Stuart Hodes

Stuart Hodes Gescheidt was born in New York City in November 1924 and grew up in Flushing, Miami Beach, and Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. His older sister was writer Malvine Cole, and his younger brother was photographer Alfred Gescheidt. He attended PS 98, Brooklyn Technical High School, and Brooklyn College, entered the army in 1943, served in the Army Air Corps (not yet called the Air Force). Trained as a B-17 pilot, he flew seven bombing missions before VE Day, then, attached to the Military Air Transport Command, flew troops from Naples to Marrakech.Stuart Hodes, Part Real, Part Dream: Dancing with Martha Graham, Concord ePress, August 2011 Reassigned to the Army of Occupation, he began flying reporters for an unofficial Army newspaper, The Foggia Occupator. Discharged as a second lieutenant in June 1945, he joined the Air Force Reserve for four more years. His first civilian job was publicity director for the Bennington (Vermont) Drama Festival, before re-entering Brooklyn College, leaving when offered a dancing job by Martha Graham.Sasha Maslov, Veterans Project, Stuart Hodes http://sashamaslov.com/veterans/stuart-hodes

Hodes had started taking modern dance classes at the Martha Graham School with no thought of dance as a career until invited to join Graham's troupe for a U.S. tour in December 1946, followed by 3 weeks at the Ziegfeld Theater. He committed to dance in fall, 1947, adding daily ballet classes at the School of American Ballet. He spent 1947 through 1958 with the Martha Graham Dance Company.{{Cite web |title=A Person You Should Meet – Stuart Hodes |url=http://www.dance-enthusiast.com/features/day-in-the-life/view/A-Person-You-Should-Meet-Stuart-Hodes-2007-12-10 |access-date=2022-06-30 |website=www.dance-enthusiast.com |language=en}} Among his roles was Adolescent Love (Yellow) in Diversion of Angels, Creature of Fear in Errand into the Maze, Husbandman in Appalachian Spring, Seer in Night Journey, Dark Beloved in Deaths and Entrances, Brother Fire in Canticle for Innocent Comedians, Mad Tom in Lear, Highwayman in Punch and the Judy, and as one of the three male roles in (Theatre for a) Voyage.

Graham dancers were not paid for rehearsals so for income, Hodes taught and danced on Broadway, TV, and night clubs. He was in the original casts of Do Re Mi, First Impressions, Milk and Honey, Paint Your Wagon, Peer Gynt, Sophie, The Barrier, To Broadway with Love, Ziegfeld Follies (1956 edition), and the City Center revival of Annie Get Your Gun. He was a replacement in Kismet, By the Beautiful Sea, Once Upon a Mattress, The King and I and The Most Happy Fella.Chorus Gypsy, Bios, Stuart Hodes http://www.chorusgypsy.com/bios.html On TV he danced The Wild Horse in Annie Get Your Gun,{{Citation |title=Annie Get Your Gun (TV Movie 1957) – IMDb |url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0182719/fullcredits |access-date=2022-06-30}} swam with Esther Williams as her counter in The Esther Williams AquaSpectacle, also Buick Circus Show, The Milton Berle Show,Doubles Trouble, Rehearsals, Chorus Gypsy http://www.chorusgypsy.com/rehearsals.html and specials such as Satins and Spurs, Stingiest Man In Town, Cinderella,{{Citation |title=Cinderella (TV Movie 1957) – IMDb |url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0129672/fullcredits |access-date=2022-06-30}} The American Cowboy and others. He danced with younger choreographers including, DJ McDonald, Claire Porter,{{Cite web |title=SHORTLIST |url=https://www.mutualart.com/Article/SHORTLIST/B74FF0C333BC6C21 |access-date=2022-06-30 |website=www.mutualart.com |language=en}} Stephan Koplowitz,Tobi Tobias, Outsider Art, Dance, New York Magazine, May 6, 1996, p. 88{{Cite news |last=Dunning |first=Jennifer |date=October 4, 1993 |title=Dance in Review |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/04/arts/dance-in-review-349593.html |access-date=2022-06-30 |issn=0362-4331}} and Gus Solomons, Jr.{{Cite news |last=Dunning |first=Jennifer |date=April 14, 2006 |title=The Listings: April 14 – April 20; PARADIGM |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/14/arts/movies/the-listings-april-14-april-20-paradigm.html |access-date=2022-06-30 |issn=0362-4331}} In 1985, he performed in Kathy Acker's The Birth of the Poet, directed by Richard Foreman in the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival.John Rockwell, Opera: Birth of a Poet, Avant-Garde, The New York Times, December 5, 1985, https://www.nytimes.com/1985/12/05/arts/opera-birth-of-a-poet-avant-garde.htmlt-garde.html

From 1992 through 1996, he and his wife, Elizabeth Hodes, created and toured their one and two-person musical shows, traveling nationwide in Dancing on Air with Fred Astaire, La Musique de Piaf, Kurt Weill—Berlin to Broadway, Our Marlene (Marlene Dietrich), The Sound of Wings (Amelia Earhart), A Woman's World, Two Americans in Paris, and others.{{Cite web |title=Elizabeth Hodes Vocal Theatre |url=http://www.hodesshows.com/shows/astair.php |access-date=2022-06-30 |website=www.hodesshows.com}} Elizabeth performed The Sound of Wings, written by Hodes based on the life of Amelia Earhart. In 2000 and 2001, they performed a two-person musical The O’Tooles Tonight!, written by Gayle Stahlhuth, and presented at the East Lynne Theater in Cape May, NJ.Stuart Hodes, The O'Tooles Tonight!, Chorus Gypsy, http://www.chorusgypsy.com/Blog.html#OTooles

Hodes’ choreographic debut at the 92nd Street YM-YWHA in 1951 included FLAK, a solo based on World War II bombing missions, Surrounding, Unknown, and No Heaven in Earth, original score by Eugene Lester. He opened Dancer's Studio in 1952, a space used by other choreographers including Merce Cunningham and Robert Joffrey. He choreographed for the San Francisco Ballet, Santa Fe Opera,Hodes, Stuart, Opera Archive Search Result, Santa Fe Opera https://www.santafeopera.org/thecompany/overview/operaarchiveresult.aspx?data=2546,2549,2551,2554&query=Hodes%2c+Stuart+ St. Louis Municipal Opera,{{Cite web |title=The Edwardsville Intelligencer from Edwardsville, Illinois on May 26, 1965 · Page 11 |url=http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/26449574/ |access-date=2022-06-30 |website=Newspapers.com |date=May 26, 1965 |language=en}} Boston Ballet, Dallas Ballet{{Cite web |title=Baltimore Afro-American – Google News Archive Search |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2205&dat=19781007&id=nPkmAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MwMGAAAAIBAJ&pg=5909,2922014&hl=en |access-date=2022-06-30 |website=news.google.com}} and Cologne Opera Ballet.Sharon Mirchandan, Marga Richter, University of Illinois Press, 2012, p. 54 Dances include After the Teacups (1963), Abyss (1965), Prima Sera (1968),{{Cite book |last=Cogan |first=Bill |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/81843649 |title=Prima sera, performed by the San Francisco Ballet |date=1968 |oclc=81843649}} and A Shape of Light (1974). Hodes was commissioned by ChoreoConcerts, curated and produced by Laura Foreman, the New School's dance director. Domaine (1974), was a gentle teasing of F.M. Esfandiary, a transhumanist philosopher on the New School faculty.New School ChoreoConcerts and Critiques, ArchiveGrid, New York Public Library, sound recording, November 2, 1974 Beggar's Dance (1975), a duet with Susan McGuire to J.S. Bach and Longfellow's Hiawatha.Don McDonagh, Tap-Dance Memories With Jerry Ames, The Dance, The New York Times, May 23, 1973 Boedromion (1974), for the George Faison Universal Dance Experience.Jennifer Dunning, Hodes's 'Boedromion' Danced in Premiere by Faison Company, The New York Times, February 24, 1974 Other dances include Dance Lessons (1977) a trio for himself, Sara Hook and Kenneth Tosti, Brush (1982), a solo for Argentine dancer, Claudia Florian, White Knight, Black Night (1984) a duet with his daughter Catherine. I Thought You Were Dead, a duet co-choreographed and danced with Alice Teirstein, was named one of Ballet Review’s ten best dances of 1996.

After leaving the Graham troupe in 1958, Hodes continued to teach at the Graham School, also NYC's High School of Performing Arts, The New School, New York University, Manhattan Community College and as guest in many American colleges. He was a guest teacher in Toronto, London, Copenhagen, Zurich, also in China and Russia. In 1966, he joined Harkness House for Ballet Arts where he created young audiences dance shows performed at Hunter College and NYC Public Schools. In 1968, he founded his own young-audience troupe, The Ballet Team, which toured nationally,Stuart Hodes, What Educational Role?: A Personal Review, Design for Arts in Education, Volume 88, Issue 2, 1986, p. 11-14http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07320973.1986.9935452 and in 1969, became Dance Associate for the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) at the start of its grant-making Aid to Cultural Organizations project. In 1972, he joined New York University's School of the Arts (later Tisch) as head of Dance, during which time he served as a Dance Panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).Annual Report 1974, National Endowment for the Arts, National Council on the Arts https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/NEA-Annual-Report-1974.pdfAnnual Report 1975, National Endowment for the Arts, National Council on the Arts https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/NEA-Annual-Report-1975.pdfAnnual Report 1976, National Endowment for the Arts, National Council on the Arts https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/NEA-Annual-Report-1976.pdf In 1983, he was asked to join the First American Dance Study Team to China.{{Cite news |last=Dunning |first=Jennifer |date=February 1, 1981 |title=NO END TO CURIOSITY ABOUT DANCE IN CHINA |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/02/01/arts/no-end-to-curiosity-about-dance-in-china.html |access-date=2022-06-30 |issn=0362-4331}} In 1985, he became director of The Kitchen, an avant garde arts presenter, which was deeply in debt. He brought about sale of its commercial co-op loft in SoHo and secured its present multistory Chelsea building.Sally Banes, Before, Between, and Beyond: Three Decades of Dance Writing, University of Wisconsin Press, 2007, p. 295 In 1987, he became Associate Professor Dance Coordinator at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, and in 1989, Executive Director of the Dance Notation Bureau.

Former students include Joan Finklestein, head of the Harkness Foundation for Dance,{{Cite web |title=TEACHERS SPEAK: Legendary dancer STUART HODES recalls his students and what he learned from them |url=http://www.dance-enthusiast.com/features/day-in-the-life/view/TEACHERS-SPEAK-Legendary-dancer-STUART-HODES-recalls-his-students-and-what-he-learned-from-them-2008-11-06 |access-date=2022-06-30 |website=www.dance-enthusiast.com |language=en}} Stephanie Skura, American choreographer and teacher,{{Cite news |last=Kriegsman |first=Alan M. |date=June 23, 1985 |title=Acting Up: The Theater of Dance |language=en-US |newspaper=Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/style/1985/06/23/acting-up-the-theater-of-dance/1e434b78-7816-48b4-84d5-f7876342662d/ |access-date=2022-06-30 |issn=0190-8286}} Aydin Teker, major choreographer from Istanbul,Jennifer Dunning, Dance; Bouncing Back From an Elephantine Disaster, The New York Times, July 11, 1993, https://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/11/arts/dance-bouncing-back-from-an-elephantine-disaster.html?pagewanted=all and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, whose groundbreaking FASE was first shown in a studio at NYU School of the Arts.

In 2000, Francis Mason, president of the Martha Graham Center board of directors, asked him to become Head of School.{{Cite web |title=Graham dance legacy gets state aid |url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/2001/02/28/Graham-dance-legacy-gets-state-aid/6068983336400/ |access-date=2022-06-30 |website=UPI |language=en}} In 2001, Ronald Protas, Graham's heir, formed the Martha Graham Trust and sued the Martha Graham Center for the rights to all her dances, her dance technique, and use of her name.Martha Graham Center And School Win Decision To Retain Use Of Martha Graham's Name; Federal Judge Dismisses All Trademark Infringement Claims in Lawsuit By Graham's Heir Ron Protas, ArtScope.net, Internet News http://www.artscope.net/NEWS/new08282001-3.shtml Hodes testified in five of the six trials. Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum for the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York ultimately ruled that 54 of the disputed dances belonged to the Center, ten were in the public domain and one, Seraphic Dialogue, was owned by Protas. All trademark claims brought against the Graham Company and Center were dismissed.{{Cite news |last=Dunning |first=Jennifer |date=August 24, 2002 |title=Martha Graham Center Wins Rights to the Dances |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/24/arts/martha-graham-center-wins-rights-to-the-dances.html |access-date=2022-06-30 |issn=0362-4331}} Hodes’ personal account of the trials, titled, Graham Vs. Graham: The Struggle for an American Legacy, is unpublished but digital copies are in the Graham archives and New York Public Library.{{Cite book |last=Hodes |first=Stuart |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/912428831 |title=Graham vs. Graham: the struggle for an American legacy |date=2009 |language=English |oclc=912428831}}

Hodes began writing as a child. His first job after army discharge was writing publicity for the Bennington Drama Festival, a summer theater. Famed literary agent Audrey Wood read his story In the Chorus Room, said it was a chapter of a novel and that if he wrote four more chapters and an outline, she'd get him an advance. It became the novel Dumbdancer, not completed until after he'd stopped dancing, and which remains unpublished. Martha's Advanced Class, describes Graham's technique class as experienced by someone taking it.Stuart Hodes, Martha's Advanced Class, 1947 http://marthagraham.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Martha-Graham-Marthas-Advanced-Class.pdf Sybil Shearer Dances appeared in Ballet Review.{{Cite news |last=Anderson |first=Jack |date=November 23, 2005 |title=Sybil Shearer, 93, Dancer of the Spiritual and the Human, Dies |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/23/arts/dance/sybil-shearer-93-dancer-of-the-spiritual-and-the-human-dies.html |access-date=2022-06-30 |issn=0362-4331}} Other articles appeared in Performing Arts Journal, Design for Arts in Education,{{Cite journal |last=Hodes |first=Stuart |date=August 1, 1985 |title=Techno-visions: What Has Dance to Lose? |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/07320973.1985.9940722 |journal=Design for Arts in Education |volume=86 |issue=6 |pages=18–21 |doi=10.1080/07320973.1985.9940722 |issn=0732-0973|url-access=subscription }}{{Cite journal |last=Hodes |first=Stuart |date=1989 |title=Transforming Dance History: The Lost History of Rehearsals |url=https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ403170 |journal=Design for Arts in Education |language=en |volume=91 |issue=2 |pages=10–17|doi=10.1080/07320973.1989.9940415 |url-access=subscription }} and other publications. A Map of Making Dances (Ardsley House, 1998) is a choreographer's workbook with (247) experimental movement projects. Part Real-Part Dream: Dancing with Martha Graham (Concord ePress, 2011), a memoir, gives an account of his life, career, and complex relationship with Graham. As of 2016, he was working on a novel titled: Atlas Quit, or, A Tale Told by an Idiot.

As part of the Graham Company's 80th anniversary celebration in 2007, a special performance of From the Horse's Mouth, Magical Tales of Real Dancers, was presented at the Joyce Theater. The production highlighted stories about Martha Graham from veteran Graham dancers including Dorothy Berea, David Chase, Mary Hinkson, Pearl Lang, Peggy Lyman, Judith Janus, Donald McKayle, and others.{{Cite news |last=Kourlas |first=Gia |date=September 18, 2007 |title=A Spirited Gathering of Martha Graham Alumni |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/arts/dance/18alum.html |access-date=2022-06-30 |issn=0362-4331}} Hodes' contribution included Martha's Rap, a whimsical recounting of her career that began:

The Martha Hill Foundation presented Hodes with a Lifetime Achievement Award in November 2019. The tribute honors "a professional in the dance field who exemplifies any or all of those qualities for which Martha Hill was most revered—whether an educator or a creative force who has made a significant contribution to the field of dance 'behind the scenes'."{{cite web |title=Martha Hill Dance Fund, Ltd. |url=https://www.marthahilldance.org/index.php/about_foundation/awards |website=www.marthahilldance.org/index.php/about_foundation/awards|accessdate=July 18, 2020}}

In 1953, Hodes married dancer and choreographer Linda Margolies.Gescheidt(sic)-Margolies, The New York Times, March 13, 1953 They had two daughters, Catherine Hodes, (born 1956) and Martha Hodes, (born 1958). They divorced in 1964. In 1965, he wed dancer/singer/actress Elizabeth Wullen.

Hodes died in New York City on March 15, 2023, at the age of 98.{{cite web |title=Stuart Hodes, Who Danced With Martha Graham, Is Dead at 98|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/20/arts/dance/stuart-hodes-dead.html |website=New York Times |date=March 20, 2023 |accessdate= March 20, 2023 |last1=Seibert |first1=Brian }}

{{Reflist|2}}

• [https://nycdancestuff.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/martha-graham-s-appalachian-spring-filmed-in-1959-with-bertram-ross-and-stuart-hodes/ Appalachian Spring, 1959 film]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvi_e9SMAw4 FLAK (1951), performed by Martha Graham Two (2009)]
• [https://vimeo.com/18603590 Martha's Rap,The Dance Enthusiast]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5u4M7dYkKc Stuart Hodes speaking at Martha Graham plaque unveiling]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hodes, Stuart}}

Category:1924 births

Category:2023 deaths

Category:American choreographers

Category:American male dancers

Category:Brooklyn College alumni

Category:American modern dancers

Category:United States Army Air Forces bomber pilots of World War II

Category:United States Air Force reservists

Category:United States Air Force officers

Category:Entertainers from New York City