{"id":31100,"date":"2016-02-17T13:19:13","date_gmt":"2016-02-17T17:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=31100"},"modified":"2016-02-17T13:20:45","modified_gmt":"2016-02-17T17:20:45","slug":"alwin-nikolais-a-celebration-of-the-futuristic-choreographer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=31100","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating Alwin Nikolais: The Futuristic Choreographer"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rachel Straus<\/p>\n

Which came first, the arcade game Pac-Man or Mechanical Organ<\/i> by Alwin Nikolais? Both came into being in 1980. With a child-like glee, both present an abstracted technicolor figure, fearsomely navigating every which way. Moreover, after watching the Alwin Nikolais Celebration at The Joyce Theater (Feb. 9), it became clear that the late choreographer (1910-1983) influenced more than the world of dance. In Nikolais\u2019 productions, technology drove his visions. Like a Steve Jobs of the theater, Nikolais was a master mind. He conceived the concept and aesthetic of each work by controlling all the elements: composition of the electronic score, costuming of his dancers, d\u00e9cor creation, and choreography (albeit in collaboration with his zealous performers, who worked with him at the Henry Street Playhouse).<\/p>\n

Nikolais wasn\u2019t just a prescient choreographer because of his employment of technology, he was a harbinger of today\u2019s technologically immersed individual. The Connecticut-born former puppeteer, organist and German-based experimental dancer arguably inspired early computer artists to think inside<\/i> the box. Nikolais\u2019 box was the proscenium space and since it was a square, like the computers of yore, there is much to be said about how he foreshadowed, or recommended, ideas to the next generation of techies.<\/p>\n

\"Alwin<\/a>

Alwin Nikolais\u2019 Tensile Involvement: ( L to R) Aaron Wood, Bashaun Williams, Juan Carlos Claudio, Lehua Estrada, and Mary Lynn Graves. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu<\/p><\/div>\n

Take for example Nikolais\u2019 masterwork Tensile Involvement<\/i> (1955). A pre-digital vision is created, thanks to the ten admirable dancers of the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company\u2014who performed all four works on the program, are dedicated to keeping his choreography alive and are guided by Alberto Del Saz, director of the Nikolais\/Louis Foundation. The dancers transformed the stage into a cat\u2019s cradle by running with an enormously long, stretchy dayglow material, which they never allowed to become slack. Look at your computer\u2019s interface when it is on sleep mode for a modern-day example of this effect. Indeed, before the invention of laser beams, light shows and computer-generated images, Nikolais figured out how to rig a lighting plot and and employ unconventional material to generate that which hadn\u2019t yet been discovered by engineers. Instead of clicking and coding, his dancers designed the space with their bodies, and props, to produce a vortex of intersecting lines. Nikolais\u2019 futuristic artwork is at its most dazzling when the dancers frame themselves inside their own sets designs (or interfaces). At this moment, the decor and the dancer merged, and the audience clapped heartily. In the Renaissance, Da Vinci\u2019s Vitruvian Man expressed how the proportions of the body are the building blocks for architecture. In Nikolais\u2019 Tensile Involvement<\/i>, his dancers\u2019 bodies express how we are comprised of particles, beams of light and energy.<\/p>\n

The program opened with Crucible<\/i> (1985), a work in which the dancers appeared and disappeared behind a large mirror. Now this may sound simple, perhaps even childish, but as the work progressed it became visually spectacular. The set resembles a big caf\u00e9 bar. Instead of the bar\u2019s surface being zinc, it is a black mirror and it is tilted upwards, so that when the dancers emerge from behind it, we see them and<\/i> their inverted image. But unlike Narcissus, who never left the pool of water which reflected his gorgeous face, the Ririe-Woodbury dancers do everything but stare at their doppelg\u00e4ngers. With the mirrored set and special lighting effects, the dancers sculpt their limbs to become frogs zebras then frogs, Siamese twins then DNA double helixes. Crucible<\/i> is just what the dictionary says it means: a place or situation in which different elements interact to produce something new.<\/p>\n

\"Alwin<\/a>

Alwin Nikolais\u2019 Gallery Photo: Yi-Chun Wu<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Clowns<\/a>

Clowns in Alwin Nikolais\u2019 Gallery: Bashaun Mitchell and Juan Carlos Claudio. Photo: Yi-Chun Wu<\/p><\/div>\n

Gallery<\/i> (1978), the last work on the program, tendered the most sinister visions of the evening. At the finale of the eight-section work, bits of the dancers\u2019 day-glow masks are shot off by an an invisible shooter. Like an ominous shadow that grows bigger and bigger, the work grew less child friendly and more interesting. First there were pink-green pinwheels, later hot-pink clowns violently flapping and finally a group, who stays standing despite being shot at.\u00a0Gallery<\/em> reads like a house of horrors and delights. This can also be said of technological innovation and\u00a0Nikolais\u2019 dances. Both continue to be glowingly relevant.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n