Benjamin Harkarvy, an internationally known choreographer and teacher who had been director of Juilliard's Dance Division since 1992, died of heart failure in New York's St. Luke's Hospital on March 30. He had collapsed while leaving the Juilliard building after a rehearsal earlier that week and was immediately hospitalized. Mr. Harkarvy had been receiving treatment this past year for a heart ailment. He was 71.

Benjamin Harkarvy

A native New Yorker, Mr. Harkarvy studied in New York at the School of American Ballet with various teachers including George Chaffee, Edward Caton, Antony Tudor, and Margaret Craske. He made his debut at 18 with the Brooklyn Lyric Opera during the 1949-50 season, and danced with several groups thereafter. From 1951-55 he taught at the Fokine School, after which he founded his own school in New York.

Artistic director and choreographer for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet beginning in 1957, he became ballet master of Netherlands Ballet in 1958, and in 1959 he co-founded the Nederlands Dans Theater, where he was choreographer and artistic co-director (with Hans van Manen) until 1969. He went on to be the co-director of the Harkness Ballet (with Lawrence Rhodes) and the Dutch National Ballet, before moving to the Pennsylvania Ballet in Philadelphia as associate director and then artistic director between 1973 and 1982. He choreographed for companies all over the world and was known for expecting his dancers to be competent in both modern dance as well as ballet.

As a master teacher and coach, he worked with some of the world's leading dancers and with organizations such as the Royal Danish Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, National Ballet of Spain, and the Nederlands Dans Theater. For six years he acted as director of the ballet project at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, conducting workshops in technique, choreography, and the art of the performer. Mr. Harkarvy was advisor to the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and to long-term collaborative projects with the Czech and Dutch ministries of culture. He also had participated in a number of Dutch Dance Days festivals as a teacher and panelist, and in 1999 took part in the satellite-linked conference titled Not Just Any Body, which was held at the National Ballet School of Canada in Toronto and connected with more than 10 European and North American cities. An occasional guest instructor for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Mr. Harkarvy also was a consultant to the educational program of the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival.

Mr. Harkarvy choreographed extensively for European, Canadian, and American television, and was the subject of a program in the WNET-TV series, The Creative Person. He received several National Endowment for the Arts and Rockefeller choreographic grants. As guest choreographer for the Juilliard Dance Ensemble in 1987, he created Prom Story, followed by Cinque Madrigali (1991) and Three Debussy Duets (1992). After becoming director of the Juilliard Dance Division in 1992, he restaged his ballets, Time Passed Summer, Recital for Cello and Eight Dancers, and Mozart K. 458.

Upon learning of Mr. Harkarvy's death, Joseph W. Polisi, president of The Juilliard School, stated: "Ben had a transformative impact on Juilliard's Dance Division, making our program an extraordinary mix of professional performance standards, choreographic innovation, and personal growth. All of the students who worked with him during his Juilliard years understand that they have known both an artistic giant and an individual of great humanity."

As director of the Dance Division, Mr. Harkarvy created a program for high school-age dancers, and increased options for Juilliard dancers interested in choreography. Juilliard's Summer Dance Intensive, begun in 1996, is a three-week program for dancers ages 15 to 17 who seek intensive training in both ballet and modern dance. The young dancers also have the rare opportunity to work with several choreographers, some of whom are making new works on them. He expanded opportunities for the college-age dancers, instituting programs for the dancers to work with choreographers first hand, and establishing courses that allow students to develop their own talent for creating dance. Mr. Harkarvy coached and directed Juilliard's Senior Production, a student-produced six-performance series presented each April, featuring the new creations of chosen seniors. A highlight of Juilliard's popular free lunchtime concert series, Wednesdays at One, is the annual January performance titled "Composers and Choreographers," presenting dances created by pairs of students from the Dance Division and composition department, mentored by Juilliard faculty members during the fall semester.

During the 2001-02 season, Juilliard celebrated the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Dance Division. In February, to mark the occasion, a Juilliard Theater program featured works by several prominent Juilliard dance alumni: Base Line, a world premiere by Robert Battle; the New York premiere of Minus 7 by Ohad Naharin; and Thus Is All, a new work by Lar Lubovitch. In addition to Juilliard's traditional four-night dance series by the students, Mr. Harkarvy instituted a December series highlighting the work of some of the most innovative choreographers of our time, in both conversation from the stage and performances focusing on the choreographer's particular style or technique and, whenever possible, personally directed by the choreographer. In recent years the work of Jacqulyn Buglisi and Donlin Foreman of Buglisi/Foreman Dance; Terry Creach and Creach/Company; two recent Juilliard alumni, Charlotte Griffin and Adam Hougland; Jirí Kylián; the late José Limón; Glen Tetley; and Hans van Manen have been presented in this series by Dance Division students. This year's series showcased the works of choreographers Margie Gillis and Pat Catterson. Each program also includes new choreography by current Juilliard dancers, from freshman through final year.

"The point of dance now and always is to be able to give eloquently to other people," Benjamin Harkarvy once told an interviewer for Dance Magazine. "What more could you ask?"

Mr. Harkarvy is survived by a brother and sister-in-law, Jerome C. and Gloria Golden of Merrick, L.I.; two nephews and a niece. A memorial service is scheduled for May 21 at The Juilliard School.