Remembering Multifaceted Dance Artist Christian Holder, 1949–2025

Dancer, actor, cabaret singer, raconteur, choreographer, director, writer, designer, painter, teacher, practicing Buddhist: These were some of Christian Holder’s titles. Though best known as a star of the Joffrey Ballet, he was truly a man about town. 

Holder died in his home in London, England, on February 18. His death was confirmed by his friend and collaborator, Margo Sappington, and his cousin Leo Holder, though no details were provided.

Throughout his life, Holder’s personality and work were suffused with intelligence and extraordinary curiosity. A born leader, charismatic and kind, he was also a wit of the first order—a serious man who acknowledged the absurd. His eyes lit up when something outrageous or unexpected occurred in the studio. His laughter began as a titter and rose to a hilarious roar that invariably broke the tension in the room.

“There was a side to him other than his elegant, gentlemanly British manner,” Sappington says. “He had a wicked wit and a naughty, mischievous side that was hilarious and disarming.”

Born on June 18, 1949, in Trinidad, Holder was raised in London by his parents, Boscoe and Sheila Clarke Holder. They were part of an esteemed family of visual and performing artists that included the dance luminaries Geoffrey Holder and Carmen de Lavallade. As a child, Christian performed with his father’s company, Boscoe Holder and his Caribbean Dancers, even dancing on a barge in a flotilla at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II when he was just 3. He also appeared in films, television, and repertory theater.

Holder attended the Corona Academy Stage School, which taught the Russian Legat ballet method, and received private Cecchetti-method ballet lessons from Laura Wilson, who had danced with the Ballets Russes. In 1964, he went to New York City to attend the Martha Graham School on scholarship. He soon transferred to the High School of Performing Arts.

It was there that Robert Joffrey, a previous faculty member, took notice of Holder in class. Joffrey invited Holder to become an apprentice with the Joffrey Ballet. As a company member, Holder performed with the Joffrey from 1966–79, distinguishing himself in principal roles in ballets by Joffrey, Gerald Arpino, Kurt Jooss, Léonide Massine, Jerome Robbins, Alvin Ailey, and Sappington.

Measuring 6′ 4″, Christian Holder was a towering figure, and particularly imposing in ballets with contemporary rock scores. These works included Joffrey’s multimedia Astarte, Arpino’s paean to youth Trinity, and Sappington’s evocative Weewis.

While at the Joffrey, Holder also earned special acclaim for his interpretations of classic roles, like his nobly impassioned Moor in José Limón’s The Moor’s Pavane. Anna Kisselgoff, then a dance critic for The New York Times, described Holder’s portrayal of Death in Kurt Jooss’ The Green Table—a dance that depicts the futility of war—as “outstanding, capturing the weight and drive of the movement to suggest an inexorable pitilessness.”

As a choreographer, Holder created ballets for American Ballet Theatre, the Joffrey Ballet, Washington Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, and Ballet Concierto de Puerto Rico. Longtime Joffrey dancer Denise Jackson, who performed in Holder’s first choreographic work, 1975’s Five Dances, admired his desire to make the dancers part of the creative process. “I was a well-trained ballet dancer,” she says, “but Christian saw something else in me and encouraged me to tap into my own creativity. He nurtured my musicality and lyricism.” Ballerina Martine van Hamel, who knew Holder as both a dance partner and a choreographer, also admired Holder’s musical sensitivity. “His works were a pleasure to dance, so well-crafted and musical,” she says.

Holder designed costumes for dance and theater, including his own ballets, and for the performers Tina Turner, Ann Reinking, and Peter Allen. He was a beloved ballet teacher in New York City. He was fascinated by talent of all kinds, says Kevin McKenzie, a former Joffrey Ballet colleague and later American Ballet Theatre’s artistic director: “He loved that intangible thing about a creative life that drives people to express through art to some recognizable truth that resonates not just with him but the world in general.”

In 2009 Holder returned to London, where he explored other forms of artmaking. His paintings and designs were exhibited at a group gallery show in 2010, and he made his debut as a singer in his one-man cabaret, entitled At Home and Abroad, in 2015. Ballerina Naomi Sorkin, who called Holder an “artistic soulmate,” says she “watched him blossom as a cabaret performer from his first tentative dress rehearsal to being an incredibly accomplished communicator.” Holder wrote and directed Ida Rubinstein: The Final Act, a play about the great Ballets Russes dancer, which was performed at the Playground Theatre in 2021 with Sorkin in the title role. Over the years he wrote several pieces for Dance Magazine, and in 2024, Holder published a fine-art book about his father, entitled Boscoe Holder: Travels in Rhythm, A Life of Art and Dance.

It was a rich and expansive life—and Holder led it, says fellow Joffrey colleague and good friend Gary Chryst, “with passion, elegance, and integrity in every endeavor he undertook.”