Research Catalog

Interview with Merle Holloman

Title: Interview with Merle Holloman, 2020/ Conducted remotely by Laura Diffenderfer on December 1, 8, and 9, 2020; Producer: Dance Oral History Project
Author: Holloman, Merle
Publication: 2020

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Performing Arts Research Collections Dance to submit a request in person.	Moving image	Supervised use	*MGZMT 3-3500	Performing Arts Research Collections Dance

Details

Additional Authors

Diffenderfer, Laura

Description

3 streaming video files (approximately 5 hrs. 16 min.) : sound, color. +

Summary

Streaming file 1, December 1, 2020 (approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes). Merle Holloman speaks with Laura Diffenderfer about her family background and childhood including her full name Merle Elaine Holloman as well as the date (December 20, 1953) and place of her birth (Hartford, Connecticut) [interruption in Holloman's narrative]; her parents and their background; the importance placed on education and the arts in her family; her grandmother, in particular her pride in being Black and her stories of African-American history and lore; her father including how he eventually found his calling as a Baptist minister; her early dance training in Hartford, Connecticut, from age 3 to 12 [interruption in Holloman's narrative]; the inspirational effect of attending professional dance performances, in particular seeing young people dance in The nutcracker and a performance by ABT (American Ballet Theatre) of José Limón's The Moor's pavane; her natural progression to a career in dance: attending the Austin School for Girls (in a performing arts program associated with the Hartford Ballet), performing with professional companies in her senior year, and moving to New York City (in 1971) with the goal of becoming a professional dancer [interruption in Holloman's narrative]; her shyness as a reason she liked to express herself through dance; taking class at both the New York City Ballet School [School of American Ballet] and American Ballet Theatre [then associated with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet school?] [interruption in Holloman's narrative]; her father's financial support; [interruption in Holloman's narrative]; her experience with racism at auditions including with David Howard at the Harkness Ballet School; how this led her to audition, successfully, for the Joffrey Ballet School (around 1972); some of her teachers including William Griffith and Héctor Zaraspe; Robert Joffrey's initial encouragement followed by his telling her (at her company audition) to join Dance Theatre of Harlem because the Joffrey Ballet already had a Black dancer; auditioning successfully for the Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble [now Ailey II]; reminiscences of Alvin Ailey; her unhappiness with being a ballet-trained dancer in a modern dance company and her resultant depression; leaving the company and taking a months-long break from dance, which ended with her taking classes at the Harkness Ballet School; joining Ballet Hispanico [of New York]; an anecdote about Tina Ramirez and learning how to use castanets; her salary and rent at the time (1977); the pleasure of dancing with Ballet Hispanico and working with Talley Beatty and Geoffrey Holder; the sea change in her attitude toward herself as a dancer when she joined Ballet Hispanico; Tina Ramirez including her perfectionism [interruption in Holloman's narrative]; her admiration for Ramirez; reminiscences of Ballet Hispanico including the tour in Paris (France) and performing on the streets in New York City as part of the dance mobile; more on her experiences in Paris, in particular as a tourist; audience responses to performances at Symphony Space and the Delacorte Theater; reminiscences of daily life when she was in Ballet Hispanico [interruption in Holloman's narrative] including the impact of the mass transit strike and the (1977) black-out as well as the lack of air conditioning in the studios [interruption in Diffenderfer's narrative]; leaving Ballet Hispanico in 1980 for the Toronto Dance Theatre; meeting Margot Fonteyn and seeing Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev in class [at the American Ballet Theatre school] as one of her most memorable experiences.
Streaming file 2, December 8, 2020 (approximately 1 hour and 43 minutes). Merle Holloman speaks with Laura Diffenderfer about her mother's passion for painting including how this contributed to her parents' divorce; her and her mother's close relationship with her step-mother; her mother's move to New York City (in 1979); her mother's love of abstract painting and her view of herself as an artist who happened to be Black (rather than a Black artist) including how this influenced Merle; the Duke Ellington Festival [at Lincoln Center, in 1976] where she met Dianne McIntyre, Gus Solomons jr and Milton Myers; some of the works choreographed for the Festival including McIntyre's Strange fruit and Alvin Ailey's duet [Pas de Duke] for Mikhail Baryshnikov and Judith Jamison; an anecdote about seeing Baryshnikov dance without knowing who he was; her background in music including her classes at the Manhattan School of Music and singing role in Donald McKayle's work Games; her impressions of Cabbagetown, the Toronto neighborhood where she lived; Patricia Beatty, David Earle, and Peter Randazzo, the founders of Toronto Dance Theatre, including how her perception of them changed after seeing a video recording about the company [possibly the 1971 film Dance class produced by the National Film Board of Canada and directed by Joan Henson]; Christopher House, the choreographer with whom she worked most frequently; Earle including his creating a work [Dido and Aeneas] for her; the greater interest Canadians seemed to have in the New York dance world than in home-grown companies like Toronto Dance Theatre; Canada's pride in being a mosaic of peoples rather than a melting pot; diversity in the company including dancers of Asian, African, and Caribbean origin; her transition to dance theater including why it felt natural for her; around 1986 or 1987 using a grant from the Ontario Arts Council to study in New York, including at the Limón school; during this time performing in works choreographed by David Rousseve, her former colleague at Toronto Dance Theater; also working with Dianne McIntyre including her role in the collaborative dance-theater work In living colors (written by McIntyre and Oyamo, with choreography by McIntyre and music by Dara Olu); her decision to leave Toronto Dance Theater in part because she felt she was at risk of losing roles to younger dancers; touring, including the frank comments she heard about Americans; examples of racism she saw in Canada including Klu Klux Klan cross-burnings in British-Columbia and violence directed at Pakistanis; after leaving Toronto Dance Theatre, joining Dancemakers, then under the direction of Bill James; also performing at this time (around 1989) in New York for Rousseve and McIntyre; performing in a duet [title not given] choreographed by Gus Solomons jr on the day Alvin Ailey died (December 1, 1989); in 1990 returning to New York City when her mother became seriously ill; occasionally returning to Canada to teach and to perform; how taking classes in Limón technique with Michael Blake led to her auditioning with Carla Maxwell and joining the José Limón Dance Company; during one of her independent periods, dancing with David Gordon in his work Silent movie [Silent movie: work in progress] at the [1996] Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival; (briefly) her experience as a member of the José Limón Dance Company; the concept of dance as a means of spiritual expression and a vehicle for bringing light to dark places, as illustrated by Ailey's Revelations [interruption in Holloman's narrative]; the significance of Revelations for herself and for Ailey as well as its place in dance and cultural history; her growing awareness of the intersection of faith and dance, in particular as expressed in Ailey's and Limón's works.
Streaming file 3, December 9, 2020 (approximately 2 hours and 3 minutes). Merle Holloman speaks with Laura Diffenderfer about the approximately five years (beginning in 1992) she danced with the José Limón Dance Company: (briefly) Carla Maxwell, the director; the names of the other company members; the novelty of being in a company where so many of the dancers had spouses and children; Limón's philosophy of dance including as expressed in the book Dance is a moment [Dance is a moment : a portrait of José Limón in words and pictures, 1993]; touring, including the Russian audience's enthusiastic response to her performance of the "Russian period Isadora Duncan" [in Limón's Dances for Isadora]; touring in Mexico, including in Limón's hometown Culiacán [interruption in Holloman's narrative]; Mexico City where they performed at [Palacios de] Bellas Artes; choreographers who worked with the company including Donald McKayle, who created a solo for her [in his Sombra y sol (Images of Frida Kahlo)], Ralph Lemon, and Phyllis Lamhut; her impressions of Lamhut and her choreography; how the staging of Limón works on the company by original Limón dancers including Betty Jones and Pauline Koner heightened her understanding of Limón's technique, choreography, and theatricality; the sense of physical satisfaction and spirituality she found when dancing the characteristic upward spiral movements of Limón's choreography [interruption in Holloman's narrative]; Garth Fagan and his solo for her [in his work Never no lament?]; Fagan's working methods including his telling the dancers not to count; her realization upon looking at photographs of herself in performance that she had had many solos and that her strong stage presence was probably why she was so rarely partnered; Holloman shows and discusses two photographs of herself dancing the solo from Christopher House's work Fleet; she shows and discusses a performance photograph of In a moment of harvest, a Noh-inspired solo she choreographed for herself as part of a Toronto Dance Theatre workshop, including an anecdote about James Kudelka's comment on the dance; she speaks about learning to value her strong points; she shows and discusses a photograph of herself at the barre in class (when she was at the Limón company); shows and discusses a photograph of herself in the Greeting dance from Limón's Choreographic offering; speaks about being let go by the company in the spring of 1996; at the urging of Phyllis Lamhut, interviewing with Haila Strauss in 1997, and being hired to teach full time at Marymount Manhattan College; her transition from dancer to teacher including a semester (during a layoff from the Limón company) in Gothenburg, Sweden, where she taught dance to university students; her acceptance that her performing career had ended when she began teaching at Marymount Manhattan College [interruption in Holloman's narrative]; staging Geoffrey Holder's Danse Creole on her students [interruption in Holloman's narrative]; Holder's coaching and rehearsal of the students; reminiscences of Holder; the circumstances that led to her studying ASL (American Sign Language) around 2002 as part of an unsuccessful attempt to keep her position at Marymount Manhattan College (which she left in 2003); in 2006 starting to take classes in ASL at the Sign Language Center in Manhattan; getting to know and discovering connections from her past to the deaf community [interruption in Holloman's narrative]; the powerful experience of seeing Alexandria Wailes, one of her first ASL teachers, perform in a 2019 revival of [Ntozake Shange's] For colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf [interruption in Holloman's narrative]; reasons she likes communicating with ASL including its expressiveness and directness; guest teaching until she had hip-replacement surgery in 2004 [interruption in Holloman's narrative]; becoming a licensed New York City tour guide, initially with CitySights NY [interruption in Holloman's narrative]; the steady deterioration in working conditions [interruption in Holloman's narrative]; leaving CitySights in 2006 for her current job as a guide at the Empire State Building; working as a guide compared to her former careers as a dancer and teacher [interruption in Holloman's narrative]; meeting Michelle Obama, her mother (Marian Robinson), and her daughters (Malia and Sasha) when they visited the Empire State Building in 2010 [interruption in Holloman's narrative]; more on the Obamas' visit; Mikhail Baryshnikov's visit in 2017; the elements her current job has in common with performing [interruption in Holloman's narrative]; racist incidents including her (above-described) audition with Robert Joffrey and her audition with Paul Taylor; her surprise that she encountered racism in a modern dance company (as contrasted to ballet where she had come to expect it); overcoming her initial defeatism in the face of racism to succeed as a dancer; how her conceptions of God and faith give her hope and strength; reflections on her career including her feeling that she has always been led (rather than deciding), the inspiration she has found in her mother and grandmother and how performing has enriched her; an anecdote about how she came to ask Laura to be the interviewer for this oral history.

Alternative Title

Dance Oral History Project.
Dance Audio Archive.

Subject

Genre/Form

Video recordings.
Oral histories.

Note

Interview with Merle Holloman (in New York, N,Y,) conducted remotely by Laura Diffenderfer (in New York, N,Y.) on December 1, 8, and 9, 2020, for the Dance Oral History Project of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
For transcript see *MGZMT 3-3500
As of March 2023, the video recording of this interview can be made available at the Library for the Performing Arts by advanced request to the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, dance@nypl.org. The video files for this interview are undergoing processing and eventually will be available for streaming.
Title supplied by cataloger.

Access (note)

Transcripts may not be photographed or reproduced without permission.

Funding (note)

The creation and cataloging of this recording was made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Call Number

*MGZMT 3-3500

OCLC

1372647778

Author

Holloman, Merle, Interviewee.

Title

Interview with Merle Holloman, 2020/ Conducted remotely by Laura Diffenderfer on December 1, 8, and 9, 2020; Producer: Dance Oral History Project

Imprint

2020

Playing Time

051600

Type of Content

spoken word

two-dimensional moving image

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

video

computer

Type of Carrier

online resource

volume

Digital File Characteristics

video file

Restricted Access

Transcripts may not be photographed or reproduced without permission.

Event

Recorded for for the Dance Oral History Project of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts 2020, December 1, 8, and 9 New York (N.Y.).

Funding

The creation and cataloging of this recording was made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Connect to:

Added Author

Diffenderfer, Laura, Interviewer.

Research Call Number

*MGZMT 3-3500

*MGZDOH 3500

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