Lucas Hoving: The circle that goes around

Lucas Hoving was a major force in the development of European and American modern dance after World War II. This work contains a biographical description in Lucas Hoving's efforts to give dance, and modern dance in particular, a more humanistic content and image. Lucas Hoving was the first man after Jose Limon to enter the Jose Limon Dance Company in 1948. This gave Limon the opportunity to develop his choreography through the use of opposite and complementary characters. The two men developed a relationship on stage unusual in the history of contemporary dance. Subconsciously, through his dancing, Lucas Hoving made a major contribution to the emancipation of the male dancer. Through his sincerity, his open mind, his child-like approach to life and dance, Lucas Hoving was able to create roles reflecting the inner struggles of human beings on stage; that happened in his own performance, and through the dancers on whom he set his choreography. In his teaching, Lucas Hoving managed to take his students by the hand, and guide them through their exploration of movement. He was with them when searching for and discovering freedom in movement, and when trying to create their own voice, their own movement vocabulary. His greatness resides in his ability to approach and reach modern dance students, colleagues and audiences on a human level. He succeeded in exchanging the deeper experiences every human being has through movement, and encouraging people to develop a real voice of their own. Because Lucas Hoving's roots lay in The Netherlands, and his growth as a mature artist and inspiring teacher took place in the United States of America, Lucas Hoving was able to integrate the best of two worlds in a language of his own. Throughout his long career, touring, performing and teaching all over the world Lucas Hoving kept fertilizing dance worlds on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.