Alwin Nikolais - His Style

His Style

Nikolais employed lights, slides, electronic music, and stage props to create environments through which dancers moved and, more important, into which they blended (Dance Magazine). He would commonly use props with esthetic as well as functional purposes, for instance, a traveler moving across the stage would hide a crossing and simultaneously create a volume of motion. His production MASKS, PROPS, and MOBILES was accredited to have created and popularized modern multimedia theater (Mazo, Joseph), although, some critics rejected Nikolais work as dance, especially when Nikolais transformed the bodies of dancers by covering them in plastic bags that would stretch and change shapes in Noumenon; a section from Masks, Props and Mobiles (1953). He avoided overused themes like psychosexuality, good vs. evil, or heroes and heroines.Instead, he chose to move away from the life of the individual and focus on group action. He preferred also to develop his own style of movement, and not to replicate the moves of previous time periods or other composers.

Nikolais' artistic mandate was for meaning to be conveyed strictly through movement. He characterized his stage presentations as "decentralizing" the dancer, so that humans were only one of the theatrical elements on stage.Alwin Nikolais despised of modern dance's obsession with self. Nikolais's dance technique is a barefoot one, a tradition handed down from the days of Isadora Duncan, who, we are told, took off her shoes in empathy for the ancient Greeks. However, Nikolais does not use bare feet out of homage. To him the bare foot is practical. Its muscular and tactile functions are essential to the performance of the total body. Nor does he utilize the bare foot and then ignore it. Apparent mutilation of the body design by the termination of the costume may disturb the image and when it does, he uses whatever device will serve his aesthetic. Many such devices are primary to the concept. In "Discs," the opening dance in Kaleidoscope, the dancers wear large colored aluminum discs on one foot, which serve in various aesthetic capacities. Originally intended simply to extend the dancer's range of balance by providing a larger than normal base, they also add a vertical extension as a great "toe shoe" might; they increase motional dynamics with their added weight in swinging. The shape, color, and material were aesthetic decisions, producing moving visual elements in themselves, and the heavy aluminum gives a satisfying, large, loud clang when the dancers stomp the floor. In a section of Stratus and Nimbus (1961) and again in Scenario the dancers wear small sound-producing fiberboard circles on each foot. The use, the material, and the size of these "tappers" were aural decisions. The specific sound was the initial criteria. Although they are not seen, they do alter kinetic values by the manner in which the dancers must move to produce the desired sound.

In the 1950s a black face in a cast caused a sensory blocking. The theatergoer saw race, and all the social implication that race bore at that time. Whether positive or negative vibrations ensued in the spectator's sensorium made little difference to Nikolais. The spectator whose senses were preoccupied with racial differentiation was not perceiving Nik's images. Hence, his early treatment of the face was concerned not only with varying its uni-statement but also with preventing audiences from experiencing this sensory blocking. He used makeup: purple, red, green, yellow, half a face one color—half another, as in Kaleidoscope; or strips of color following the costume design, as in Prism; or he used whiteface, as in Imago. This use of makeup does not create character, but rather design, and is a part of the total concept of the dances in which it occurs.

He was notoriously well known in the dance industry because of his use of lighting. He would use light sources from every direction and level to create new shapes, spaces, and silhouettes. With his modern, new style, he felt that most music was ill suited for it. He went back to his days as an early musical composer and designed his own score on electronic tape. Within the Henry Street Playhouse, the tapes would be played over a seven speaker system distributed throughout the room to give another time and space dimension. The combination of cast, original lighting and music, with modern dance techniques, gained The Nikolais Dance Theatre a world-renowned reputation in the theatrical arts. Receiving high regards from New York State Council on the Arts, Hofstra University, Rutgers University, Duke University, Hunter College, and Brigham Young University. With his own school and theatre, he withdrew from the spotlight of the dance world, known amongst colleagues and peers as a shy, reserved individual, allowing his partner Murray Louis to deal with more public affairs. Mr. Nikolais was renowned as a master teacher, and his pedagogy is taught in schools and universities throughout the world. Nikolais, referring to his students: "Each student is encouraged toward the highest aesthetic values, and upon creative fluency and achievement, as well as technical skill. The job of the teacher is to pursue, institute and constantly anticipate the best possible activities coinciding with this idealistic thesis."