“Though she is a high brow…right out of the modern dance concert field, she does not look down her nose at the Broadway medium.” – dance critic John Martin

Holm branched out from pure concert dance in 1948 when she choreographed the Broadway production of Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate, and did not, with a few exceptions, revisit it until close to the end of her career. The production marked another important point in Holm's career when, in 1952, she became the first choreographer to copyright her work by submitting her Labanotated score of the musical to the Library of Congress.

Ballad of Baby Doe Dramatists and Directors

Hanya Holm poses with Ballad of Baby Doe co-director Edward Levy, Douglas Moore (composer), and John Latouche (librettist), between 1956-1959

Over the course of her career, she choreographed or did staging for operas (The Ballad of Baby Doe, 1956 and Orpheus and Eurydice, 1959), created choreography for thirteen stage musicals (My Fair Lady, 1956 and Camelot, 1960), and film (The Vagabond King, 1956). 

Holm’s belief that all choregraphy should evolve organically out of an understanding of the work - plot, character, costume, everything - enabled her to branch out from her modern dance roots. She drew from a natural movement base to incorporate classical ballet, jitterbugging, soft-shoe, acrobatics, court dance, and more. 

Holm’s goal was to enable the dance to, as scholar Claudia Gitelman put it, “burst from book and song in seemingly spontaneous fashion."

Performance of Orpheus and Eurydice

Performance of Orpheus and Eurydice at the Vancouver Festival in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in 1959