Alwin Nikolais

Alwin Nikolais (born November 25, 1910/1912?, Southington, Connecticut, U.S.—died May 8, 1993, New York, N.Y.) was an American choreographer, composer, and designer whose abstract dances combine motion with various technical effects and a complete freedom from technique and established patterns.

Initially a silent-film accompanist and puppeteer, Nikolais began his study of dance in about 1935 with Truda Kaschmann, a former student of modern dancer Mary Wigman, to understand Wigman’s use of percussion accompaniment. In 1937 he founded a dance school and company in Hartford, Connecticut, and was director of the dance department of Hartt School of Music (now part of the University of Hartford) from 1940 to 1942 and from 1946 to 1949. After serving in World War II, Nikolais resumed dance studies with Hanya Holm and became her assistant. In 1948 he joined the Henry Street Settlement in New York City and founded its school of modern dance; the following year he became artistic director of its playhouse.

The Nikolais Dance Theater (originally called the Playhouse Dance Company) 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 what he called the basic art of the theatre—an integration of motion, sound, shape, and colour, each given relatively equal emphasis. His later works include Tent (1968), Scenario (1971), Guignol (1977), Count Down (1979), and Talisman (1981). Nikolais frequently composed electronic scores for these productions.

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,” in which the 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. These theories were developed under Hanya Holm and were displayed in such works as Aviary, A Ceremony for Bird People (1978).

During the 1970s the Nikolais group toured widely abroad. In 1978 the French Ministry of Culture, together with the French city of Angers, subsidized the new National Centre of Contemporary Dance at Angers, a Nikolais school and company that made its debut in Angers, France, in November 1979. Nikolais made films of his works, as well as broadcasts on American and British television.