Linda Hodes

Linda Hodes Margolies (June 3, 1931 – August 10, 2025) was an American dancer and dance educator born in Manhattan, New York. She began studying dance at age nine at the Martha Graham School in New York, an institution that would shape the entire arc of her professional life.

Hodes danced with Martha Graham and Company from 1947 to 1958, and her Broadway appearance with the company came in 1960. Her early immersion in Graham's technique established her as a trusted interpreter and transmitter of that choreographic tradition. In 1964, Graham sent her to Israel as her assistant to help found a modern dance repertory company under the patronage of Batsheva de Rothschild and to oversee preparations for the Batsheva Company's debut performing Graham's works. Hodes returned to Israel in 1965 to coach the company's dancers in Graham repertoire, including "The Garden," "War Percentage," and "The Amusement of the Angels," and subsequently chose to settle permanently in the country.

She remained with the Batsheva Company through 1970 in the combined roles of dancer, teacher, and rehearsal director, and served as associate artistic director intermittently from 1971 to 1974. She also held responsibility for Graham's repertoire at Batsheva until 1975. In 1970, following her retirement from performing at Batsheva, she worked as a guest choreographer at the Rambert Ballet in London and as a teacher and rehearsal director at the Nederlands Dans Theater in the Netherlands. In 1974 she returned to Batsheva to dance in Graham's work and also directed the School of Dance and company of Lia Schubert and Kai Lotman in Haifa.

Her teaching career extended across numerous institutions, including the Juilliard School of Dance, the Neighborhood Playhouse, the American Dance Festival, the Bat-Dor School of Dance, the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, and the Inbal Dance Theater. In 1975 she returned to New York to become director of the Martha Graham School of Dance, where she also served as rehearsal director and, from 1979 to 1991, as co-artistic director. She subsequently took on stewardship of Graham's broader legacy. From 1992 to 1998, Hodes served as rehearsal director of Paul Taylor's company and as artistic director of Taylor II.

Hodes was married to American dancer Stuart Hodes, with whom she had two daughters, Catherine and Martha. The couple divorced in 1964, after which she married Ehud Ben David in Israel. She died in Manhattan on August 10, 2025, at the age of 94.