Lucas Hoving

Lucas Hoving (September 5, 1912 – January 5, 2000) was a Dutch-born modern dancer, choreographer, and teacher who built a career spanning Broadway performance, concert dance, and international dance education. Born Lucas Philippus Hovinga in Groningen, the Netherlands, he trained with Florrie Rodrigo and Yvonne Georgi in Amsterdam before receiving a scholarship to the Jooss School in Dartington, England. With the Jooss Ballet he performed the role of the Standard Bearer in the company's production of "The Green Table."

When the Jooss Company traveled to New York in 1941, Hoving used the tour to study at the Martha Graham School. Following the company's disbandment at the onset of World War II, Graham invited him to join her own company, where he appeared in "Letter to the World," her tribute to Emily Dickinson, in late 1941. His Broadway career began in 1942 with Catherine Littlefield's production of A Kiss for Cinderella. He then joined the Dutch Armed Forces in exile, serving in the European campaign as a wireless operator and interpreter. In 1946 he appeared in the Arthur J. Rank film London Town, choreographed by Agnes de Mille, who subsequently brought him back to the United States to perform in her Broadway production of The Rape of Lucretia. His additional Broadway credits included Beggar's Holiday, Bloomer Girl, and The Sound of Music, with his appearances on Broadway spanning 1942 to 1959.

Hoving had met his wife, Lavina Nielsen, a native of St. Louis, Missouri, at the Jooss School, and the two married in 1943. Back in New York following his wartime service, he and Nielsen toured a nightclub act together and appeared jointly in several Broadway productions as well as in works by the José Limón Company throughout the 1950s.

Hoving first encountered José Limón in a New York ballet class in 1946, and Limón invited him to join his newly formed company the following year. Hoving became an original member of the José Limón Dance Company and performed opposite Limón in several of the company's most celebrated works, among them "The Moor's Pavane" (1949), "The Traitor" (1954), and "Emperor Jones" (1956). Dance scholar and critic Ann Murphy credited Hoving and Limón's stage partnership with expanding the terrain of modern dance by bringing unprecedented depth to male expression and to the portrayal of men in relationship to one another, and identified their collaboration as laying groundwork for later male dance partnerships, including that of Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane in the 1980s. Beyond his work with Limón, Hoving performed in works by Kurt Jooss, Martha Graham, Agnes de Mille, Doris Humphrey, and Helen Tamiris.

In 1961 Hoving founded his own dance company, which toured throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. Among the works he created for the company, "Icarus" became one of the best known and was later revived by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Jooss Company, among others. He also choreographed for Bat-Dor of Israel, Kulberg Balletten of Sweden, Grand Ballet Canadiennes of Canada, Ballet Nacional of Mexico, and the Ailey company.

In 1971 the Dutch government invited Hoving to return to the Netherlands, where he became Director of the Rotterdam Dansacademie and later Supervisor of Dance Education for the Dutch Government. Over the following two decades he conducted teaching residencies and workshops at institutions including Juilliard, Germany's Folkwang Hochschule, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, and the American Dance Festival. In 1981 he relocated to San Francisco, California, where he established the Lucas Hoving Performance Group. He returned to performing in 1984 with an autobiographical monologue titled "Growing up in Public," conceived and directed by his colleague Remy Charlip.