#4 Dance Pioneers

Dance is an amazing expressive form of art. I had the opportunity to learn about dance pioneers and how they helped shape the world of dance, exploring new ideas and pathways. One man in particular left a big impression on me, Alwin Nikolais.

Alwin Nikolais was born on November 25, 1910 in Southington, Connecticut. He began studying music in high school  and worked as a piano accompanist for silent films at the Westport Movie House. It wasn’t until after attending a dance performance in 1933 by Mary Wigman that Nikolais became interested in studying percussion. He was persuaded to study dance by one of Wigman’s former students, Truda Kaschmann. From 1935 to 1937, as a dance student, Nikolais directed the Hartford Parks Marionette Theater. Then starting in 1937 he became a teacher for his own company and school in Hartford where he danced and choreographed. Nikolais continued to be influenced by Hanya Holm, Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, and others over the summers he spent training at Bennington School of Dance. Nikolais taught in Colorado and in 1949 he met Murray Louis, a dancer whose technique and attention to physicality left an impression. Louis and Nikolais began collaborating and exploring the basic foundations of modern dance.

Their style of modern dance was best described by representative for Alwin Nikolais as, “Using sound collage and changing images projected onto both the stage and the dancers, Nikolais could shift the focus away from any one individual dancer, and concentrate on the overall effect of the production. Nikolais would often present his dancers in constrictive spaces and costumes with complicated sound and sets, designed to confuse the process of dance. By placing obstacles in the dancers’ way, he focused their attention on the physical tasks of overcoming those obstacles. Nikolais viewed the dancer not as an artist of self-expression, but as a talent who could investigate the properties of physical space and movement.” Nikolais’ talents greatly influenced the evolution of contemporary dance and inspired many choreographers. Exploring abstraction through the senses, movement, design, and sound was his life work. His famous quote and philosophy is, “an art of motion, which left on its own merits, becomes the message as well as the medium.” Alwin Nikolais died May 8th, 1993.