Holly Eckert

Holly Eckert did not study at a prestigious dance school as a child; instead she grew up poor in the tiny, mountain town of McCall, Idaho where a wonderful, former dancer from The New York Ballet happened to run a small dance studio. Most of the town locals called this woman a “witch”. With the help of several scholarships, Holly got herself to college. She graduated from The Evergreen State College in 1989 with a combined degree in political science and dance.

Out of college, she moved to Seattle and began her professional career dancing for local choreographers. She began making dances in 1993, pursuing her artistic goal of “exploring substantive subject matter through the medium of movement.” She choreographed pieces of all lengths about things like the history of the body, new physics, the phenomena of time, and the mysteries of math. In 2008, she completed her largest work to date, a full-length, original musical that she choreographed, directed, and co-wrote. Entitled, The Exile Project, this innovative musical theater production took as its subject the complex topic of the growing U.S, prison industrial complex. Audiences loved it, calling it things like: "an incredible performance," "gripping and entertaining," and "fresh theater that delights."

In the midst of making great art and caring for her family, fate handed her the challenge of epilepsy at age 34. From the day she discovered that, through many years, her life became a journey of personal growth. Why was this happening? What should she do? Who was she now that she seized? These were some questions she asked herself in the face of her new reality.

Her walk with chronic illness became one of awakening and healing. In it, she learned many lessons in life while confronting the flaws, ignorance and corruption permeating the American medical industry and sensing, first hand, the resiliency of the human mind and body. Over time, she realized that illness does play important, positive roles in a human life. It can give as much as it takes away.

Knowing she could write as well as dance, she decided to tell her tale through words not movements. She wrote her first book, “SEIZED – Searching for Health In the United States”. Readers have given it great reviews. It can be purchased on-line and in local Seattle bookstores. It’s also in libraries around the country available for check-out.