Hanya Holm

Hanya Holm ( born March 3, 1893 in Worms, † November 3, 1992 in New York City; native Johanna Eckert ) was a German - American dancer, choreographer and dance teacher of modern dance.

She studied piano from 1914 at Dr. Hoch's Conservatory in Frankfurt am Main. Then she went to the New School in Hellerau, which was in 1919 emerged from the 1911 founded there training institute for music and rhythm of Emile Jaques- Dalcroze. In 1921 she joined Mary Wigman, who had a school in Dresden since 1920.

Holm was as a dancer and teacher among their most important employees. At Wigman works Celebration ( 1928) and monument in honor (1930 ), she was involved. In 1931 she went to New York and opened the Mary Wigman School there. In 1936, resulting her Hanya Holm - studio, which became one of the leading institutes for modern dance in the United States.

Also in 1936 she founded her own dance group with which they first occurred in Denver and pulled by the United States in the following years. It created, among others, the trend choreographies (1937, Bennington College), Metropolitan Daily (1938, Bennington College) and Tragic Exodus (1939, Vivian Fine, New York). These were to time-consuming and socially critical pieces.

In 1941, she founded in Colorado Springs, the Center of the Dance in the West. By 1983, she organized annual summer courses here. Holm now turned increasingly to the musical. As part of the Ballet Ballads in 1948 she choreographed her first musical ballet The Eccentricities of Davey Crockett. This was followed by choreography to the musical Kiss Me Kate (1948 ), My Darlin 'Aida (1952 ), My Fair Lady ( 1956), Where's Charley (1957) and Camelot ( 1960).

In 1961 she became head of the dance department of the New York Musical Theatre Academy. She also taught at the renowned Juilliard School in New York. In 1967, she completed her Hanya Holm - studio. Among her pupils were Valerie Bettis, Lillian Moore, Glen Tetley, Alwin Nikolais and Jeff Duncan.