Claudia met Hanya Holm while searching for her artistic roots. Her first modern dance teachers, Alfred Books, Maxine Munt and Louise Kloepper, had trained with Holm and their "family" of modern dance always made most sense to Claudia. In 1958, she sought out Holm's former assistant Alwin Nikolais at the Henry Street Playhouse in New York and with his blessings she began taking classes with Holm as well. One day after class in 1960 Holm invited Gitelman to audition for Camelot, which Holm was soon to choreograph. Gitelman passed all levels of the auditions and found herself in the Broadway production. However, a husband was in the wings, and Claudia left the show after one year to join him in Boston. Howard and their three daughters remained an important and stable part of Claudia's life as her professional career progressed. In New York City in 1971, she was invited to teach at the Alwin Nikolais/Murray Louis Dance Theater Lab, now located in expanded quarters at the Space for Innovative Development. It was there that Claudia met Holm again, for Nikolais had invited his former teacher to give master classes at his school. When Holm needed a teaching assistant at her summer dance institute, she invited Claudia to join her in Colorado to teach and choreograph. Then began an intense three-year working relationship, the high point of which was the creation of Homage to Mahler in the summer of 1976.

 

Gitelman remembers:  Rehearsals for Homage to Mahler began with long discussions of the music and text and Holm insisted that I understand the meaning and implication of the poetry, and hear the tonal correspondence she heard in Mahler's setting. I became impatient with the lengthy analyses and descriptions she provided. When we went into the studio, however, the dance came together in three rehearsals and I understood that Holm was preparing herself, as well as me, for the inevitability of the choices she would make.  Occasionally she asked for my response to a choreographic opportunity, usually demanding modifications, and finally accepting with qualification.