 My name is Rebecca Taffel, and I work at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation with Elizabeth Sackler to provide additional support to the Center's already wonderful staff. And so I'm thrilled to be able to be here today to introduce Hilda Holger, her legacy, the film screening, and then I'm doubly excited because we have Primavera Bowman and Stephanie Jenkins to talk about the film after the screening. For the past five years, the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art has continued to fulfill its commitment to the past, present, and future of feminist art. Using its award-winning exhibition in education spaces, the Sackler Center strives to raise awareness of feminism's cultural contributions, dialogue and debate about feminist art, theory, activism, take place here in the Center's Forum, and groundbreaking exhibitions are held in its feminist art and her story galleries. If you haven't had a chance to go see the exhibition out in the galleries, I highly recommend it. It's called Materializing Six Years Lucy Arlapard and the Emergence of Conceptual Art. It's a groundbreaking show. It's wonderful. It's only up for a couple more weeks. So if you have some time or energy afterwards, please take a look. But as the Center, though, is conceived by Dr. Sackler, is more than just its gallery spaces. It's a place for open and free discourse, conversation, and the exchange of ideas. In fact, those are the things we celebrate the most here. Dr. Sackler could not be here today because of some ongoing health problems, but she asked me to express how delighted she is not only to have this Hilda Holger, her legacy, screened here today, but also to have the privilege of a discussion by Primavera and Stephanie to illuminate the life and work of Hilda Holger, a pioneer of modern expressionist dance. On the Heritage Floors, in the Dinner Party by Judy Chicago, other influential modern dancers like Isidore Duncan and Martha Graham and Sophie Tauber are honored by name. And I think it's only appropriate to honor Hilda Holger's work among her equals and her contemporaries. So before we start the film, I'm going to do a brief introduction of Primavera and Stephanie. And then we'll get right to the screening, and then the conversation will follow directly afterwards. Also, I quickly wanted to mention that there is a sign-up sheet in the back if you're interested in learning more about the film, and more about Hilda. Filmmaker Primavera Bowman is Hilda Holger's daughter and an accomplished artist in her own right. She has impressive credentials in sculpture, dance, design, music, and film. She trained with British abstract sculptor Sir Anthony Carrow at London's prestigious St. Martin School of Art, finishing with first degree honors. Primavera took her first dance lessons at the Hilda Holger School of Modern Dance in London and went on to receive extensive dance training here in the U.S. at the Martha Graham School, the Merce Cunningham School, and with renowned ballet teacher Maggie Black. She has been an instructor in the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center and performed with Twyletharp Dance Company, among others. Like her mother, Primavera was ahead of her time. She was a student of Zen meditation yoga before either entered the mainstream. As a result of her fascination with movement and medicine, she developed a technique called alignment therapy and remains a dedicated teacher both here and in London. Since 2001, Primavera has been promoting her mother's legacy through performances, museum shows, lectures, workshops, and archive, and this documentary film. Stephanie Jinkin has been a producer for CNN for 13 years, focusing on political, international, and business news. In her current role as an editorial producer, she researches and writes interviews for the network's chief business correspondent, Ali Velshi. Before going into television, Stephanie was a print journalist and political risk consultant based in the Middle East. She has received a number of international fellowships, including a Fulbright to Jordan, academic scholarships to Israel, and journalism exchanges to Korea, China, Taiwan, Singapore, and Germany. She earned a master's degree in Middle Eastern Studies from St. Anthony's College at the University of Oxford and a bachelor's degree in journalism and Hebrew literature with honors from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Stephanie is a native New Yorker and currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. She dropped out of the Elaine Klein School of Ballet at age seven, but throughout the years has remained an enthusiastic supporter of contemporary dance. And now, Hilda Holger, her legacy. In 2001, I had to clear through the house and I saw wardrobes, boxes, overseas trunks, all filled with my mom's legacy. A friend of my mother's saw HH very clearly stamped on one of the big overseas trunks and he said, come on, just let's take a quick, quick look and I've been looking ever since, I have to say. So literally, for the last ten years, I've been archiving and attempting to conserve what came out of all those trunks. I recall a telephone conversation I had from New York and I was bitching that she never had time to talk to me, she was always busy working. And then she thought I wasn't taking it seriously enough, so she said, you will know who your mother is after I die. In 2010, I initiated Move About, a series of inclusive dance workshops. I was one of the six teachers who studied with Hilda. I had no idea when I knocked on the Hilda's door where I was going. At that stage, I just wanted to be, I don't even know I wanted to be a dancer, I wanted to be in dance. To make sure that people realized where we come from. She was instrumental to influencing not just me and Royston and Thomas and all the others. Lots of people came through here in the studio through those doors have been influenced, I'm telling you. In their own way they may not know it even that I've been influenced by her. I must say it made me want to run out and take dance lessons again. So I wanted to start with the beginning and I'm just going to start by asking Primavera a few questions, get the party started. But I know that she's amongst friends and admirers and students so I'd like to be inclusive as her mother would say and open up the floor rather quickly for discussion. I don't feel like you need to have a question, it's okay even just to have a comment and tell Primavera how you felt about the film or what you felt was interesting about it. But I wanted to start with really at the beginning. I mean when did you get the idea to make the film and was it something that you ever discussed with your mother? No, never. I mean my mother and I lived quite separately. I was here teaching and doing my stuff and she was over there. And she was always too busy to talk to me. Both my parents were very busy. So I actually learned from the family, from going through all the papers in the house, who my father was, who my mother was. So it was quite odd actually. So let's go back to that because when the film ended there was someone back there saying he was just imagining what it was like to open up those trunks. So what year was that? And specifically what did you find? We saw some of the costumes, some of the photos, but it was a treasure trove. It was, yeah, because what happened is I couldn't understand because when she left to go to India she kept saying I only have like one Groschen in my bra and nothing. But then I said where do these trunks come from? So then I had some historians come to visit me and one Dr. Marguerite France was in the movie. She said let's go through the letters because I couldn't read German. And then we found out that my grandmother knew she was going to Auschwitz. My mother had about 25 people killed in Auschwitz. So friends were mainly family as well. And so the mother knew. So she knew her daughter escaped to India. So she put everything in those trunks and had silk stockings with moth eggs in it. I mean absolutely everything. Everything to do with her career was in those trunks. We're just saying that this is your awakening of who your mother is and when we talked before the showing of this film you had said to me that you actually didn't know that your mother was a famous dancer in Vienna. No idea. No. So this was the moment. Yeah, because then I saw these photographs and I read the reviews. There's like a whole house. If you go on the hill to hold the website we've kind of added a bit to the website so you can see some of the things that I have in the house in London. And now actually I'm becoming a political activist. I faxed the Prime Minister yesterday because they want to build a high-speed train under my house. So that's yet another facet to all this. But yeah, now I mean it's I forgot what I was going to say. They're finding out that she was famous. Yeah, I saw these pictures which was very beautiful and you know when I was growing up she started to become more and more arthritic. So then she couldn't walk anymore. So it was a sad picture. I think she had a lot of anger against what happened to her family and that her career was ruined and her friends were all killed and made to look like suicide when it wasn't even a suicide. So I just delved more and more. And I didn't even know what the secession of the Hagenbundt was. I have to say in the Amala Weissenbach from the Theatre Museum of Vienna came and looked through the pages. You know you've got Nazi letters here. I don't know what I had. I was ready to just sell the house and you know and throw it all away. You know so then a friend has how we met through Albert Mizzak. He said now let's start to look through. So then when we looked through he left, went to America with his family and I was I'm still stuck there going through all the stuff trying to archive as a complete amateur you know conservationist and archivist and this is like everything that I'm doing is nothing that I was trying to do. So it was you know it was an interesting leap for me. So you've mentioned Albert who's a mutual friend of ours and I know that he played a part in your mother's life after later on he was organizing himself as Austrian living in London and he'd been a performer and I know that he was organizing a cultural event in London and he felt like he rediscovered your mother for the Austrians. Yes and he's I must say given him a lot of credit because without Albert I wouldn't have even known anything. I would have just dumped everything and you know. So what were her feelings about later on in terms of keeping a connection with Vienna and Austrian culture? Was it something she... No I mean because she I had to go to Vienna to get the thing the Ratthausmann from the mayor's office there and she didn't want to go. And then when she she should have got it but when she died posthumously I got another very high award from the Austrian government. The ambassador in London gave it to me and she couldn't care less because you know she suffered. I mean she really you know suffered. So this is not a film about dance necessarily it's about opening up to other people. And I want to pick up on that for a minute. What do you think was the impact of her time in India? It was probably about nine years. Nine ten years. She started a family there. How did it change her philosophy of dance, of movement, of cultural expression? Well she one of her students was actually in the film but she died since the film finished. She said you know your mother used to always say you know where do you come from because they'd ask her. She was blonde and blue eyed and you know everyone looked very different. And so she said I'm made in Vienna. So it was but then she I read in some of the letters and notes that she studied with this lady. I think Manaka and she was she was asked to choreograph when she was in England which went back for the cousin of Uda Shankar. Sachin Shankar had a company also and so she was friends with Ranga Pali. He taught in her studio and Uda Shankar and everyone. So she was very much involved in an artist came to draw in her classes you know some Indian some Western. So I think she's very much a person that breaks boundaries you know for religion. I mean here she's a born a Jew but she's doing on the altar of a church you know. And a lot of her themes are actually Christian Catholic themes you know. Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. I mean there's so many you know so she just didn't care about boxing people in. I guess I guess I'm the same as I wouldn't affect the Prime Minister yesterday. We I want to pick up on the inclusiveness really because you know she had pioneered what's now called inclusive dance. And in a way your brother Darius was her great teacher. So talk a little bit about that because you were in the house then you know you saw it up close. How did that evolve. Yeah I mean he's always watched as they said in the film he always watched the classes and I remember once there was some quite you know technically Royal Ballet good dancers. And they couldn't understand what my mother wanted so my brother just suddenly came down the stairs you know twirled and fell on the floor that's what I want. You know so I mean down syndrome. I mean I have friends that taught down syndrome and they said you know their their their aesthetic sense is highly developed. You know of music and then once he played piano he couldn't read music but this concert pianist came to the house and who is that musician. The rhythm is incredible and you know just banging away but you know amazing rhythm but he you know he didn't have the right you know you know more. Here's a doctor of neuropsychology so she knows more. But yeah no it's interesting I mean my brother it's very interesting. I talked with a friend who's also in the audience that would make a great feature film because you know this person had three holes in his heart wet lungs down syndrome. I mean you know couldn't do anything hardly and yet he was my father that came up with a nontoxic cure for cancer that he was researching at Lassen University. And then my mother came up with this inclusive dance and now you see you know Royston had got an OBE from the Queen and you know it's a big thing. America hasn't reached here it's just beginning I think you know but but it's been going since the 70s 80s in Europe and England called Community Dance Inclusive Dance. Would you say that that's her legacy? I think that's what that I mean you see the problem is that you know there's very few people remember her from Vienna. I mean I have letters saying that she looked like Jesus Christ on stage like the Madonna and you know so that's all I have. There's no footage. I mean so we reconstructed those early dances for the British Museum of the Museum of Vienna but there's nothing really there so what the living legacy is the inclusive dance for sure. You talked about this as a very human and emotional story not just a story about dance and I wanted to pick up on that because we saw that in Vienna your mother was on the cusp of opening up this very you know well-heeled dance school in the poshest street and she had this illustrious career there and then that got short by the Nazis and the Anschluss and then again she's about to open up this dance school or she did in Bombay and again she has to leave because of war and we see finally she does and she has this tremendous legacy as a choreographer and a teacher and I can't help but mention since we're sitting in the Sackler Gallery Feminist Art I mean did she see herself as a feminist figure or just the life that she had? No definitely definitely because I mean when I talked to different historians and museum people in Vienna I mean you know after the First World War you know women were you know doing men's jobs and suddenly we're meant to be house crowds again they were rebelled so there was a whole movement of you know dancers going naked and dancing freely and to say look here I am you know so definitely she was feminist from background from Vienna but she always used to say to me growing up you know a woman doesn't have to have a man in their life you know you can be must be independent so she kind of hammered that into my head all the time you know so she believed that women are equal to men and you know very much feminists. Before I open it up to the floor I wanted to ask you on a personal level what was it like to be her student? Well the students they all love her but they all you know get really upset because she's very tough. What was it like for you? It was worse for me because if anyone was talking in the class you know she instead of telling that person you say oh would you go up you know she'd make an example of me all the time so I don't know why she did that but she always said you know she always said you know life is hard so I have to you know get you ready for that so I never had a cozy childhood you know it was always a very I don't know amazing childhood but it wasn't so relaxing. I know you're among friends here and there are dancers and filmmakers and so I wanted to open it up for a discussion for comment for questions on any area. Don't be shy. Well I just want to say I'm going to bring up one of these talking about some of the new audience who had suggested the feature film on the first man and now more than ever I think that this is about you. This is about the discovery of my mother. The film is that. That's really the whole point and I really felt the impact of it today more than any other time. It's funny because there's another friend in the audience Serge Raoul and I talked to his son the other day and he's making a film on his father and on his the restaurant Raoul's and exactly Ditto word for word Karim was saying the same is this a film about the change in the so is it a film about the restaurant is it a film about my father is it a film about me what do I want. So I said join the club. Because that's all there is I mean I don't have you know footage of her. I think to a certain degree yes but not not to the complete extent that she did because you know because of what she did with my brother then Wolfgang you know you see you saw that they're completely people with MS and all kinds of blind and they're performing and they love it. I mean they live for those performances and you know we went to Vienna together and and it's it's so maybe it wouldn't have quite been such a dramatic shift but definitely I mean yeah because you know going to India she crossed so many boundaries. I mean she was you know she was born into a kind of a wealthy family and then it went down after the First World War and she met Franz Josef and India she met Gandhi and I have a signed picture of Gandhi that you saw in the film you know and but then you know more and more as she developed she became more compassionate less than narcissistic you know artists solar here I am look at me and more like you know let's give some love out let them experience what I experienced through my art form. Can everybody hear the questions by the way because I'm happy to repeat them. I think so definitely because with the carers you know I used to be very involved in his care since my mother died for 10 years and they said you know something very special about him you know he always says thank you and he's you know all the carers said you know so much so that actually the website from my mother is done by one of the carers because you know he influenced people with all his problems he influenced people and he everyone would go to take him to doctor appointment after doctor appointment X-rays this that and then you know the doctor would be sitting there you know waiting for the X-ray machine and after you know he said oh thank you and they would have a big smile you know every time you know afterwards he would change people's lives people on the street would say oh there's that nice man he would like stand back he could hardly stand up and let the old lady pass you know so that he learned from my mother from being around normal people and not being locked up like some used to do. So as much as it extended the length of his life probably also the quality of his life. Definitely the quality. Definitely yeah. Are there questions? Once there a standard class? Yeah there was a basic class. How did it start? Well when I started with her I started with plies, tondues and then she would start doing that Bowdoin visa stuff as you saw you know where she would kind of do I once started with some names for Voda at American Ballet and she also did like moving bars where you would kind of step and turn rather than having everything basic like Maggie used to teach or like American Ballet theory used to teach. So then she would develop the bar and then she would you know do a center and then she would do a little bit of improvisation and as she got older and couldn't demonstrate I think the improvisation element got greater. So it would be you know almost like a choreographic class you know more than just a pure technique class but there was always a technical thing at the beginning to warm up. Yes his adoption at home. Well he did at the beginning yes and then he did I remember I remember vaguely he did something out of the urine he used to make this vaccine for my brother out of urine and then he kind of you know my brother was saved so to speak he kept him going and then he started to do stuff with very high grade yeast peptides and it's funny I met a doctor just recently and he was saying that you know what did your father because he saw something on the internet and I said he worked with yeast he said my god I'm working with the same thing it's 45% in that same yeast so he said your father had a was looking at the moon without a telescope he didn't have the technique we have now you know so both my parents are incredibly down to earth and intuitive you know and I guess and just made the best of it always you know someone else. I really opened up for life far more than it may have ever been my sister was an institutionalizee which is still alive she was my mother but it was interesting to hear you say that because I've never heard of anyone I've just done research on life I've been trying to find in whatever school I think it's Golden Hood and I found the bathroom which is meaning I've had the hospital but I can't find anything about him. You know homeopathy got wiped out Rockefeller was used homeopathy the Queen of England uses and Prince Charles uses homeopathy and they always made fun of but I mean for chronic diseases where you know it's not an acute situation homeopathy sometimes can cause miracles where allopathy cannot you know so but also you know the other thing is the movement thing I mean movement is such an important thing because you're using your left and your right brain your physical your emotional your mental and you know we sit down the computer and I'm worried for these kids because all they do is this this you know they don't move you know they're getting sunlight you know there's multiple stories because not only her but her students and you know it's multiple it's a feature film I think. Oh my god I remember you when I was a teenager. Wow great thing came. You're in that picture there. Yes it was a target an absolute target and she would terrify us and so many others but just as a person you saw in the film the dance space in the basement of her home in Camden Town was not as large as this room and in order to dance just all of us it was a real challenge because you had sort of minimal space it's not like these extravagantly wonderful studios here. It was a challenge it was part of it. It was and it's just as you said there was a structure to the class and I always have a very sweet memory of your mother because we would be just driven madly as dancers but at the often at the end of class particularly when we were in performance she would bring this tiny 30 inch table into the middle of the studio put a tablecloth on it and serve us tea and butter biscuits. I don't remember that. And so she was you know she perhaps we had the best mothering from her. I think so yeah I was a bit jealous. Are you still a psychologist? I remember your face now immediately. How did you find this? How did you know? Wow you see how the circle is amazing. That's great because I lost touch with you. I don't know is there's another student that was jumping on the beach in Jehu. I don't know Negesh is she here? She said she was coming. I don't know but anyway yeah she's now Negesh. I've traced her through the letters and she's a doctor a very fine doctor at Albert Einstein. I don't know if she came. Wow what a treat to have you here. We have a few minutes left and I wanted to see if you could talk a little bit about making the film because it's not been without its challenges and that's really a tribute to your tenacity and drive. Yeah well I mean basically there was about eight major films, eight edits and when we first started it we just got you know a young man that did films for the Amiki Company for Wolfgang and he you know we just commissioned him to make a film of the workshop move about and but then when we saw it all these talking heads and we all kind of started to fall asleep. So then so then we had had the company then so we discussed it. We said well maybe we should put some earlier work of the teachers because you know just watching the workshops is not visually that exciting and then as the edits progressed I said wait a minute I have to have a bigger hand in this because you know we have to put my mother in it so then every edit there was a bit more of my mother. So then it was a fight between you know do we do my mother or do we do the six students you know and you know it's just so multi layered so it was quite a fight because the filmmaker didn't want to I mean I'm actually not the filmmaker Alan Bauer was the filmmaker and but more and more it became my film so I insisted that I have to edit with him. He didn't want me but finally I did and then it became everyone said oh it improved so much and now I might if I get some funding I might enlarge it ten minutes and make it more of a feature type of thing because some cinemas are interested possibly here and I originally we made it for television but we have a lot of copyrights within the film even though it's my mother and I own the film etc you know one that first picture of my mother where she goes like this getty images was wants to charge me a hundred for my own personal use hundred pounds and about four five thousand for broadcast I mean that's only one picture and it's my mother I mean it's so insane it's just insane so now I'm trying to fundraise it's a shame to not have this film out there you know I mean if I had some money I could yeah so it's the usual thing I mean a lot of films they sit in closets because they can't pay the copyrights to the broadcasting you know for clips that they have etc and it's becoming out of hand actually you know so. I had one more question before we have to go but before I do that I wanted to mention that there is a sign-up sheet in the back on a clipboard just your name and address if you wanted to keep in touch as you know her legacy in archive and film progresses so that Primavera has a way to reach people who came out today and are interested so the last question I wanted to ask you really was if your mother was here today and she saw this film I know she was a tough cookie what would she say? It's very very difficult I don't know because she's incredibly critical I mean that's why I think I grew up like this because nothing was good enough you know it's that thing if you're a surgeon why aren't you a lawyer you're a lawyer why aren't you a judge you know so I don't know what she would say but I think basically deep down even if she doesn't say it she probably would be very flatter I took the time because I've actually taken about 11 years out of my own life and you know some of my students they say well when are you coming back to New York you know I got back and forth because I have this house which now the British government wants to dig a tunnel underneath so that's yet another thing and I'm trying to save the archive so I'm trying to get it into a good institution that would you know take proper care of it because it's a shame I did all this work and she carted it from one way or the other from Vienna to Bombay to London and you know it's already attracted I mean one historian is in writers in the audience Lena Bernstein you know I've already attracted a lot of people and actually I'm becoming a hub for all these people because my mother was all over the place you know so people are connecting through me putting her story up in one way or the other you know so it's in a way it's a very Jewish story because you know Jews poor thing had to leave you know leave there and live and then you know but it's also a contemporary story because I mean the same thing's happening now with the Muslims and the Christians and the fighting in Syria and it's nothing changed you know it's a universal story and I think you know if I had a little bit more money I would like to extend it to kind of push that I think the thing with Wolfgang at the end with the tsunami and with the Tamil Tigers and the government soldiers it's very moving it's too bad it's only very amateur footage but I think even that it you know the heartstrings kind of you know twang because he's a saint that guy a complete saint they all are all the students of my mother's they have tremendous patience I mean Royce and Maldoon he does projects I've watched a rehearsal here when he was doing something at Carnegie Hall and I think Nicholas went to see it and Jose went to see it I think and even with the rehearsal and a dinky little player with the right of spring and all these you know tough Harlem kids I mean it was quiet after two hours he just didn't even raise his voice but he managed to get them all quiet and they were like different people and I had goosebumps because I could see that transformation those kids now had something to live with here they were going to dance with Sir Simon Rattle in the Berlin Philharmonic and there's not something a Harlem kid normally does so you know it's through art it breaks so many boundaries of poverty and wealth and religion and you know it's a wonderful medium and I don't think it's I think they're beginning to tap it in Europe with this inclusive community dance but I think it hasn't really taken hold in this country yet you know it's just beginning Well I want to thank everybody for coming out today and mostly I want to thank Primavera for coming Thank you for coming