Holly Hynes

Biography

Holly Hynes is an accomplished costume designer with over 170 ballets to her credit, including more than 60 at New York City Ballet. Ms. Hynes’ designs are also on view in companies around the world, including American Ballet Theatre; National Ballet of Canada; The Kirov Ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia; The Royal Ballet in London; The Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen; Koninklijk Ballet van Vlaanderen in Antwerp, Belgium; San Francisco Ballet; Houston Ballet; BalletMet, Columbus, Ohio; Pennsylvania Ballet, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Ballet Vancouver, Canada; Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Canada; American Repertory Ballet, Princeton, New Jersey; Pacific Northwest Ballet, Seattle, Washington; Atlanta Ballet, Georgia; Nashville Ballet, Tennessee; Ballet Pacifica, California; Chamber Dance Project, New York; Dance Galaxy, New York; Ballet Florida, Miami, Florida; Alberta Ballet, Canada; Joffrey Ballet, Chicago, Illinois and the Suzanne Farrell Ballet at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where she currently serves as the resident costume designer.

Ms. Hynes’ theatrical designs include two Broadway productions at Circle in the Square Theatre: “On Borrowed Time,” directed by George C. Scott, and George Bernard Shaw’s “Getting Married,” as well as a dozen plays and musicals at the off-Broadway York Theatre. Her opera designs include La Gioconda and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, including Christopher Wheeldon’s Dance of the Hours; and The Music Master, Gerard Schwarz, conducting.

For 21 years Ms. Hynes served as the Director of Costumes for New York City Ballet. Recognized as a leading authority in the reproduction of important ballet works, the Jerome Robbins Estate and the George Balanchine Trust have entrusted her to represent all parties, as the primary authority for original costume reproduction. This has involved many companies both here and abroad including the Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen, Denmark; Ballet de l’Opéra National de Paris, France; Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse, France; The Bavarian State Ballet, Munich, Germany; The Cincinnati Ballet, Ohio; San Francisco Ballet, California; The Birmingham Royal Ballet, Birmingham, England; The Royal Ballet, London, England; Miami City Ballet, Florida; La Scala Theatre Ballet, Milan, Italy; Dutch National Ballet, Amsterdam; Hamburg Ballet, Germany; Staatsballett Berlin, Germany; and the Mariinsky Ballet, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

In 2007, her thoughts on designing for the ballet were archived in a video titled, “Speaking of Dancing” for the Jerome Robbins dance division of the New York Public Library Library for the Performing Arts in New York City.

Four of her costume renderings remain as part of the permanent collection of the Theatre Wing of the Museum of the City of New York. She has exhibited renderings and watercolors in two gallery shows at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and has had six of her costumes featured on covers of the 1994-95 New York State Theater Playbills, also at Lincoln Center. Ms. Hynes’ designs for six miniature ballerina dolls were featured in the 1996 Christmas decorations at the White House and will remain in the permanent collection of the President William Jefferson Clinton Library in Little Rock, Arkansas. In 1997, she was honored with a one-woman show of her costumes, sketches and photographs at the Marvin Cone Galleries, at Coe College, her alma mater, located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. From 2008 to 2009, three of her costumes for dance were featured in “CURTAIN CALL: Celebrating a Century of Women Designing for Live Performance,” an exhibition shown at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts, New York, NY.