On February 22, 2025, Telegraph Obituaries featured an article on Christian Holder (born 18 June 1949; died 18 February 2025) who “performed aged three for Queen Elizabeth II and helped to make the Joffrey Ballet company the hottest ticket in New York.” Here are excerpts; read full obituary at The Telegraph.
Christian Holder, who has died aged 75, was born into a supremely talented artistic Trinidadian family, grew up in London, and made his name as a dancer, choreographer, actor, costume designer, writer, artist and singer.
During the late 1960s and 1970s Holder was one of the stars of the New York Joffrey Ballet company, which was founded in Chicago by Robert Joffrey in 1956 and grew into one of the world’s most exciting ballet troupes. The Joffrey made its mark by combining modern dance with traditional ballet technique, setting ballets to rock and pop music and resurrecting pieces such as Nijinsky’s Rite of Spring whose choreography had been thought lost. With Gary Chryst, Holder helped to make the Joffrey Ballet the hottest company in New York during a time of political and cultural upheaval.
The company made its first visit to Britain in 1971 to perform in a revival of Kurt Jooss’s 1932 anti-war ballet The Green Table, a masterpiece of German modern dance which drew on the medieval danse macabre. Jooss personally trained Holder for the lead role of Death, and as the Telegraph’s reviewer observed, “everything was dominated” by his performance: “He was commanding, sinister, tender and violent as the situation demanded, and was in fact the best Death I have ever seen.”
A few days later a Telegraph interviewer observed of Holder that while he was “tall for a dancer, about 6ft 5in, he exudes a leopard-like feeling of controlled power, and the so-English voice comes as something of a surprise from the black features draped in flowing kaftan and copper bracelets.” [. . .]
Arthur Christian Holder was born in Trinidad on June 18, 1949, the son of Boscoe Holder and his wife Sheila, née Clarke, both professional dancers. Like his son, Boscoe Holder would enjoy an international career as a designer, dancer, choreographer and musician, including hosting his own BBC television show, Bal Creole, in 1950. Openly bisexual at a time when homosexuality was frowned upon (and illegal), he later forged a reputation as Trinidad’s leading contemporary painter, specialising in erotically charged male nudes.
Other notable family members included Christian’s maternal grandmother, the actress and radio personality Kathleen Davis – known as “Aunty Kay” – and his uncle Geoffrey Holder, an actor-director and artist best known for his role as the terrifying Haitian Voodoo priest Baron Samedi in the 1973 Bond movie Live And Let Die. [. . .]
In 1963 he won a scholarship to the Martha Graham School in New York, soon transferring to the city’s High School for the Performing Arts, where in 1966 he was spotted by Robert Joffrey, who immediately offered him an apprenticeship with his company.
As well as Death in The Green Table, Holder’s roles during his 13 years with the Joffrey Ballet included the commanding robed figure in Gerald Arpino’s Trinity and the Moor in Jose Limon’s The Moor’s Pavane, based on Othello. When he performed the role as part of a “Ballet Stars of America” season at Sadler’s Wells in 1981, the Telegraph’s reviewer singled out his “superb performance”, noting that “he looked convincingly African as he brought out with great intensity Othello’s pride, suffering and tortured love and jealousy.” [. . .]
After retiring from the Joffrey Ballet, from 1979 to 1981 he appeared as guest solo dancer with San Francisco Opera, dancing in productions starring Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo. During his time on stage he had also worked behind the scenes as a choreographer and costume designer, and after he went freelance this part of his work assumed greater prominence.
He choreographed San Francisco opera productions of The Merry Widow with Dame Joan Sutherland, and Aida, and ballets including Weren’t We Fools? and Les Liaisons Dangereuses for American Ballet Theatre, and Transcendence for Atlanta Ballet. He designed costumes for works including Margo Sappington’s Toulouse-Lautrec (2000) for the Ballet du Capitole in Toulouse, and for performers including Tina Turner and Ann Reinking.
Holder wrote and directed a play entitled Ida Rubinstein: The Final Act and wrote the book and lyrics for a musical play inspired by the life of Baudelaire. He taught ballet around the US, and in 2006, as part of the Joffrey Ballet’s 50th-anniversary celebrations, he trod the stage in a production of Sir Frederick Ashton’s Cinderella as one of the ugly stepsisters, along with Gary Chryst.
In 2009 Holder returned to live in London where in 2010 his paintings and designs were exhibited alongside the work of his father and of Oliver Messel, a family friend. [. . .]
In 2016 the V&A hosted an event entitled “Christian Holder: A Life in Performance, New York and London”, and in 2020 an exhibition of his paintings and those of his father was held at Campbell’s of London in South Kensington. [. . .]
For full article, see https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2025/02/22/christian-holder-joffrey-ballet-boscoe-obituary/
[Photo above: Christian Holder in 1976 Credit: Jack Mitchell/Getty Images.]
On February 22, 2025, Telegraph Obituaries featured an article on Christian Holder (born 18 June 1949; died 18 February 2025) who “performed aged three for Queen Elizabeth II and helped to make the Joffrey Ballet company the hottest ticket in New York.” Here are excerpts; read full obituary at The Telegraph. Christian Holder, who has