Peter Hamilton (July
17, 1915 - January 31, 2006) was a dancer who performed with
Charles Weidman and in Broadway musicals.Partner Don Liberto
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Peter Hamilton (July
17, 1915 - January 31, 2006) was a dancer who performed with
Charles Weidman and in Broadway musicals.
Peter Hamilton was born in Trenton, N.J., and discovered dance in his 20's when he got a job cleaning at the Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts Camp in Steamboat Springs, Colo. He studied acting and dancing there and came into contact with Weidman and Doris Humphrey, leading modernists of the time, with whom he performed as a lead dancer from 1941 to 1945.
When José Limón arrived in New York City in 1929, he Limón joined the Humphrey/Weidman Dance Company, a membership he held for ten years. During that decade, it was an open secret in the dance world that Limón and Charles Weidman were romantic partners. Their break up in 1940 was a primary reason for Limón leaving the company. Humphrey/Weidman Dance company alumna, Nona Schurman comments: Limón and Charles had been together, of course, for years at the Tenth St. ménage as we used to call it, the Tenth Street apartment, and so apparently, Charles apparently got infatuated with Peter Hamilton, José says it's either Pete or me. So, Charles made up his mind and said it's Pete. Limón left the company and moved to the San Francisco area for two years, choreographing and producing concerts with May O'Donnell, from the Graham Company, and her husband, the musical composer, Ray Green.
In an interview with Marion Horosko, dancer Peter Hamilton recounts his introduction to the Humphrey/Weidman Company: They all lived on 10th Street at that point. A large household. Charles and Doris and Pauline Lawrence, and José, and Betty Joiner our costume designer, and Perkins Harnley another designer, they all lived in a very large apartment... Doris had just married Leo. And that kind of fascinated me too, as an outsider. A kind of design for living... I felt that they all lived separate lives in separate cocoons in separate rooms and they only had one meeting time, like in the evening. Where they would discuss a ballet, or dinner, and they would all go their own separate ways. It wasn't the kind of family where they were necessarily intertwined as a family in a living room or that kind of thing. I don't think they even saw each other for breakfast. But their design for living was for their art.
Hamilton danced with Weidman until 1960. His career in the commercial theater included appearances as a soloist at Radio City Music Hall, at the Rainbow Room and on Broadway in shows including "Sing Out Sweet Land!," for which he won a Donaldson Award as a promising young performer.
Peter Hamilton January 31, 2006. He was 90 and lived in Manhattan. The cause was complications of Parkinson's disease, said Don Liberto, his companion of 62 years and only immediate survivor.
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