Stuart Hodes

Stuart Hodes (November 27, 1924 – March 15, 2023) was an American dancer, choreographer, dance teacher, dance administrator and author.

He was Martha Graham's partner, danced on Broadway, in TV, film, in recitals, and with his own troupe.

His choreography has appeared on the Boston Ballet, Dallas Ballet, Harkness Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, San Francisco Ballet and other troupes.

He taught at the Martha Graham School, Neighborhood Playhouse, NYC High School of Performing Arts, headed dance at NYU School of the Arts and Borough of Manhattan Community College.

Stuart Hodes Gescheidt was born in New York City in November 1924 and grew up in Flushing, Miami Beach, and Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.

His older sister was writer, Malvine Cole, and younger brother, photographer Alfred Gescheidt.

He attended PS 98, Brooklyn Technical High School, and Brooklyn College, entered the army in 1943, served in the Army Air Corps (not yet called the Air Force).

Trained as a B-17 pilot, he flew seven bombing missions before VE Day, then, attached to the Military Air Transport Command, flew troops from Naples to Marrakech.

Reassigned to the Army of Occupation, he began flying reporters for an unofficial Army newspaper, The Foggia Occupator.

Discharged as a second lieutenant in June 1945, he joined the Air Force Reserves for four more years.

His first civilian job was publicity director for the Bennington (Vermont) Drama Festival, before re-entering Brooklyn College, leaving when offered a dancing job by Martha Graham.

Hodes had started taking modern dance classes at the Martha Graham School with no thought of dance as a career until invited to join Graham's troupe for a U.S. tour in December 1946, followed by 3 weeks at the Ziegfeld Theater.

He committed to dance in fall, 1947, adding daily ballet classes at the School of American Ballet.

He spent 1947 through 1958 with the Martha Graham Dance Company.

Among his roles was Adolescent Love (Yellow) in Diversion of Angels, Creature of Fear in Errand into the Maze, Husbandman in Appalachian Spring, Seer in Night Journey, Dark Beloved in Deaths and Entrances, Brother Fire in Canticle for Innocent Comedians, Mad Tom in Lear, Highwayman in Punch and the Judy, and as one of the three male roles in (Theatre for a) Voyage.

Graham dancers were not paid for rehearsals so for income, Hodes taught and danced on Broadway, TV, and night clubs.

Hodes’ choreographic debut at the 92nd Street YM-YWHA in 1951 included FLAK, a solo based on World War II bombing missions, Surrounding, Unknown, and No Heaven in Earth, original score by Eugene Lester.

He opened Dancer's Studio in 1952, a space used by other choreographers including Merce Cunningham and Robert Joffrey.

He choreographed for the San Francisco Ballet, Santa Fe Opera, St. Louis Municipal Opera, Boston Ballet, Dallas Ballet and Cologne Opera Ballet.

He was in the original casts of Do Re Mi, First Impressions, Milk and Honey, Paint Your Wagon, Peer Gynt, Sophie, The Barrier, To Broadway with Love, Ziegfeld Follies (1956 edition), and the City Center revival of Annie Get Your Gun.

He was a replacement in Kismet, By the Beautiful Sea, Once Upon a Mattress, The King and I and The Most Happy Fella.

On TV he danced The Wild Horse in Annie Get Your Gun, swam with Esther Williams as her counter in The Esther Williams AquaSpectacle, also Buick Circus Show, The Milton Berle Show, and specials such as Satins and Spurs, Stingiest Man In Town, Cinderella, The American Cowboy and others.

After leaving the Graham troupe in 1958, Hodes continued to teach at the Graham School, also NYC's High School of Performing Arts, The New School, New York University, Manhattan Community College and as guest in many American colleges.

He was a guest teacher in Toronto, London, Copenhagen, Zurich, also in China and Russia.

Dances include After the Teacups (1963), Abyss (1965), Prima Sera (1968), and A Shape of Light (1974).

Hodes was commissioned by ChoreoConcerts, curated and produced by Laura Foreman, the New School's dance director.

In 1966, he joined Harkness House for Ballet Arts where he created young audiences dance shows performed at Hunter College and NYC Public Schools.

In 1968, he founded his own young-audience troupe, The Ballet Team, which toured nationally, and in 1969, became Dance Associate for the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) at the start of its grant-making Aid to Cultural Organizations project.

In 1972, he joined New York University's School of the Arts (later Tisch) as head of Dance, during which time he served as a Dance Panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).

Domaine (1974), was a gentle teasing of F.M. Esfandiary, a transhumanist philosopher on the New School faculty.

Boedromion (1974), for the George Faison Universal Dance Experience.

Beggar's Dance (1975), a duet with Susan McGuire to J.S. Bach and Longfellow's Hiawatha.

Other dances include Dance Lessons (1977) a trio for himself, Sara Hook and Kenneth Tosti, Brush (1982), a solo for Argentine dancer, Claudia Florian, White Knight, Black Night (1984) a duet with his daughter Catherine.

He was Dance Associate for the NY State Council on the Arts, dance panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, president of the National Association of Schools of Dance, and a member of the First American Dance Study Team to China in 1980, returning in 1992 to teach the Guangzhou modern dance troupe.

In 1983, he was asked to join the First American Dance Study Team to China.

He danced with younger choreographers including, DJ McDonald, Claire Porter, Stephan Koplowitz, and Gus Solomons, Jr. In 1985, he performed in Kathy Acker's The Birth of the Poet, directed by Richard Foreman in the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival.

From 1992 through 1996, he and his wife, Elizabeth Hodes, created and toured their one and two-person musical shows, traveling nationwide in Dancing on Air with Fred Astaire, La Musique de Piaf, Kurt Weill—Berlin to Broadway, Our Marlene (Marlene Dietrich), The Sound of Wings (Amelia Earhart), A Woman's World, Two Americans in Paris, and others.

Elizabeth performed The Sound of Wings, written by Hodes based on the life of Amelia Earhart.

I Thought You Were Dead, a duet co-choreographed and danced with Alice Teirstein, was named one of Ballet Review’s ten best dances of 1996.

In 2000 and 2001, they performed a two-person musical The O’Tooles Tonight!, written by Gayle Stahlhuth, and presented at the East Lynne Theater in Cape May, NJ.