Born in New York City on April 24, 1905, Helen Becker began taking dance lessons at eight. She later studied with Michel Fokine and Rosina Galli, and under the latter she danced for three seasons with the Metropolitan Opera. By that time she had adopted the stage name Tamiris. She later toured South America as a ballerina with the Bracale Opera Company and appeared as a specialty dancer with the Music Box Revue in New York. After a brief period at Isadora Duncan╒s school in New York she made her concert debut in Dance Moods in 1927. During a European tour in 1928 she introduced American folk music and Negro spirituals at the Salzburg Festival; she appeared also in Berlin and Paris. In 1930 she organized her own dance company in New York, with which she appeared annually, and a school of dance that she directed until 1945.
During 1930╨1932 Tamiris headed the Dance Repertory Theatre, which produced concerts jointly with Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and other choreographers. Her dance works of the period were deeply concerned with social issues and protest and bore such titles as Cycle of Unrest, Salut au monde, How Long Brethren?, and Porterhouse Lucy Ballet. Largely through her efforts as first president of the American Dance Association, dance was included in the program of the Federal Theater Project of the Works Progress Administration. During 1937╨1939 she was the principal choreographer for the Federal Theater Project of New York. She and her company appeared at the Rainbow Room of Radio City in 1942╨1943.
In 1943 Tamiris began choreographing for Broadway; shows to which she contributed included It╒s Up to You, 1943, Up in Central Park, 1944, Show Boat, 1945, Annie Get Your Gun, 1946, Park Avenue, 1946, Inside U.S.A., 1948, Touch and Go, for which she won a Tony Award, 1949, and Plain and Fancy, 1955. Later she returned to concert work and continued to create dances in her characteristically vigorous manner on American themes. Others of her dance pieces included Bayou Ballads, Liberty Song, and Dance for Walt Whitman. In 1960 she formed the Tamiris-Nagrin Dance Company with her partner and husband, Daniel Nagrin. She died in New York City on August 4, 1966.
