Hilde Boman-Behram (née Sofer) (1905–2001), better known by her stage name Hilde Holger, was an Austro-Hungarian-born British expressionist dancer, choreographer, teacher, and educator, who was trained by Gertrud Bodenwieser[1] in Vienna. She was highly acclaimed, well known throughout Vienna’s flourishing artistic circles during the 1920s and 1930s.[2] At an early age, while still touring, she had developed a dedication towards teaching and in 1926 had opened the successful New School of Movement Arts in Palais Ratibor, right in the heart of Vienna.[3] Upon the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938, Holger was forbidden to perform or work. In 1939 with the help of a friend, Charles Petrach, she was able to escape the country within a day's notice. The Holocaust claimed fourteen members of her family, including her mother, stepfather and sister.[4]
Holger took refuge in India, a country that she described herself as "being of most attraction to Western artists".[5] She wasted no time absorbing new influences on her work, particularly paying close attention to studying Indian hand movements - some 300 of them.[6] She reopened her School for Art and Modern movement in Bombay which became an immediate success; however in 1948 the political upheavals that took place in the wake of partition forced her to move once again - this time to London.[7]
In London, Holger continued to develop her art for the next fifty years till her death in 2001; but probably her proudest achievement was pioneering work which included those with mental and physical diasabilities in her performances, as early as the 1960s.[8]
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