Hilde Holger

HILDE HOLGER
Central European Expressionist Dancer

Known to all Vienna’s flourishing artistic circles of the 1920’s, Hilde Holger was highly acclaimed for her innovative abstract solo dance performances all across Europe. At the Secession and Hagenbund her mesmerizing performances inspired artists and photographers who were eager to capture her extraordinary beauty as a dancer, in paint, stone and print. At the height of her dancing career, while still at an exceptionally early age, not content with being simply a dancer, she developed her concept of pure expression further by becoming a dedicated teacher.

In exile in India in 1939, she brought her art, intrinsic to the Viennese culture, to her new home. Drawing inspiration from indigenous art and dance, in Bombay, she opened her own School of Art for Modern Movement that became an immediate success. But in 1948, upheaval that followed in the wake of partition forced her to move once again – this time to London.

In London she continued to develop her art for the next fifty years; in addition to opening a new school, she also became a powerful mentor to countless dancers. Once again she engaged in a series of creative collaborations with notable composers, choreographers, artists and writers of the late 20th Century; her influence extending to dance, theater and movement therapy. Perhaps her greatest achievement was to challenge her students and audiences with a creative vision that transcended all traditional boundaries without respect to religion, ethnicity, nationality or artistic differences.