Background of Tensile's Choreographer--- Alwin Nikolais

Background of Alwin Nikolais

Alwin Nikolais, was born in November 25, 1910/1912, Southington, Connecticut, U.S.,and died in May 8, 1993, New York. He abstract dances combined motion with various technical effects and a complete freedom from technique and established patterns. Those technical effects absolutely include light effects.

Nikolais began his study of dance with Trude Kaschmann around 1935. In 1937 he founded a dance school and company in Hartford. He was director of the dance department of Hartford school of Music from 1940 to 1942 and from 1946 to 1949. He became Hanya Holm’s assistant after World War II. In 1948 he joined the Henry Street Settlement in New York City and founded its school of modern dance. Then he became artistic director of its playhouse.

The Nikolais Dance Theater was formed in 1951. In 1953 the company presented Nikolais’s first major work, Masks, Props, and Mobiles, in which the dancers were wrapped in stretch fabric to create unusual, fanciful shapes.

In later works—such as Kaleidoscope (1956), Allegory (1959), Totem (1960), and Imago (1963)—Nikolais continued experiments in integration of motion, sound, shape, and color. His later works include Tent (1968), Scenario (1971), Guignol (1977), Count Down (1979), and Talisman (1981). Nikolais frequently composed electronic scores for these productions.

Imago

Totem

Tent

Although Nikolais’s choreography was sometimes criticized as “dehumanizing,” he maintained instead that it was liberating. He asserted that, in depersonalizing his dancers, they were relieved of their own forms and, hence, allowed to identify with whatever they portrayed. Nikolais was also noted for advancing the related concept of  “decentralization”. It means focal point could be anywhere on the dancer’s body or even outside the body. This was a departure from the traditional opinion that the “centre” of focus was the solar plexus.

During the 1970s the Nikolais group toured widely abroad. In 1978 the new National Centre of Contemporary Dance at Angers, a Nikolais school and company that made its debut in Angers, France, in November 1979. Then, Nikolais made films of his works.