Nikolais, Alwin (Theodore)
Nikolais, Alwin (Theodore)
Nikolais, Alwin (Theodore), American choreographer, stage director, and composer; b. Southington, Conn., Nov. 25, 1912; d. N.Y., May 8, 1993. He studied piano and played in movie houses for the silent films. In 1929 he began to study dance with a pupil of Mary Wigman; became director of the Hartford (Conn.) Parks Marionette Theater and later chairman of the dance dept. of the Hartt School of Music there. From 1942 to 1946 he served in military counterintelligence in Europe; then studied with Hanya Holm in N.Y. He became director of the Henry Street Settlement Playhouse in N.Y. (1948), where he organized the Alwin Nikolais Dance Theatre. He wrote music for many of his dance productions, including works in the electronic medium. His principal choreographic innovation is the technique of body extension by tubular projections and disks attached to the head and upper and nether limbs, so that a biped dancer becomes a stereogeometrical figure; often in his productions clusters of dancers form primitivistic ziggurats.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis Mclntire