Stuart Hodes RIP

[dirac]

Stuart Hodes has died at age 98.

The New York Times

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Mr. Hodes would connect the experience of working with Graham with that as a wartime pilot. Working with Graham was “life in the eye of the storm, at the epicenter of an earthquake,” he wrote in his wry, diaristic 2020 memoir, “Onstage With Martha Graham.” That intensity was what he needed: “Having flown and fought as a 19-year-old, I could live with nothing else.”

Dance Magazine

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Born in 1924 in New York City, Stuart Hodes Gescheidt attended Brooklyn Technical High School. He played violin in the school orchestra and joined the swim team. On his 18th birthday, in the midst of World War II, he was drafted and trained as a B-17 bomber pilot. He also got some writing practice with an army publication and later for a drama organization in Vermont. Hodes flew into the Graham orbit at the end of the war, joining her company four months after he took his first class. His robust presence graced her ballets from 1947 to 1958. You can see him as the Husbandman, bursting with optimism, in Appalachian Spring in this 1959 film.

Online obit with guest book comments.

PBS feature on Hodes

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We're revisiting the Brief But Spectacular take by choreographer and dancer Stuart Hodes who died last week at the age of 98. Hodes took his first dance lesson at the Martha Graham School after a stint as an aviator in World War II. He was still dancing two years ago when we featured his memoir "Onstage with Martha Graham." Here's another look at a life well-lived and beautifully danced

[volcanohunter]

Well-lived and beautifully danced indeed. May he rest in peace.

[duffster]

I knew Stuart Hodes briefly when I was a trainee at the Harkness Ballet School of the Arts. Mr. Hodes to us was a coordinator for our various lecture demonstrations that we performed at the high schools in NYC. He would drive us there and the experience was absolutely terrifying! He would fearlessly take us through the traffic - speeding, very quick turns etc. We were all happy when we arrived safely. Maybe the fact that he was a bomber pilot in WW2  had something to do with it. He was always positive and encouraging to us. I remember fondly greeting him when we had returned from a very long european tour with the Harkness after we had  been accepted into the company. We were like his children. I am so glad to have known him.

[dirac]

Thank you for that, duffster.