Hanya Holm; Choreographer for Broadway Musicals

Hanya Holm, a Broadway choreographer who created the dances for such classic musicals as “My Fair Lady,” “Camelot” and “Kiss Me, Kate,” has died. She was 99.

Miss Holm, who also designed modern dance masterworks such as the 1937 “Trend,” died Tuesday of pneumonia in a New York hospital.

Her work for Cole Porter’s “Kiss Me, Kate” in 1952 was the first choreography to be copyrighted.

A native of Worms, Germany, the former Johanna Eckert had co-founded the Hanya Holm School of Dance and also taught at the Bennington College Summer School of Dance and the forerunner of the American Dance Festival. She had taught at Colorado College until 1983.

In 1985, Miss Holm won a special $36,000 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, which cited her as “one of the original pioneers of modern dance.” She used the grant to create a piece for the Don Redlich Dance Co.

In 1958, she was honored by the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies for her contributions to modern dance. She won the New York Drama Critics Award in 1948, the Samuel H. Scrips American Dance Festival Award in 1984 and the Astaire Award in 1987.