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| My mother – the queen of
the dance |
From Paris to Bombay Hilde Holger kept the
spirit of dance alive. Now her daughter is determined her mother’s
legacy will not be forgotten, writes Sunita Rappai
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Above and below: Hilde Holger
Primavera Boman-Behram
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HILDE Holger was a phenomenon – a dancer and teacher who
kept the spirit of German expressionism alive in a basement in Camden
for over 40 years.
When she died aged 95 four years ago, the obituaries were fulsome.
Holger was regarded as a profound influence internationally, imparting
to generations the rich cultural heritage of her birthplace in pre-Nazi
Vienna.
According to theatre director Julia Pascal, her vision of dance
was “one of total theatre, embracing radical design and movement”
with her belief in international socialism at the core of her creativity.
As Pascal said: “She taught that no movement was important
without an inner impulse of thought or emotion. Technique for its
own sake was an anathema.”
But for those closest to her, Holger’s flame sometimes burned
too brightly. In the centenary year of her birth, her daughter Primavera
Boman-Behram, 59, is nearing the end of a remarkable project archiving
her mother’s life.
Boman-Behram’s aim is to donate her mother’s papers to
a theatre museum or similar arts’ project so that Holger’s
life can be recorded for posterity. But the project has also enabled
Boman-Behram – a petite, youthful figure who fled to New York
in the 1960s partly to distance herself from Holger – the chance
to finally come to terms with her mother’s legacy.
“I had to keep her at a distance because she was just too powerful,”
she says. “My mother was great with all the people that she
had around her but I don’t think she could show true intimacy
with the people who were really close to her.
“When I was a child she told me that it was no good saying
anything positive – that she had to be critical because life
was even harder. Because she came from a very hard time and now
that I’ve gone through her papers, I can see that.”
Born in 1905 in Vienna, Hilde Holger started dancing at the age
of six, making her debut as a solo performer in 1923. In 1926, the
blonde blue-eyed young woman, already a model for many of the leading
artists of the time, set up her own school of dance in Vienna.
In 1938, Holger, of Jewish extraction, was forced by the Nazis to
close her school and was forbidden to perform or work. Many of her
family were to perish in Auschwitz. In 1939, she emigrated to Bombay
where she met her husband, a Parsi (Zoroastrian) doctor and homeopath,
Dr Arde Bohman. Primavera was born in 1946. In 1948, prompted by
the assassination of Gandhi, the family moved to England, settling
first in Parliament Hill Fields before moving to Oval Road in Primrose
Hill where Holger was to run the Hilde Holger School of Contemporary
Dance almost up to her death. Her son Darius, who came along a few
years later, was born with Down’s Syndrome.
For the young Primavera, the house was a chaotic place – and
getting her mother’s attention almost impossible.
“I didn’t know she was so famous,” she says. “Now
going through the papers I can see why she didn’t have the
time. I’d say: mum, read me a story and she’d say: I’m
too busy, too busy and I’d go to my science books and play
piano. I was a very ivory tower type of child.
“I didn’t get any attention because any attention went
immediately on my brother. I didn’t think I resented it but
looking back now, knowing something about psychiatry, I think I
had a lot of repressed anger which I didn’t know how to vent.”
Boman-Behram grew up a painfully shy child, alternately craving
and resisting her mother’s attentions. In 1969, she left for
New York on a Winston Churchill fellowship in 1969 where she eventually
made her home. Over the years, she has experimented with jewellery
design, multimedia, interior design, choreography and work as an
alignment teacher.
Holger meanwhile continued to teach and look after son Darius. In
her later years, she was beset with chronic arthritis, although,
remarkably, that did not stop her choreographing five new pieces
in the year before her death.
The two became closer as Holger’s health declined and she turned
to her daughter for support. They also took regular holidays together.
In death, now the entirety of Holger’s life – in the form
of posters, films, personal effects, letters and other papers –
has become available, Boman-Behram is discovering new facets to
her extraordinary mother,” Primavera says.
“Before she died, like so many people, I had a very strong
figure of a mother who people admired, who was renowned in certain
circles around the world.
“But there’s a whole other dimension that I don’t
even now fully understand. Here was a strong woman who stood for
womanhood and humanitarian causes, who against so many odds, was
always pure to her heart.
“That’s what made her a great person.” |
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