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Hilde Holger

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Hilde Holger
Holger in 1925
Born
Hilde Sofer

(1905-10-18)18 October 1905
Vienna, Austria-Hungary
Died22 September 2001(2001-09-22) (aged 95)
Camden, London
Resting placeGoldner's Green Crematorium
NationalityBritish, Austrian
Known forDance, choreography and teaching
MovementExpressionism and Integrated dance
SpouseAdershir Kavershir Boman-Behram (1940–1975, 1989–2000)
WebsiteOfficial website
Holger in 1926
Holger in 1926
Holger in 1926
Holger in 1925

Hilde Boman-Behram (née Hilde Sofer, stage name Hilde Holger; 18 October 1905 – 22 September 2001) was an expressionist dancer, choreographer and dance teacher whose pioneering work in integrated dance transformed modern dance.[1][2]

Family

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Holger came from a liberal Jewish family. She was born in 1905, the daughter of Alfred and Elise Sofer Schreiber.[3] Her father wrote poetry, and had died by 1908. Her grandfather made shoes for the Austrian court.

After Nazi Germany invaded Austria, Holger fled Vienna in 1939, because her entry into England was denied, she went to India.[4] In Mumbai, she met the Parsi homeopath and art loving Dr. Ardershir Kavasji Boman-Behram, they married in 1940.[5] Her mother, step-father, and fourteen other relatives all perished in the Holocaust.

Hilde Holger had two children. The first was born 1946 in India, her daughter Primavera Boman-Behram. In New York, she became a dancer, sculptor and jewelry designer. In 1948, Holger's family emigrated to Britain.[5] Her second child, a son named Darius Boman-Behram, was born in 1949. He had Down syndrome, which inspired Holger to work with physically disabled people.

Work

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Hilde Holger started to dance at age six. At that time she was too young to join the Vienna State Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, so she settled for ballroom dancing lessons taken with her sister (Hedi Sofer), until she was accepted to study with radical dancer Gertrud Bodenwieser,[6] then a professor at the Vienna State Academy. They were admirers of the work of Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis, as well as the artists of the Secession. Holger soon rose to be Bodenwieser's principal dancer and friend, and toured with Bodenwieser's company all over Western and Eastern Europe. She toured with her own Hilde Holger Dance Group as well. At age eighteen she had her first solo performance in the Viennese Secession. Later in the Viennese Hagenbund and theaters in Vienna, Paris and Berlin, her much-lauded expressionist dance caused quite a stir. Because of her passion for dance, in 1926 she formed the New School for Movement Arts in Palais Ratibor, right in the heart of Vienna. Her children's performances were danced in parks and in front of monuments there.

On 12 March 1938, Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany sent troops into Austria, and adopted a law to unify the country with Austria, at that time it was forbidden for Jews to perform. She received help to flee Austria from her friend Charles Petrach. She decided to go to India because that country's art was the most compelling to Western people, she said at that time.

In India, she had the opportunity to incorporate new experiences into her work, especially the hand movements of Indian dance. Classical Indian dance has over three hundred of them, used to express life and nature. In 1941, Holger founded a new school of dance in Bombay, she took students of all race, religion and nationality without prejudice. Like when she was in Vienna, Holger again took part in the artistic community. Amongst her friends with whom she collaborated with were the Indian dancers Rukmini Devi Arundale, Ram Gopal,[2] Madame Menaka and Uday Shankar.[7] Gopal also danced in Holger's school in Bombay. In 1948 because of the partition of India and the growing violence between Muslims and Hindus she emigrated again, this time to Britain.

Once in England, her Holger Modern Ballet Group performed in parks, churches and theaters. She again opened a new dance school, The Hilde Holger School of Contemporary Dance and remained faithful to their style of teaching that the body and mind must form one unit in order to be a good dancer. Her breakthrough in London, 1951, celebrated Holger with the premiere of "Under the Sea", inspired by the composition by Camille Saint-Saens.

In 1972, she performed a piece titled "Man against flood", it was based on the book of the same name written by Chinese Communist Party member Rewi Alley. It was performed at the Commonwealth Institute with music by Chinese composer Yin Chengzong, and included dancers forming a human wall against a flood of water.[8]

Her performance "Apsaras" (1983) explored her experiences in India. In the summer of 1983 she went back to India, where she had been last in the year 1948. There she worked as a choreographer for a large dance group directed by Sachin Shankar.

Holger was particularly proud of her work with the mentally handicapped. She created a form of dance therapy for children who, like her son Darius, have Down syndrome. Holger was the first choreographer who mixed professional dancers with young adults with severe learning disabilities. In 1968 at the Sadler's Wells, Holger orchestrated "Towards the Light", with music by Edvard Grieg. It was pioneering, innovative, and one of the first integrated dance pieces to be seen on a professional stage.[9]

In 1992, Holger revived four dances from her early repertoire for her student Liz Aggiss, who first performed them, as Vier Tanze, at the Manchester Festival of Expressionism.[10] The pieces were Die Forelle (1923), Le Martyre de San Sebastien (1923), Mechaniches Ballett (1926), and Golem (1937). In the Guardian review, Sophie Constanti wrote that 'Hilde Holger's choreography reaches the British stage at last and triumphs....Together all four pieces danced with great sensitivity and aplomb by Aggiss accompanied by (Billy) Cowie on piano provided a fascinating insight into the lost Ausdruckstanz of central Europe.'[11] In June 1993 the same four solo reconstructions (Golem, Le Martyr de Saint Sebastian, Mechanical Ballet, Die Forelle) were performed at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) by Liz Aggiss accompanied by Cowie with Holger in the audience.[12]

Legacy

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Hilde Holger left a lasting impression on three generations of dancers and choreographers. While teaching her standards were high and she was not afraid of risk.[2] She accepted students without prejudice, including students with disabilities, as long as they were sincere. One of her students, Wolfgang Stange, continued her work with people with learning difficulties, like Down syndrome and autism, as well as people with physical disabilities. Stange's Amici Dance Theatre Company which was the first physically integrated dance company in Great Britain, which created a performance titled "Hilde" that was performed at the Riverside Theatre in London in 1996, and at the Odeon in Vienna in 1998. This HILDE Performance in Vienna excited the Ballet Master of the Vienna State Opera Ballet, who in turn put a performance on the stage of the Opera House with people with learning disabilities. These performances were received with great applause!

In her last few weeks Holger still held dance lessons in her basement studio in Camden, London, where she lived for more than fifty years. Her students included Liz Aggiss, Jane Asher, Primavera Boman, Carol Brown, Carl Campbell, Sophie Constanti, Jeff Henry, Ivan Illich, Luke Jennings, Thomas Kampe, Claudia Kappenberg, Cecilia Keen Abdeen, Lindsay Kemp,[13][14] Anneliese Monika Koch, Royston Maldoom OBE, Juliet Miangay-Cooper, Anna Niman, David Niman, Litz Pisk, Kristina Rihanoff, Kelvin Rotardier, Feroza Seervai, Rebecca Skelton, Marion Stein, Sheila Styles, Jacqueline Waltz and Vally Wieselthier.

Archive

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After Holger's death in 2001, her daughter Primavera began a journey of discovering the truth about her own mother's life as a famous dancer. She started to collate an archive, with the help of a local Baptist diocese's parish church secretary and NHS Hospitals' repairs auditor, a Ms. Christine Joan Stratford, who at this stage functioned as a locally hired archives' enthusiast. Them both documenting the such progression of Prim's mother's life and flourishing career, out of any of the remaining fragments of any piece of a physical legacy.[15] The archive is not on permanent display, although there have been numerous shows that included many of Holger's artifacts.

MoveABOUT

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In 2010, six of Holger's students, Boman, Campbell, Kampe, Maldoom, Stange, and Waltz, reunited together to put on a series of talks and dance workshops at The InterChange Studios in Hampstead Town Hall Centre in north London to commemorate Holger's pioneering work in Inclusive Dance, entitled MoveABOUT: Transformation through movement. Each former student led an inclusive dance workshop to celebrate their own unique style of dance therapy, which Holger helped foster in them. These workshops introduced her work to yet another generation of dancers and interested individuals to her pioneering methods and beliefs in the power of dance, which in her own life crossed many boundaries, cultures, and religions.[16][17][18][19]

Literature

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At the age of twenty-nine in 1934, Holger was mentioned in the prestigious Art in Austria almanac Kunst in Österreich: Österreichischer Almanach und Künstleradressbuch which listed all the established names in the Austrian arts scene of that year.[20] Afterwards, she became exiled to India in 1939 but it was not until she had relocated again to settle in London a decade later that she started to be mentioned in many books which included her work and photos of herself as a young dancer.

In 1990 a documentation of her entire life and work, across the borders of Austria, India and Britain entitled Die Kraft des Tanzes, Hilde Holger: Wien – Bombay – London: über das Leben und Werk der Tänzeerin, Choreographin und Tanzpädagogin [21] was published by Zeichen und Spuren Verlag publishers in Bremen.

The three photographers, Trčka, Weston and Newton explored nature, the body and the artificial in SCALO's first edition of The Artificial and the Real.[22] She was a frequent model and close personal friend of Trčka.

The Century of Dance, published by the Akademie der Künste in 2019, is a collection of influential pioneers of dance from the twentieth century, like Holger. This volume's scope ranges from Vienna to Berlin between the world wars, from Japanese to American Modern Dance, to New York's Judson minimalist group. It explores the dance art form from various points of view.[23] Dance being ephemeral has no monuments, therefore leading it to be historically weakened in its social recognition in the world.

George gives a supplemental and alternative genealogy of Viennese Modernism in The Naked Truth – Viennese Modernism and the Body as demonstrated by Egon Schiele, Arthur Schnitzler, Joseph Roth, Hugo Von Hofmannsthal, and to long overlooked ones like dancers, Grete Wiesenthal, Gertrude Bodenwieser, and Holger herself. It was published in 2019 by the University of Chicago Press.[24]

The Hilde Holger Archive, which is run by founding member Primavera (Holger's daughter), has collated an ever growing list of collected works by Holger or on Holger, as well as visual images of her by well known photographers.[25]

Choreography

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Year Performance Music Venue Notes
1923 Bouree Johann Sebastian Bach Vienna Secession
1923 Eine Seifenblase Claude Debussy Vienna Secession
1923 Forelle Franz Schubert Vienna Secession
1923 Humoreske Max Reger Vienna Secession
1923 Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien Claude Debussy Vienna Secession
1923 Reiter im Sturm Siegfried Frederick Nadel Vienna Secession
1923 Sarabande Johann Sebastian Bach Vienna Secession
1923 Trout
1923 Vogel als Prophet Franz Schubert Vienna Secession
1926 Funeral March for a Canary Lord Berners
1926 Mechanical Ballet
1929 Chaconne & Variations George Frideric Handel
1929 Englischer Schafertanz Percy Aldridge Grainger
1929 Hebraischer Tanz solo Alexander Veprik
1929 Lebenswende Karel Boleslav Jirák
1929 Marsch Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev
1929 The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastien Claude-Achille Debussy
1929 Mutter Erde Heinz Graupner
1929 Sarabande und Bourree Johann Sebastian Bach
1929 Tanz nach Rumaischene Motive Béla Viktor János Bartók
1931 Javanische Impression Heinz Graupner
1933 Kabbalistischer Tanz Vittorio Rieti
1936 Ahasver Marcel Rubin Volkshochschule, Vienna
1936 Barbarasong Weill Volkshochschule, Vienna
1936 Engel der Verkündigung Händel Volkshochschule, Vienna
1937 Flämischer Bilderboden nach Breughel Volksbildungshaus, Stöbergasse, Vienna
1937 Golem Wilckens Volksbildungshaus, Stöbergasse, Vienna
1937 Mystischer Kreis Reti Volksbildungshaus, Stöbergasse, Vienna
1937 Orientalischer Tanz Graupner Volksbildungshaus, Stöbergasse, Vienna
1937 Passacaglia Händel Volksbildungshaus, Stöbergasse, Vienna
1937 Tango Benatzky Volksbildungshaus, Stöbergasse, Vienna
1948 Annunciation
1948 Emperors new Clothes Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
1948 Pavane Maurice Ravel
1948 Russian Fairy Tales Alexander Borodine, Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky
1948 Selfish Giant
1948 Tales and Legends in Modern Ballet
1948 Viennese Waltz Johann Strauss II
1952 Dance with Cymbals on the Indian Ocean
1952 Dance with Tambourines Fritz Dietrich
1952 Nocturne Heinz Graupner
1952 Slavic Dance Antonín Dvořák
1954 Aztec Cult (Sacrifice)
1954 Barbar the Elephant
1954 Old Vienna
1954 Orchid
1954 Rhythm of the East
1954 Selfish Giant
1954 Tibetan Prayer Songs
1955 Angels
1955 Dance Etudes
1955 Galliarde-Siciliano Ottorino Respighi
1955 Hoops Georges Bizet
1955 Jazz Heinz Graupner
1955 Men & Horses John S. Beckett
1955 Toccata Paradies
1955 Under the Sea Camille Saint-Saëns Sadler's Wells Theatre
1955 Valse Caprice Aram Khachaturian
1956 Etude
1956 Prelude Johann Sebastian Bach
1956 Theme and Variations George Frideric Handel
1957 Allegro Vivaci Johann Sebastian Bach
1957 Bird
1957 Café Dansant George Gershwin
1957 Egypt
1957 The Hunter and the Geese
1957 Madonna
1957 March Lev Knipper
1957 Nativity George Frideric Handel, Franz Schubert, Johann Sebastian Bach
1957 Sale Johann Strauss II
1957 The Toyshop Aram Khachaturian
1957 Stranger Aaron Copland
1957 Witches Kitchen and Walpurgisnight Paul Dukas
1958 Dance Divertissement
1958 Dance for four Women Joaquín Turina
1958 Dance with Bells John S. Beckett
1958 Ritual Fire Dance Manuel de Falla
1958 Song of the Earth Antonín Dvořák
1960 Allegro Arcangelo Corelli
1960 Dawn of Life
1960 The Farmer's Curst Wife Peter Warlock
1960 Frankie and Johannie Peter Warlock
1960 Imaginary Invalid Gioachino Antonio Rossini
1960 Secret Annexe
1960 West Indian Spiritual
1961 Dance for Two Germaine Tailleferre
1961 Egypt
1961 The House of Bernarda Alba (The Sisters) Joaquín Turina written by Federico Lorca
1961 Metamorphoses Ovid
1961 Pierrot Johann Sebastian Bach
1963 Dance for Men
1963 Dream Wilckens
1963 Lady Isobel and the Elf Knight Peter Warlock
1963 Narcissus (The Image) Heinz Graupner
1965 Ballad of the Hanged (Villons Epitaph)
1965 Cain's Morning
1965 Canticle of the Sun Johann Pachebel
1965 Creation of Adam & Eve Olivier Messiaen
1965 Nightwalkers Olivier Messiaen
1965 Saint Francis and his sermon to the birds
1968 Angelic Prelude – Inspirations Giuseppe Torelli
1968 Salome Philip Croot
1968 Towards the Light Edvard Greig Sadlers Wells Theatre
1968 The Wise & Foolish Virgins Philip Croot
1970 The Scarecrow
1971 Snowchild
1972 Bamboo Khatshaturian Commonwealth Institute
1972 Bauhaus Erik Satie Commonwealth Institute
1972 Embrace Erik Satie Commonwealth Institute
1972 Flight Commonwealth Institute
1972 Hieronymus Bosch Roger Cutts Commonwealth Institute
1972 Honoré Daumier Commonwealth Institute
1972 The Hypopatic Doctor Gioachino Antonio Rossini, Franz Schubert Commonwealth Institute
1972 Inspirations Sergei Rachmaninoff, Claude Debussy Commonwealth Institute
1972 Man against Flood Yin Chengzong Commonwealth Institute based on book by Rewi Alley
1972 Prelude
1972 Renaissance, Scene on Earth, Scene on Heaven Mompou, Gordon Langford, Banchieri Commonwealth Institute
1972 Shiva and the Grasshopper Gordon Langford Commonwealth Institute based on the poem by Kipling
1972 Suspension Maurice Ravel Commonwealth Institute
1972 Tranquillity Alan Hovhaness Commonwealth Institute
1972 Tribal Nocturne Béla Viktor János Bartók Commonwealth Institute
1974 Archaic
1974 Bamboo Aram Khachaturian
1974 Egypt Giuseppe Verdi
1974 Hieronymus Bosch Roger Cutts
1974 The Hunter and the Hunted
1974 Paul Klee Spring Awakening Béla Viktor János Bartók
1974 Renaissance Federico Mompou
1974 Spring Awakening
1975 Inspirations Sergei Rachmaninoff, Claude Debussy The Hampstead Theatre
1975 Mobiles Alfredo Casella The Hampstead Theatre
1975 Paul Klee Spring Awakening Belá Bartók The Hampstead Theatre
1975 Rockpaintings Roger Cutts The Hampstead Theatre
1975 Toulouse Lautrec Erik Satie The Hampstead Theatre
1976 The Park
1977 Prelude and Chorale César Franck
1977 Sacred and Profane Dance
1979 African Poetry
1979 Apsaras
1979 Homage to Barbara Hepworth Heitor Villa-Lobos
1979 Prelude Giuseppe Torelli
1979 Tower of Mothers Carl Orff
1979 Tradisches Ballet choreographed by Oskar Schlemmer
1979 We are Dancing Johann Sebastian Bach
1983 The Bow and Arrow David Sutton-Anderson The Hampstead Theatre
1983 Fishes David Sutton-Anderson The Hampstead Theatre
1983 The Letter Coleridge The Hampstead Theatre
1983 The Manikin Coleridge The Hampstead Theatre
1983 The Penguin Story David Sutton-Anderson The Hampstead Theatre
1983 Pick a Back Coleridge The Hampstead Theatre
1983 Poems on a Boy's Painting David Sutton-Anderson The Hampstead Theatre poems by Ke Yan, pictures by Bu Di
1983 Sea and Sand The Hampstead Theatre poems by Rewi Alley
1983 Sea, Clouds, Sparkling Lighthouse, Flames The Hampstead Theatre
1983 Umbrellas The Hampstead Theatre poems by Bu Di and Ke Yan
1983 What is a Poem David Sutton-Anderson The Hampstead Theatre
1984 The City Marcel Rubin The Hampstead Theatre
1984 Don Quixote David Sutton-Anderson The Hampstead Theatre
1984 Ritual David Sutton-Anderson The Hampstead Theatre
1984 Scherzo Frédéric Chopin
1988 Children of the Vorstadt Franz Lehár The Hampstead Theatre
1988 Children's Games
1988 Death and the Maiden Franz Schubert The Hampstead Theatre
1988 Egon Schiele in Memoriam, The Dying Empire Strauss The Hampstead Theatre
1988 The Family Hugo Wolf The Hampstead Theatre
1988 Flemish Picture Sheet
1988 Fluteplayers
1988 Four Seasons Antonio Vivaldi The Hampstead Theatre
1988 Golem Wilckens
1988 Hands David Sutton-Anderson The Hampstead Theatre
1988 The Least is the Most Percussion: David Sutton-Anderson The Hampstead Theatre
1988 Mechanical Ballet Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack
1988 Models Schubert, Schönberg The Hampstead Theatre
1995 Whales
2000 Rhythms of the Unconscious Mind

Filmography

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Film

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Year Title Role Notes
1996 Spirit Levels herself Short film
2002 Hilde Holger: School of Contemporary Dance herself, posthumous production Short documentary film. Footage from 1999.

References

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  1. ^ "Hilde Holger : Central European Expressionist Dancer". 50yearsindance.com. 2011. Archived from the original on 12 February 2016. Retrieved 12 February 2016.
  2. ^ a b c "Hilde Holger: Central European Expressionist Dancer". hildeholger.com. 2007. Archived from the original on 14 November 2006. Retrieved 18 December 2012.
  3. ^ Sassenberg, Marina (2009). "Hilde Holger" in Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. Jewish Women's Archive
  4. ^ Pascal, Julia (8 March 2000). "Adi Boman : Scientist on an unresolved search for a cancer cure". The Guardian. Retrieved 18 December 2012.
  5. ^ a b "Ardeshir Kavasji Boman Behram 1909–2000". sueyounghistories.com. 22 December 2008. Retrieved 18 December 2012.
  6. ^ Vernon-Warren, B. and Warren, C. (eds.) (1999) Gertrud Bodenwieser and Vienna's Contribution to Ausdruckstanz. Routledge. p. 22. ISBN 90-5755-035-0.
  7. ^ Lee, Rachel (4 April 2019). "Hilde Holger". METROMOD. Retrieved 22 April 2022.
  8. ^ Lei, W. (28 October 1972) "Man Against Flood". The New Evening Post (in Chinese).
  9. ^ Pascal, Julia (26 September 2001). "Hilde Holger : As a dancer and teacher she kept the spirit of German expressionism alive in London". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 December 2012.
  10. ^ 'List of Works', Aggiss and Cowie (eds) Anarchic Dance, Routledge, 2006, p.177
  11. ^ Sophie Constanti, 'Dancing Diva: Hilde Holger's choreography reaches the British stage at last and triumphs', Arts Section, The Guardian, 9 June 1993, p3-4
  12. ^ Admin (17 September 2019). "50 over 50 interviewees – Liz Aggiss – Live artist, Dance performer, Choreographer and Filmmaker". Sorcha Ra Blog. Retrieved 2 October 2021.
  13. ^ "Lindsay Kemp obituary". The Guardian. 2018. Retrieved 9 September 2018.
  14. ^ "British choreographer and mime Lindsay Kemp dies". The Guardian. 2018. Retrieved 9 September 2018.
  15. ^ Gulliver, J. (04 November 2010) "Prim Boman-Behram and the pioneering dancer Hilde Holger – Old letters reveal her mother's true identity". Camden New Journal.
  16. ^ "Hilde Holger centenary". Hilde Holger archive. 2019. Retrieved 22 June 2019.
  17. ^ "MoveABOUT: Transformation through movement". Austrian Cultural Forum London. 2019. Retrieved 7 July 2019.
  18. ^ "MoveABOUT: Transformation through movement". 2019. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021. Retrieved 22 June 2019 – via YouTube.
  19. ^ "MoveABOUT Jacqueline Waltz's workshop". 2019. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021. Retrieved 23 June 2019 – via YouTube.
  20. ^ Kunst in Österreich: Österreichischer Almanach und Künstleradressbuch (1934), Leoben.
  21. ^ Hirschbach, Denny & Rick Takvorian (1990). Die Kraft des Tanzes, Hilde Holger: Wien – Bombay – London: über das Leben und Werk der Tänzeerin, Choreographin und Tanzpädagogin. Bremen: Zeichen und Spuren Verlag.
  22. ^ Trčka, Anton Josef; Ahrens, Carsten (1998). Anton Josef Trčka, Edward Weston, Helmut Newton. ISBN 978-3-931141-88-2.
  23. ^ Verlag, Alexander (2019). The Century of Dance (Exhibition). Berlin: the Akademie der Künste.
  24. ^ George, Alys X. (2019). The Naked Truth – Viennese Modernism and the Body. New York: University of Chicago Press.
  25. ^ The Hilde Holger Archive’s full bibliography of collected works on the website of the Hilde Holger: Central European Expressionist Dancer
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