Christian Holder

Christian Holder (born 18 June 1949) is a British-Trinidadian artist who has worked in many fields – like his father Boscoe Holder: as a dancer, choreographer, actor, teacher, costume designer, writer, painter and singer. He is most notable as "one of the most iconic dancers of the Joffrey company in the 1970s, perhaps in its history."

Arthur Christian Holder was born in Trinidad into an artistic family, the son of Boscoe Holder and his wife Sheila Clarke Holder, who were both professional dancers. (His maternal grandmother was the actress and radio personality Kathleen Davis – known as "Aunty Kay" – and his uncle was the actor Geoffrey Holder.) The Holders moved to London when their son was an infant. Boscoe Holder, who later became a renowned painter, at the time ran a company called Boscoe Holder and his Caribbean Dancers, and throughout childhood Christian appeared with them, and on British television and in repertory theatre. As a four-year-old Christian danced with his father's company at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, and by the age of seven he had begun training in ballet, and aged 11 attended the Corona Academy Stage School. In an unfinished 1955 production of Moby Dick, directed by Orson Welles, Holder had the role of Pip the Cabin Boy.

In 1963 Holder was one of a select group of young dancers to be offered scholarships by Martha Graham to study at her school in New York City, so as to return to London "to be charter members of what was to become London Contemporary Dance Theatre". The following year his parents saw him off to the US.

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