Stuart Hodes, dancer, choreographer, instructor, dance administrator, and University Press of Florida author, has passed away at age 98. Hodes danced with the Martha Graham Dance Company from 1946 to 1958, and his career spanned more than six decades.
After serving as a bomber pilot in World War II, Stuart Hodes started his dance career with Martha Graham, an icon of modern dance. He danced on Broadway, in TV, film, in recitals, and with his own troupe. His choreography was performed by the Boston Ballet, Dallas Ballet, Harkness Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and other troupes. He taught at the Martha Graham School, Neighborhood Playhouse, and NYC High School of Performing Arts and headed dance at NYU School of the Arts and Borough of Manhattan Community College. He was dance associate for the New York 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.
Hodes wrote about his life experiences in his memoir, Onstage with Martha Graham, which was published by the University Press of Florida in 2021. In this book, Hodes shared his delight in dance as both hard work and a fantastic adventure.
Hodes appeared on PBS NewsHour in 2021, where he offered a “Brief but Spectacular” take on dancing into old age.
Read more about Hodes’s life in the New York Times.
Onstage with Martha Graham
The Florida Bookshelf 