Richard Holden (August 8, 1927, Braintree, Massachusetts - October 14, 2015, Tucson, Arizona) was an American

dancer Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoi ...

choreographer Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which motion or form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A choreographer is one who cr ...

, choreologist, teacher,

musician A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who wri ...

and writer.

Early life and education

Richard Holden discovered an interest in dance at age 14 and began Russian folk dance lessons in Boston with Senia Russakoff. At 16, he went to New York City with scholarships to study with George Chaffee. the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School and at the

American Ballet Theatre American Ballet Theatre (ABT) is a classical ballet company based in New York City. Founded in 1939 by Lucia Chase and Richard Pleasant, it is recognized as one of the world's leading classical ballet companies. Through 2019, it had an annual ei ...

school. After dancing for several years in Summer Stock and operating a dance school in Elmira, New York, he went to England to study the Royal Ballet repertory. In England he danced for a year with Ballets Minerva, a touring ballet company. Russian speaking, he then went to the former USSR to study Igor Moiseyev style Slavic folk dance, Vaganova ballet technique and Soviet repertory.

Career

After graduating from the London Institute of Choreology in 1966 with an associate degree in Benesh movement notation, Dame Alicia Markova offered him a contract with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet where she was Director. He danced during the first season of the new Met at Lincoln Center, becoming a soloist. The following year he became the Met's resident choreologist. He later joined the Harkness Ballet,

Joffrey Ballet The Joffrey Ballet is one of the premier dance companies and training institutions in the world today. Located in Chicago, Illinois, the Joffrey regularly performs classical and contemporary ballets during its annual performance season at Lyric O ...

and

as the first American Choreologist and certified Labanotator. With leaves of absence from the New York companies, he founded the Tucson Civic Ballet as director and choreographer (1967–1972), which subsequently, through a series of directors, became

Ballet Arizona Ballet Arizona is a professional ballet company in Phoenix, Arizona directed by Ib Andersen. The company was created in 1986 by a merger of three smaller Arizonan dance companies that were struggling to survive. Today, the company of thirty-one dan ...

. He appeared in several Hollywood motion pictures in specialized dancing roles. He has choreographed and staged dance works and productions for companies all over the USA and in Mexico, including his '' Firebird, Upstairs Downstairs, Two Pigeons,

Khatchaturian Aram Ilyich Khachaturian (; rus, Арам Ильич Хачатурян, , ɐˈram ɨˈlʲjitɕ xətɕɪtʊˈrʲan, Ru-Aram Ilyich Khachaturian.ogg; hy, Արամ Խաչատրյան, ''Aram Xačʿatryan''; 1 May 1978) was a Soviet and Armenian ...

a, The Humpbacked Horse, Chakra'' and his award winning ''Alice''. Settling in Tucson, he became resident choreographer for the

Arizona Opera Arizona Opera is an opera company which operates in both Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona. History Arizona Opera was established in 1971 as the Tucson Opera Company, under founding general director James P. Sullivan, and presented its first productio ...

and formed a Russian dance ensemble to perform with the Arizona Balalaika Orchestra which has toured all over Arizona, into Mexico and the Soviet Union. His writing has appeared in various magazines including ''Dance Magazine'' and ''Opera News'' as well as '' The Christian Science Monitor'' and other newspapers.

Illness and death

In 2011 he was successfully treated for bladder cancer. Complications from a later relapse of the cancer into the kidneys resulted in his deathArizona Daily Star obituary published Oct. 22, 2015
/ref> on October 14, 2015.

References

External links

Autobiography "Dancing on a Greyhound Bus"

Arizona Balalaika Orchestra
{{DEFAULTSORT:Holden, Richard American male ballet dancers Ballet choreographers American choreographers 1927 births Dance notators 2015 deaths 20th-century American ballet dancers