Jews and the Indian National Art Project

Hilde Holger was a great expressionist dancer. She studied dance in Vienna with Gertrud Bodenwieser (1890–1959) and started the Neue Schule für Bewegungskunst (New School for Movement Art) in 1926. In recent years, she has received representation in shows about Jews in Vienna.

According to her daughter Primavera, Hilde struggled in Bombay. At first she had no place to stay and slept on the therapy table in the consulting room of a South Indian doctor. There she met a young Parsi homeopath, Dr A.K. Boman-Behram. Wartime regulations required foreigners to register daily at the police station; the young doctor took Hilde there on his motorbike every single day. Romance flourished and they married in 1940. They lived in Queens Mansion in the Fort area where Hilde turned the large hall into her dance studio. Hilde’s first performance in India was at the Taj Mahal Hotel.

She soon began to absorb the vibrant forms of Indian classical dance and art, and to strike up friendships with other artists in the city such as Uday, Menaka, and Sachin Shankar. The dancer Ram Gopal taught at her studio. Magda Nachman, the Russian artist, was her closest friend. In 1941, two ballets (The Selfish Giant and Russian Fairy Tale) with music by Russian composers and with costumes by Nachman were presented by the Excelsior Theatre. They were written and choreographed by Holger using her female dance students, many of whom were Parsis.

Hilde’s dance studio was quintessentially cosmopolitan. An unconventional choreographer, she had her dancers perform under the open skies on the beach at Juhu with the waves rolling in the background and their orchestrated movements reflecting the rhythms of the cosmos. The young Parsi, Avan Billimoria, captured these performances in timeless photographs. The sea and the dancers, each mirroring the strength and energy of the other, the sun flashing on both—nature and art blending together by way of stunning movements sculpted in time. Hilde always stressed the line—the center of balance that passes through the center of the body. But the forms she created were always unconventional.

Hilde had met and admired Gandhi, treasuring till her last days the photograph he signed for her. On the fateful day of Gandhi’s assassination, Hilde recalls that she was directing a dress rehearsal and “a dreadful sadness came over all of us, Indians and Europeans” alike. The theatres shut down as the country mourned. Continuing communal riots in the country in the wake of the partition of India compelled Hilde and her family to leave for London, where she started the Hilde Holger School of Contemporary Dance.

However, there were new difficulties. In 1949, her son Darius was born with Down’s syndrome. Determined to help him live a meaningful life, she created a form of dance therapy for those with disabilities. Darius enjoyed music, played the drums, and contrary to expectations, lived to be almost 60. Primavera herself learnt dance initially from Hilde, performed in her productions, and designed costumes; she has worked in theatre and film, and also designed jewelry. She has made a film titled Hilde—Her Legacy on her mother’s fascinating journey.

Primavera directed me to one of her mother’s students, the charming Feroza Seervai, who grew up in a westernized milieu and whose husband H.M. Seervai was the Advocate General of Maharashtra. Feroza animatedly recollected how “Hilde taught free movement and the importance of the line in dance.” The artist Shiavax Chavda would sit in at the rehearsals, sketching. Feroza danced in several performances at the Excelsior and St. Xavier’s College Hall. Feroza recalled Hilde’s playful wit. On a trip to South India, when someone asked her where she was from, Hilde replied, “I’m made in Vienna!” So she was. But I cannot help thinking that perhaps she was made by Bombay too, and that figures like her hint at a different Bombay whose history is yet to be written.

[Niyogi Books has given Fair Observer permission to publish this excerpt from Jews and the Indian National Art Project, edited by Kenneth X. Robbins and Marvin Tokayer, Niyogi Books, 2015.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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