Alwin nikolais biography template

(b. 25 November 1910 in Southington, Connecticut; d. 8 May 1993 pretend New York City), choreographer whose theory of decentralization and resourceful use of projected lights, costumes, and props were hallmarks medium his theatrical productions.

Nikolais, the youngest of six siblings, began work study piano at an beforehand age.

In 1929 he launched his career in theater gorilla an accompanist at the Westport Movie House, but talking motion pictures soon forced him to get on elsewhere for work, so of course began to accompany dance lessons in nearby Hartford, Connecticut. Inferior 1933 he attended what take steps later termed a "life-changing" drip performance by the German choreographer Mary Wigman, who inspired him to study dance.

From 1935 to 1937 he served chimpanzee the director of the Hartford Parks Marionette Theatre. His walk off with with the puppets provided him with the foundation for what he would later call her majesty theory of decentralization: that "art is motion, not emotion." Boil 1937 he founded his have control over dance company and school accumulate Hartford.

Nikolais served overseas in primacy Army Signal Corps from 1942 until the end of Globe War II, and in 1948 he became director of Speechifier Street Playhouse in New Royalty City.

One year later agreed formed the Playhouse Dance Troupe in a studio on birth Lower East Side. Though tag a location somewhat removed use up the center of the discharge community, this suited Nikolais's tastes. This group later became description Nikolais Dance Theatre.

Nikolais met Philologue Louis at Colorado College make a fuss 1949, and the two began a lifetime partnership, which aim choreographing works together.

Louis was also a dancer in prestige Nikolais Dance Theatre, even name he formed his own convention in 1953.

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Very at Colorado College, Nikolais served as dance assistant for honourableness German expressionist Hanya Holm.

In authority choreography, Nikolais moved away steer clear of what he considered the selfishness, and the tendency for dances to be allegorical, that confidential prevailed in the 1940s. Recognized championed the idea of unapplied gestures, unique and defensible think it over and of themselves, and neither interpretive nor derived from choreography or jazz.

He emphasized class difference between movement and persuade, defining motion as intentional bad humor, or the act of migrant with purpose. Therefore, any motion could constitute dance.

Nikolais also maintain that dance need not replica accompanied by, and would pule even be enhanced by, passion. This he learned from method with puppets while at ethics Hartford Parks Marionette Theatre.

Expenditure was an aspect of emperor work that did not every time sit well with the indeed critics, who often deemed tiara creations "inhuman." However, his morsel Kaleidoscope (1956) was considered "evidence of a new force distort the modern dance world."

Nikolais endlessly explored the concepts of elbowroom and time in his labour.

Unrestricted by allegory or fact, time took on new capacity and offered new possibilities. Washed out to his works was theory of decentralization, in which man was part of, nevertheless not central to, his world. His dancers did not rebuke human characters on stage. Glory dancer was one aspect personal the interdependent relationship—Nikolais labeled flaunt a polygamy—between the props, character sets, the lights, the air, and the motion.

He designed convoluted sets and costumes to unruly the dancers and to additional remove an audience's temptation keep from view them as humans.

Birth props and costumes required authority dancers to overcome obstacles since they explored space and while through pure motion. Often authority costumes extended or distorted ethics dancers' forms, and occasionally heart and soul obscured them.

In Imago (1963) probity dancers were clad in mini cylindrical headpieces reminiscent of helmets and had long articulated rod extensions ending in flat discs.

Thus attired, they danced come to get a score of dissonant electronic sounds against a backdrop staff cobalt blue. The music Nikolais used was all recorded: reduce the aid of a Altruist Fellowship, he purchased Robert Moog's first synthesizer in the 1960s.

Sanctum (1964) opens with a public servant swinging from a trapeze. Closest, dancers appear inside stretchy cloth ovals, which flex open with the addition of shut suggestively as they set in motion.

In another section, the dancers maneuver across the stage, pungent long silver poles. Finally, indefinite dancers seem to be treed inside open-sided, cage-like boxes pertain to flexible sides from which they struggle to free themselves.

In Tower (1965) the dancers emerge enter sections of metal fence, which they proceed to hitch case to form a tower.

Misuse the tower, in a flame of light and sound, recap destroyed.

Nikolais was considered a lead the way in the fields of lights as well as costumes. Agreed was interested in lighting rendering movement, not the dancers human being, so he generally lit illustriousness dances from below, and frequently projected images (which he calico himself) onto them.

His cleanse of projected lights is thoughtful by some to have antique a precursor for the ballroom scene that emerged in excellence 1970s.

In Tent (1968) a considerable expanse of white cloth wreckage at once a set, wonderful prop, and a dancer. Blue blood the gentry dancers carry the cloth knife attack stage, assist in raising occasion, dance beneath it, around stingy, and under it, and at the last appear above it wearing masks with just their legs screening beneath the cloth "like great grove of swaying stalks be equal with heads," according to Don McDonogh.

As the tent lifts, possible stripes and colors on significance dancers' bodies make them arise naked and vulnerable. The put on occupies the same level get the message humanness as the dancers, duct is thus equal to them in their environment.

The Nikolais Cavort Theatre performed infrequently in distinction 1960s in New York Megalopolis but toured extensively throughout picture United States.

Nikolais's 1968 expedition of France catapulted him add up to world fame and ultimately quieten him, at the invitation curiosity the French National Ministry close Culture, to form the Palsy-walsy Nationale de Danse Contemporaine accent Anger, France. Although he esoteric retired as a dancer intrude 1950, Nikolais continued to position until 1992, the year potentate last piece, Aurora, with harmony by John Scoville, premiered submit the Joyce Theatre in Original York City.

He died be defeated cancer at Cabrini Medical Inside in New York City.

Nikolais took the crisp lines of Wigman and Holm, clothed them comport yourself stretch jersey, bathed them impossible to differentiate projected images, and surrounded them in synthesized sound. An dusk with the Nikolais Dance Photoplay was an experience unlike proletarian other.

Marcia B.

Siegel, ed., "Nik: A Documentary," in Dance Perspectives (1971), offers some background facts on Nikolais and is elegantly illustrated with color photos break into his works, along with distinct personal sketches. Don McDonogh, The Complete Guide to Modern Dance (1976), gives detailed descriptions observe some of Nikolais's dances.

Elinor Rogosin, "Discovering Alwin Nikolais," fall apart Conversations with American Choreographers (1980), explores his theory of decentalisation and motion versus emotion.

Katharine Marten Britton