agnes de Mille. Holm
provedherselfmorethancompetentin meetingthe demandsof the American musical comedy. She developed a reputationfor clever, imaginative
detail and continuedto apply the style-or, rather,the much-praisedlack
of style-identified by reviewersof her 1948 successes. She devised ways
for dance to burstfrom book and song in seemingly spontaneousfashion.
In 1952 Holm won high praisefor these skills in My Darlin' Aida.
ArthurToddwrote, "Miss Holm's sixth majorventureon Broadwayagain
demonstratesthis choreographer'staste, integrity and innate theatrical
craftsmanship."He found the dances "brilliantlyconceived andexecuted
and, more importantly,the dance action completely integratedwith the
book."26 Holm had insertedinto the story of Aida, here set on a Southern
plantation,a numberwithoutmusic but basedon body rhythmsandsounds
the dancers created with household implements.It was a device similar
in technique,though not in mood, to a section in her 1946 concert dance
Windows,made in Colorado.
In 1954 Holm successfully brought off the Moross-LaTouche
dance-operaThe GoldenApple, her favoriteBroadwaycreation.Thatyear
she also stagedL'Histoiredu soldat at the Aspen Music Festival. In 1955
she choreographedMarc Blitzstein's short-livedReuben, Reubenand in
1956 succeeded with threehigh-profileventuresin three differentgenres:
she choreographedMy Fair Lady on Broadway,directedthe world premiere of the opera The Ballad of Baby Doe at the CentralCity Opera
House in Colorado, and choreographedthe film musical The Vagabond
King.

The intensitycontinuedunrelieved.In 1957 she did an NBC television productionof Pinocchio, and directedthe musical Where's Charley? in London and The Dance and the Drama for the Canadian Broad-

casting Company.In 1959 she staged the opera Orpheusand Euridice at

FINDING A PLACE FOR HANYA HOLM

65

the Queen Elizabeth Theatrein Vancouver and in 1960 choreographed

two more Broadwayshows, Christineand Camelot.In 1963 came another
television special,Dinner with the President,andin 1965 her last musical,
Anya. She and her assistant,CrandallDiehl, also restageddances for productions of My Fair Lady in London, Australia,Israel, Stockholm,New
York's City Center, and elsewhere.
While Holm worked as one of the most sought-afterchoreograin
phers New York, she continued to create concert works in Colorado,
masterfullyusing the resourcesof dancerswho enrolledin the courseeach
year-seasoned professionalsas well as neoprofessionalsandcollege students. She drew from all of them more than they knew was within them.
She redirectedmany lives througha teachingstyle groundedin the basics,
a rhetoricof responsibilityfor choice in art and life, and an opportunity
to submit to the discipline of professionaltheatrebefore a sophisticated
regional audience she had nurtured.
Despite Holm's demandingworkloadin professionaltheatre,and
its attendanttensions and fears, she producedtwo or even three dances
for each of her annualColoradoconcerts. If not majorworks, they were
substantial.As she was doing on Broadway,she tackleda rangeof forms:
romanticduets in 1952 and 1955; intense characterstudies in 1953; explorationsof romanticangst in 1952 and 1954; restless, anxious work in
1955; story pieces in 1951 and 1957; open, welcoming gambols in 1951
and 1953; courtly suites in 1950 and 1956, and hilarityin 1955; in 1957
and 1958, she restaged OzarkSuite there.
In the 1960s and 1970s Holm gave her teaching assistants and
advancedstudentsmoreresponsibilityfor choreographingthe annualColorado concerts. However, in 1961 she produceda full programof varied
works that featuredVera Zorina as reader and Janet Collins as leading
dancer, supportedby other guest artistsand students.In 1965 and again
in 1980 huge festivals were sponsoredby ColoradoCollege, which, together with the Colorado Springs community,cherished its famous and
charmingsummerresident.The festivals gave the artistswho performed
or broughttheir companies-Nancy Hauser,Valerie Bettis, Alwin Nikolais, MurrayLouis, Don Redlich, and ElizabethHarris-a chance to tell
the press how much they valued their beginnings with Holm. Bettis told
the New YorkTimes, "She gave us a foundationto move in any direction
we liked." Hauser added, "We were not taughtrestrictivepatterns,but
the artitself." Harrissaid, "She never made it a cult." 27In Dance Maga-

DANCE CHRONICLE

66

"

i SW

...-J3'-

?? '";}

1. . at the 965
Valerie
Bettis, Awn Nkolas.... and Hanya Hom

schneider.
By courtesy of Bonnie Olson.
scnie.B
_1 _'

oreyo'

Bn.
:

s
_

ValerieBettis,AlwinNikolais,andHanyaHolmat the 1965

tributeto Holm at ColoradoCollege. Photographby Benschneider.By courtesyof BonnieOlson.

FINDING A PLACE FOR HANYA HOLM

67

zine Nik Krevitskywrote, "The evening was filled with convincing evidence that Hanya Holm ... has preparedher studentsand then released
them to fulfill their own potential, to become independentartists and to
develop the security of their own uniqueness."28
Such comments from her modem dance students and the many
observationsof reviewersof her choreographyfor the concertstage andon
Broadwaysuggest one reasonwhy Holm's place in the historicalrecordis
an uneasy one. Brand-namerecognition,now understoodby every marketing specialist to be of supremeimportance,was missing from Holm's
work. She built her choreographyfrom a naturalmovement base, from
what the situationrequired,and from the abilities and temperamentsof
the dancers she used. Her teaching was not based on rote learning of
patternsbut on leading studentsto understandinganddiscovery.This lack
of fixity is a trait that some observershave taken to be a lack of vision.
She neither pursuedone signaturestyle throughouther career, as some
modernartistsdid, nor limitedherself to one genre,but eagerlyundertook
opera direction and invested seriously in the popularculture of musical
comedy, film, and television.
In 1965, at the time of both the first Coloradotributeto her and
the opening of Anya, her last Broadwaymusical, Holm was seventy-one
years old. She became involved with threeotherBroadwayventures,two
of which did not go beyond the planning stage, and while she did set
dancesfor the third,she withdrewbeforethe show opened.Anotherchoreographertook Here's WhereI Belong to Broadway,where it opened and
closed the same night.
In 1971 the Colorado Opera Festival was founded in Colorado
Springs.Three polished productionswhere given each summerwith East
Coast directors and soloists drawn primarilyfrom the New York City
Opera.Holm directed a productioneach year through 1976 and choreographedAida in 1977. In 1976, 1979, and 1981 she choreographedmajor
works for her own annualconcerts. All were very differentin style and
intent.
The four works she choreographedfor the Don Redlich Dance
Companyfrom 1975 to 1985 also varied widely in style. They were the
stark and fragmentedRota, the lyric and witty Jocose, which in 1994
enteredthe repertoireof the White Oak Dance Project,and Ratatat, fun,
rhythmic,and presentational.When Redlich gatheredthese together for
a concert of Holm's work at the Joyce Theater in New York in 1985,
Holm added the humorousCapers to the program.

68

DANCE CHRONICLE

The Don Redlich Dance Companyin Holm's Rota, 1975, with

(left to right) BarbaraRoan, Don Redlich, JenniferDonnahue
(top), and Billy Siegenfeld. Photographby Lois Greenfield.By
courtesy of Don Redlich.

Margaret Lloyd's Borzoi Book of Modern Dance, written in the

late 1940s, set the patternof "ho-hum" treatmentof Holm's concertchoreographyin historybooks, while also advancingher reputationas a revelatory teacher. Interestingly,Lloyd wrote excitedly about Holm's choreographyof "The Eccentricitiesof Davey Crockett,"which had premiered
within a year of the book's publication. Lloyd describes the three-part,
three-choreographer
dance-operawith relish and pronouncesHolm's chowhich
she
was careful to call moder dance, "the most solid
reography,
and imaginativeof the three [sections]."29Apparently,Holm's first venture on Broadway was greeted without reservationby some.

FINDING A PLACE FOR HANYA HOLM

69

In 1978 the Capezio Dance Award celebratedher dual contribution to modern dance and American musical theatre.In a lengthy piece
for Dance News, Tobi Tobias contrastedHolm's choreographywith that
of otherearlymoderndancers,which, Tobiasnoted,centeredin the charismatic performingof brilliant soloists, while "Holm's dances tended to
be more distancedand objective, reflectinga more logical, less passionate
view of the world." Noting Holm's "gift of humor" and her inquisitiveness and flexibility, she concludedthat "it is not as astonishingas soberminded acolytes of the time found it, that she should have turned her
choreographictalents to musical comedy."30
Until recent years, dance scholarshiphas found it necessary to
impose order on modern dance, which puts a premiumon change and
renewal, by constructinglineages and family trees, and historical orthodoxy has treateddance genres categorically.Holm roamedfreely across
dance and theatregenres, contributingto the apotheosisof the American
book musical with a pluralisticappropriationof dance forms and styles.
She defied East Coast chauvinism by working at a regional center and
may have been patronizedbecause of it. Before that, in her early years
in America, she had held her own in a narrow,competitive field but did
not invite cultism. She negotiateddifficult political terrainwithout compromising loyalties.
Holm's situation necessitated that she be a team player. She is
often compared,unfavorably,with Graham,Humphrey,andde Mille, who
refused to compromise artistic vision. These giants of American dance,
although they, too, were rebels and groundbreakers,worked within the
security of American pedigrees and understoodinstinctively the syntax
and grammarof their society. Holm came alone as an adultto a new land
with an imperativeto succeed, but she had to do so on terms that were
unknownto her. She used her immigrantstatusto advantage;with a clarity
and objectivityto which she was privilegedbecause of her outsiderposition, she saw her new countrywhole, its needs, strengths,and direction.
Like many successful immigrants,she used her vantagepoint to negotiate
an alien culture and seize its opportunities.
To achieve an amazingrange of successful choreographyin four
differentcareers,Holm called on inner resourcesforged duringthe difficult days of her stewardshipwith Mary Wigman and the complex and
often hostile professional environment she faced as an immigrant in
America. She was organized and knew how to keep order and to check

70

DANCE CHRONICLE

impulses, yet she was also an improviserwho cherishedthe moment and

trustedspontaneity.She thoughtdeeply and could articulateoriginal,profound ideas, yet she loved nonsense and hilarity.She was a strictauthoritarianwho knew when to be a team player and defer to the authorityof
others. She succeeded not once or twice but many times, in diverse enterprises that should open a place for her in scholarshipabout the role of
theatredancing in the constructionof Americanculture. Now that a refreshing new generationof scholarsis looking at dance in a culturalcontext, there is hope that they will find a place for Hanya Holm, an artist
who defied categorization.
Partsof this essay were preparedfor an introductionto the Catalogue of the Florida State University Hanya Holm Costume Collection,

authoredby TriciaYoung. It is to be publishedin 2000 by the Department

of Dance, Florida State University.

Notes

1. Ted Shawn, Boston Herald, May 10, 1936.

2. MarthaGraham, "The American Dance," in The Modern Dance
(1935), ed. VirginiaStewartandMerle Armitage(reprint,Brooklyn:
Dance Horizons, 1970), p. 54.
3. HanyaHolm, "The GermanDance in the AmericanScene," in The
Modern Dance (1935), ed. Virginia Stewart and Merle Armitage,
p. 80.
4. Edna Ocko, telephone interview by the author,March 2, 1996.
5. "Alberta Pike Says-," Rocky Mountain News, November 21,
1936.
6.

Margaret Lloyd, Christian Science Monitor, August 16, 1938,

quoted in Sali Ann Kriegsman, Modern Dance in America: The Ben-

7.

Walter Terry, New York Herald Tribune, September 15, 1940.

nington Years (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1981), p. 77.

8. John Martin,New YorkTimes, August 16, 1936.
9. Ibid., February26, 1938.
10.

Margaret Lloyd, The Borzoi Book of Modern Dance (1949) (reprint,

Brooklyn:Dance Horizons, 1987), p. 160.

11. Quoted in Lloyd, Borzoi Book, p. 166.
12.

Cecil Smith, Chicago Daily Tribune, October 24, 1940.

FINDING A PLACE FOR HANYA HOLM

13.

71

Walter Terry, New York Herald Tribune, January 8, 1941.

14. EdwardBarry, Chicago Daily Tribune,January11, 1940.

15. Martha Hill, telephone interview with the author, September 3,
1993.
16. I discuss Holm's massaging of chauvinistic and patriotic themes,
expected by her Colorado sponsors, into a universalismconsistent
with her humanisticvalues in my paper "AppropriatingAmerica:
HanyaHolm and the AmericanDream," deliveredat the 1996 conference of the Society of Dance History Scholars and publishedin
17.

the Proceedings.
Beiswanger fully described What Dreams May Come in The Dance

Observer,August 1944, p. 100. He found the work "an excellent

one."
18. Doris Baker, The Dance Observer,November 1946, p. 113.
19. Sybil Shearer,"My Hanya Holm," Ballet Review, Vol. 21, No. 4,
Winter 1993, pp. 4-7.
20.

Walter Terry, New York Herald Tribune, January 9, 1949.

21.
22.
23.
24.
25.

John Martin,New YorkTimes, January3, 1949.

Ibid., January30, 1949.
Ibid., June 28, 1953.
Ibid., July 5, 1953.
I discuss Holm's choreographyfor Ballet Ballads in the context of
her appropriationof Americansubjects and theatregenres in "AppropriatingAmerica." I am indebtedto SharryUnderwood's "Ballet Ballads," Dance Chronicle, Vol. 9, No. 3, 1983, pp. 279-327,
for informationon the musical.
26. ArthurTodd, The Dance Observer,December 1952, p. 153.
27. Donald Janson,New YorkTimes, August 8, 1965.
28. Nik Krevitsky,Dance Magazine, September 1965, p. 98.
29.

Lloyd, Borzoi Book, p. 156.

30. Tobi Tobias, Dance News, March 1979, pp. 1 and 10.