Susan Bendall delves into the history of My Fair Lady and its first choreographer, Hanya Holm.
AS ONE of the most loved Broadway musicals, My Fair Lady brings with it a lot of expectations borne of deep attachment. Any production has a lot to live up to. This is a show that hails from a time when audiences expected every song in a musical to be singable and have enduring appeal. My Fair Lady has always delivered. To re-stage it brings a commensurate responsibility to capture what is great about this terrific piece of music theatre and imbue it with fresh vitality.
With a recreation of the original 1956 Broadway production that celebrates the show's 60th anniversary currently premiering Australia, we feel in good hands from the beginning. None other than the original Eliza Doolittle, Julie Andrews, is in the director's chair and the choreographer, Christopher Gattelli is a seasoned Broadway dance-maker and Tony award winner. Combined with other elements from the original production (stunning costumes by Cecil Beaton and set design by Oliver Smith) we have real lineages that amount to an impressive pedigree.
Travelling deeper into the history of this musical reveals even richer dance lineages. Iconic but largely forgotten choreographer and
teacher Hanya Holm created the dance for the first Broadway production in 1956 that starred Andrews and Rex Harrison. Holm became known as one of "the big four of American dance", along with Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman. As well as creating their own choreographic templates, together they pooled their unique approaches to dance training in the immensely influential Bennington summer school that had dancers flock to have new works made on them and learn from their mentors.
Holm is credited with being key in laying down the foundations for a uniquely American contemporary dance language. German by birth, her style was influenced by the great Mary Wigman, the renowned expressionist dancer, for whom Holm danced and taught. It was Wigman's vision that led Holm to move to America to run a school under Wigman's name. Holm's teaching method was rigorous, precise and experimental - she is famed for spending entire two-hour sessions honing one skill or micro movement (for example, turns or circles of the arms). Another signature of her teaching was the use of drums to accompany her classes. She would set a rhythm and call out instructions for dance phrases to be performed. Her students include such luminaries as Glen
Tetley and Lucinda Childs.
Watching early footage of Holm from the 1930s reveals a lyrical, free and almost abandoned movement style that had moved
away from its expressionist roots. Into this she occasionally inserts fragments of folk dance and one clip sees her break from experimental movement into Indian dance. So the fusion of vernacular dance styles and Broadway presentation might have seemed like a natural fit for her. Hence we are not surprised at her lively take on cockney dance idioms in My Fair Lady. In the documentary Hanya Holm: Portrait of a Pioneer, she tells the ensemble how tough cockneys are and the energy she expects from her dancers...
This is an extract from an article by Susan Bendall in the December/January issue of Dance Australia, out now! Buy Dance Australia at your favourite magazine retailer or subscribe here, or purchase an online copy via the Dance Australia app.
Photo: Jeff Busby