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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with with permission permission of the of copyright the copyright owner. owner.Further reproduction Further reproduction prohibited without prohibited permission. without permission. ERICK HAWKINS: CHOREOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS
by
Hsiao-Fang Lee
Submitted to the
Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences
of American University
in Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements for the degree
of
Master of Arts
in
Performing Arts
foma Prevots ri / .
Aryjrea,Snyder , '
Dean of the College
Date t 1998
American University
Washington, D.C. 20016
THE A!'4 —. -- — ; . .i V —< » « L i i'\rsr*. v
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ERICK HAWKINS : CHOREOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS
by
Hsiao-Fang Lee
ABSTRACT
Erick Hawkins (1909-1994) was an important American dancer, teacher, and
choreographer. This study analyzes selected choreography by dividing his work into
three major periods. For the period 1951-1970 the following works are analyzed; Here
and Now with Watchers (19571. Eight Clear Places (1960). and Black Lake (1969). For
the period 1970-1980 the pieces discussed are: Classic Kite Tails (1972), and Plains
Daybreak (1979). These are compared with three selected works that Hawkins created
during the last decade o f his life, 1980-1993: Summer Clouds People. Cantilver II and
Killer-of-Enemies. Major themes o f the periods are discussed, as well as important
movement motifs and ideas o f each piece.
A context for the study o f Hawkins choreography is provided with a brief
biographical overview. There is also analysis o f his philosophy, as shown in the various
collected essays in The Body Is A Clear Place and Other Statements on Dance, published
in 1992. His work as a dancer in Martha Graham's company is also examined. American
Document. Appalachian Soring, and NigfaUflitfnsy were three o f Graham's works in
ii
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. which Hawkins played a major role, and which helped influence both his and Graham's
artistic directions.
iii
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT...... ii
Chapter
1. THE BODY IS A CLEAR PLACE-BIOGRAPHICAL OVERVIEW AND PHILOSOPHY...... 1
2. IN MARTHA GRAHAM’S COMPANY...... 14
3. A CHOREOGRAPHER EMERGES 1951 -1970...... 30
4. THREE CHOREOGRAPHIC HIGHLIGHTS 1970-1980...... 44
5. SELECTED CHOREOGRAPHIC HIGHLIGHTS 1980 - 1993...... 56
BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 73
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 1
THE BODY IS A CLEAR PLACE-BIOGRAPHICAL OVERVIEW
AND PHILOSOPHY
This chapter will provide a brief overview of Erick Hawkins' early
background and a review of his philosophy as expressed in a book of his
collected writings, The Body Is A Clear Place and Other Statements on
Dance, published in 1993, just one year before his death.
Erick Hawkins was bom in Trinidad, Colorado, April 23, 1909. Hawkins'
father was an inventor whose products included a crude-oil engine for public
water irrigation in Colorado.1 The elder Hawkins had financial difficultly in
Colorado with a failed business, and the family moved to Kansas City when
Hawkins was ten years old. After doing very well in Kansas City’s public
schools, Hawkins was awarded a local Harvard Club scholarship in 1926. He
attended Harvard and majored in classics; although listed as a graduate, class of
1930, he did not actually graduate until 1932.2
1Kisselogoff, Anna. " Erick Hawkins, a Pioneering Choreographer of American Dance, Is Dead at 85;” The New York Times. Nov 24, 1994.
2Erick Hawkins' original name was Frederick Hawkins. His field of concentration was Classics. The following is a list of courses Hawkins took while at Harvard, and was obtained from the registrars office: Full academic year 1926 - 1927 English A English 28
1
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Erick Hawkins attended his first dance concert during Christmas
vacation in New York while a student at Harvard. Hawkins recalled:" It was at
the old Craig Theater on 54th Street, which has since been tom down. Harald
Kreutzberg and Yvonne Georgi were dancing and I kept saying to myself,' This is
what I want to do.1"3
Hawkins went to Salzburg, Austria in 1932 to study with Harald
Kreutzberg for two months,4 and in 1934 began studying at the School of
American Ballet, newly founded by Lincoln Kirstein, George Balanchine,
Edward Warburg, and Vladimir Dimitriew. When Kirstein founded Ballet
French A History 1 History B Full academic year 1927 - 28 Astronomy 1 Government 1 Greek G Latin 1 Summer School 1928 Greek S1 Fall Term 1928-29 Latin 8 Philosophy B Full academic year 1930 - 31 Fine Arts 1C Greek A Greek B Greek 2 Greek 3 History 4 Full academic year 1931 -32 Fine Arts 1A Greek 8 Greek 15a
3Mazo, H. Joseph. Dance Magazine. February, 1995.
4Kreutzberg, Harald, a German dancer, choreographer, and teacher, was a leading exponent of modem dance in Germany during the 1930s.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3
Caravan in 1935,5 Hawkins was asked to join and created his choreography,
Showpiece, in 1937. As a dancer, he performed one of the male roles in both
Serenade and Transcendance. choreographed by Balanchine in 1934 and 1935
respectively; he was also in two other ballets, Jeu de Cartes (1937) and Baiser
de la Fee (1937).8 Balanchine allowed Hawkins to teach at the school after he
had studied for a couple of years.
Ballet Caravan appeared at the Bennington College Summer Festival in
1937, and Martha Graham was impressed by Erick Hawkins's Showpiece. She
went backstage to talk to Hawkins and suggested that he study with her. Lincoln
Kirstein lent him tuition money, and in 1938 Hawkins studied with Graham at the
Bennington College summer session, where Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey,
Charles Weidman, and Hanya Holm had been teaching since 19347
After Hawkins had studied with Graham for a few weeks, he asked to
watch a rehearsal of American Document. At rehearsal, she choreographed a
role for him, and he became the first male to dance in her company, remaining
with the company through 1951. He danced major roles created for him by
5Lincoln Kirstein founded Ballet Caravan in 1936 as a platform for young American choreographers. In 1938 the company changed its name to American Ballet Caravan.
6Keefer, Julia L. " Erick Hawkins, Modem Dancer. History, Theory, Technique, and Performance," (Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1979).
7Kriegsman, Sali Ann. Modem Dance in America: The_Benninqton Y eas. (Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1981), 63-68.
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Martha Graham during this period (selected highlights of these performances will
be disscussed in chapter 2). After Hawkins danced with Graham for a few years,
he started to teach ballet and Graham technique for her company. During this
period, he also created his own works, including John Brown (1945), Stephen
Acrobat (1945), and The Strangler (1948).
Hawkins and Graham had begun a serious relationship by 1938 and
were married in 1948, but separated two years later in 1950. Subsequently,
Hawkins developed his own technique, founded his own school and company in
1951, and continued to create dances to the very end; Many Thanks was finished
two days before his death on November 23, 1994. Hawkins received many
awards, such as the Dance Magazine Award in 1979, the Samuel H. Scripps
Award at the American Dance Festival in 1988, and the National Medal of Arts on
October 14, 1994, presented to him by President Clinton.8
Erick Hawkins was a dancer who delighted in expressing his ideas in
writing. Over several decades, he published articles in a wide assortment
of journals and books. Finally, all his essays were brought together in The
Body Is A Clear Place.9 published as a book in 1992. One of the best ways to
understand Hawkins' philosophy about his teaching and choreography is to
examine the ideas put forward in the book's ten essays.
8Mazo, H. Joseph. Dance Magazine. February, 1995.
9Hawkins, Erick. The Body Is A Clear Place and Other Statements on Dance. (Princeton Book Company, 1992).
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The first essay," The Rite in Theater," was an extensive and wide-
ranging lecture given before the National Theater Conference at its annual
convention in 1947. Hawkins articulated his feeling that the most important
function of theatre was to present myth, which he believed was its most basic
element. He said:
The enactment of the myth is the rite, the doing of the myth, the dromenon, the drama. When I use the w ord" drama," do not think just of Greek drama. The event, the rite, is the same the world over. Theatre stems from rite.10
Hawkins thought that myth and ritual were basic elements of theatre
in all cultures, and that dance was one of their primary instruments. He gave
several examples of this from different traditions: the ceremony of the
Navajo medicine man; the Balinese Ramayana shadow plays; the Japanese
Noh theatre; the Catholic Mass; the New Mexican Penitentes'
enactment; the plays of Shakespeare; the medieval European mystery
plays; and Athenian tragedy.11
Hawkins wrote in this essay that dance and ritual shared a symbolic
use of space. Several contemporary works of choreography were discussed to
demonstrate what he meant: Hanya Holm's Trend, where large groups slice
through broad areas of the stage; Martha Graham’s Primitive Mysteries, where
the circular patterns provide a sense of the eternal mandala; Graham's Frontier
10Hawkins, 3.
"Hawkins, 3.
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encompassing the enormous sense of space on the American frontier, Doris
Humphrey’s New Dance, creating a sense of brotherhood through shifting
patterns.12
Hawkins felt that American dance needed to develop its own technique
and forms of expression and not depend on ballet with its European origins.
American choreographers had to discover their own symbolic materials using the
ideas of myth and ritual. This would give American audiences the opportunity to
identify with new ideas related to their own life and history.
The second essay, "Theatre Structure for a New Dance Poetry," was
written about the choreography for Here and Now with Watchers, and published
originally in 1961 in Castalia. a semi-annual magazine of literature and the arts.
In this essay, Hawkins argues that there should be a balance between men's and
women's roles as dancers, and he noted his search for new ways to express
these relationships. In Here and Now with W atchers. Hawkins created a
seventy-five minute work consisting of a series of solos and duets for a man and
a woman.
The third essay," Modem Dance as a Voyage of Discovery," was a
lecture given at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1959. Hawkins felt that
modem dance could not be defined; it was a direction— maybe several directions
without a well-known path. Hawkins noted he was called avant-garde by dance
12lbid„ 5.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. critics; he felt contemporary choreographers had to be brave and adventurous in
modem dance.
What direction could modem dance take? Hawkins recalled his
experience when he sat and watched dance. He said:" The delight that I feel
then is the same delight I would like to make in the watchers who watch me
dance and those who dance with me."13 Every moment in the dance was
important, and he rejected the idea of thinking in terms of poses and transitions;
the continued flow of dance for him was subtle and all encompassing. He wrote,
" It makes me aware of every infinitesimal moment of the movement, it shows me
all the transitions of movement, it shows me the happening of the movement for
its own sake, not for a result."14 Related to the idea of the constant flow of motion
was the importance of the kinesthetic sense. It allowed students and audiences
to feel in their own bodies all aspects of movement, and Hawkins wanted to teach
people to use their bodies and watch movement with heightened awareness.
This essay," Modem Dance as a Voyage of Discovery" contains one of
the most important ideas found in the philosophy of Erick Hawkins: the idea that
there are two functions in art. The first function of art is sensory awareness
toward the basic elements of all arts, such as movement, sound, color, and
shape. The sensory impact of these elements is non-verbal: either the sound is
13Hawkins, 20.
14lbid„ 20.
permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8
or isn’t heard; either the color is or isn't seen. Through the senses, the audience
immediately comprehends these primary materials of the arts.
Sights, sounds, smells, and tastes are used to " say something"; this
implies that the second function of art, meaning, is conveyed through the first
function. That is why Hawkins said:" With art in its second function, one can
more easily find some words to tell another person what it is meant to convey.
Only art in its second function is art as language!"19
As artists in the modem dance, we have to go on a voyage of discovery constantly. There is no other way if we are to live. This discovery, this revolution which is still to be made in dance, is in that pure fact of existence, that awareness of awareness, that first function of art-the material of dance itself for its own sake in transition before your eyes, instant-by-instant, before it is meanings, associations, or language— the immediately apprehended and eternal "now."18
The title of Hawkins book comes from the essay" The Body Is A Clear
Place" written in 1965. The title creates a focus on Hawkins’s insistence that the
human body is the primary material of dance and that it should be free and clear
of anxiety, conflict and unnecessary displays of effort.
Hawkins thought that the truth in dance lies in its beauty, a beauty that
comes with allowing energy to flow freely through bodies, not forcing the body to
conquer nature.
Hawkins stated that tight muscles cannot feel or love; only effortless,
15Hawkins, 20.
16lbid., 20.
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free flowing muscles are sensuous. He compared Isadora Duncan and Anna
Pavlova; he felt Duncan looked sensuous and beautiful, and Pavlova looked dry
and tight. He also felt that the function of beauty was to heighten perception, and
this would make the body a clear place.
In the sixth essay" My Love Affair with Music," Hawkins described his
experiences of working with composer Lucia Dlugoszewski in several pieces,
including Openings of ih g jeyes), Early Floating. Here and Now with Watchers.
Eight Clear Places. Geography of Noon. Lords of Persia. Hawkins explained why
he would only use live music:
I cannot see how dance can be new, when danced to old music. I cannot tolerate the mechanization of records or tapes when used with live dancers in performance. I cannot imagine new dance that is beautiful without being rhythmic, and this presupposes a new music for our contemporary dance. I am involved with a new body discipline and new movement vocabulary that demands a new kind of music.17
As a choreographer, Hawkins wanted to create beautiful love dances
because he believed love was the most important subject of the dance and was
missing from dances of many other choreographers. He wanted to use free flow
movement for dances about love, and felt that only new music was appropriate.
Hawkins said:" The resulting ' free flow' movement vocabulary of such body
training had to have a new music, a new area of sound that was physical and
playful rather than cerebral or ethereal."18
17Hawkins, 79.
18Hawkins, 82.
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Hawkins talked about creating a new dance with Dlugoszewski; he
choreographed in silence, instead of depending on a musical structure. Then,
she would watch the dance structure and create a related musical structure.
Hawkins believed that dance and music should be independent from each other.
The first collaboration with Dlugoszewski was Openings of the tovel (1952),
which was divided into five sections for a male dancer and three musicians
playing flute, percussion, and timbre piano. Geography of Noon (1964), involved
Dlugoszewski as a percussionist sitting stage center with the dancers moving in
front of and around her. Her music challenged his sense of rhythm as no
composer had done. He wrote," The Dlugoszewski music for my dance has
been praised not only for its poetry, but for its theatricality."19
The seventh essay," Inmost Heaven, or The Normative Ideal," was
a lecture given at the Smithsonian Institution in 1978. For Hawkins, the
normative ideal meant working toward a conscious goal and this meant looking
for the beauty of movement in human bodies. He wrote," The goal of my life as
a dancer and choreographer has been just to find a way to the most beautiful
human movement I could dream of and achieve."20 In dance movement, he
wanted to find the elements of simplicity, clarity, directness, and effortlessness.
The eighth essay," Dance as a Metaphor of Existence," was a lecture
given at the Smithsonian Institution in 1979. Hawkins talked about integration of
19lbid., 86.
“ Ibid., 93.
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his life with dance. After studying and dancing for years, he had been looking for
something beyond just the fun of dancing and then he realized that dance was a
metaphor for his existence with its emphasis on excellence and vitality. He wrote,
" Dance more than any other art or any activity is the metaphor par excellence,
and that is why I am so thrilled and moved by it, because the very ground of
dance is the complete entity of body and mind, heightened in its doing, in time."21
The ninth ess a y ," The Principle of a Thing," was written in 1991
specifically for The Body Is A Clear Place and Other Statements on Dance.
Hawkins briefly explained his philosophy of dance training; that it should be based
on scientific knowledge, not on personal whims. If dancers followed basic
principles of movement, they would understand how the body works and how it
can develop a wide range of capabilities. For him, this meant utilizing the body in
a way that he called free flow, where stress was avoided by eliminating tight
movement and tight muscles. He w rote," free flow is ever moving, ever active,
quick shifts of weight, joyous, an unleashed spirit that is life-giving and is right.
Only when muscles are free flowing do they shift weight and work last enough to
accomplish a ' speedy* movement."22 Hawkins felt that the spiritual and physical
worlds were not separated; with free flow movement, where there is no strain,
these two worlds come together.
21 Hawkins, 119.
“ Hawkins, 123-124.
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The final essay," Art in Its Second Function," was also written for this
collection in 1991. Hawkins w rote," You can have a wonderful idea, even a
spiritual idea, but do it in such hackneyed terms, that is, without vivid art in its first
function aspect, that the work of art is dull, lacking in vitality."23 Before the art has
any meaning, the first function of art should be to delight the eye. The second
function still delights the eye, but with a different dimension. Hawkins felt that art
in its second function can either be life-giving or life-destroying; it involves and
emphasizes joyousness, peace, and nonviolence. When modem dance conveys
human love through dancers moving with grace and freedom, the art of dance is
completed in both its functions and helps people share their lives in the richest
and fullest way possible.
Hawkins's principles of movement as discussed throughout the essays in
The Body Is A Clear Place, are present in all his dances. No matter what type of
theme or music was used, the concept of free flow was always clearly present.
He noted that tight muscles cannot feel or love. Only when the muscles have
" free flow" can they work fast enough to accomplish a movement easily. He
wrote:" It seems obvious to me that, by definition, free flow is ever moving, ever
active, quick shift of weight, joyous, an unleashed spirit that is life-giving and is
right."24
Other important concepts emphasized by Hawkins in The Body Is A
23lbid, 141.
24Hawkins, 123.
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Clear Place are: the importance of beauty; harmony with nature; myth and ritual
as cornerstones for understanding hidden mysteries; the immediacy of kinesthetic
values of dance; the magical sensitivity and sensuousness between men and
women; the interaction between dance and new musical structures. All of these
ideas were expressed in his choreography, as shown through analysis of selected
works in the following chapters.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 2
IN MARTHA GRAHAM’S COMPANY
Erick Hawkins was an integral part of Martha Graham's Company from
1938 through 1951. It was during this time in Graham's company when he
matured and developed as a performing artist, dancing roles that challenged
him technically and emotionally.
It is difficult to assess Hawkins’ choreographic input into Graham's work,
but it is safe to assume that he was an integral part of the creative process. It is
clear that the roles he created were indicative of their offstage relationship as
companions, lovers, and, later, husband and wife. What emerged on stage was
part of an on-going discussion between two intense individuals, both concerned
about their own artistic development but also involved in a day-to-day
intertwining of personal and professional interaction.
Three landmark pieces by Martha Graham have been chosen for
analysis in terms of total choreographic conception and the roles danced
by and created for Erick Hawkins. These are : American Document.
Appalachian Spring, and Niaht Joumev. For each of these dances there
will be descriptive movement analysis, as well as reviews and other writings.
There will also be a discussion of how Hawkins's involvement in these dances
was important in Graham's choreographic development.
14
permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 15
American Document premiered in Bennington, Vermont, on August 6,
1938, music was by Ray Green, costumes by Edyth Gilford, and lighting by Arch
Lauterer. The choreography was based on texts from the Declaration of
Independence, a letter from Red Jacket of the Senecas, Lincoln's Gettysburg
Address, Jonathon Edwards' sermons, the Biblical Song of Songs, Walt
Whitman's poems and other important American letters ’
Erick Hawkins was one of two male performers in American Document:
the other male was not a dancer, but an interlocutor who served as narrator.
Hawkins had been a student of choreographer/teacher George Balanchine until
learning for Bennington College to study with Martha Graham during the 1938
summer session in dance. She had never incorporated a male dancer into her
company until Hawkins performed in American Document.
Martha Graham chose the minstrel format in this dance. A minstrel
show traditionally began with a "Walk Around," as performers strutted around
the stage in pairs and ended in a half-circle facing the audience.2 " The
interlocutor then greeted the audience and proceeded to engage the two' end
men,' typically called 'Tambo and Bones,' in a comic repartee called the 'Cross-
Fire.' After this opening came an 'olio,' a section of vaudeville-type acts and
1Morgan, Barbara. Martha Graham: Sixteen Dances in Photographs. (New York: Morgan & Morgan, Inc., 1980), 17.
2Manning, Susan. " American Document and American Minstrelsy." Movino Worlds. (New York: Routledge, 1996), 200.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 16
then a final 'After Piece,' a dramatic skit often arcical in tone."3 American
Document was related in structure to these minstrel shows. For example, each
section opened and closed with a minstrel" W alk Around."
The premiere cast in 1938 had twenty-one women in addition to Graham
and Hawkins. Houseley Stevens Jr. took the role of interlocutor in
performances from 1938 to 1940. The dancers in 1938 included Sophie
Maslow, as leader of the group; May O'Donnell, Gertrude Shurr, Kathleen
Sllagle, Anna Marjorie Mazia, Jean Erdman, Nelle Fisher, and Natalie Harris.4
There were six sections in American Document: " Entrance,"
" Declaration,"" Occupation,"" The Puritan,"" Emancipation", and " Hold your
Holds."5 In the first section," Entrance," the company entered, travelled across
the stage to exit, leaving Erick Hawkins and Martha Graham facing each other
from the extreme upstage comers. They proceeded to do a duet of greeting to
music interspersed with a drum roll; this continued the feeling of the "Walk
Around." When they finished the duet, the company re-entered, continuing the
idea of the minstrel "Cross-Fire." The interlocutor introduced the action in the
3lbid„ 200.
4lbid., 200.
5ln the article called" Martha Graham’s American Document: A Minstrel Show in Modem Dance Dress," Maureen Needham Costonis divided this work into only four sections: " Declaration," "Occupation,"" The Puritan," and" Emancipation." Most other writers divide the piece into six sections. " Martha Graham's American Document: A Minstrel Show in Modem Dance Dress." American Music. Fall 1991. 303-304.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 17
first section " Entrance" with the following lines:
Ladies and Gentlemen, good evening, This is a theatre. The place is here in the United States of America. The time is now-tonight. The characters are: The dance, led by Sophie, You, the audience, The interlocutor-l am the interlocutor, And Erick and Martha. There are Americans. Yesterday-and for days before yesterday- One was Spanish, One was Russian, One was English. Today these are Americans.6
The second section of American Document." Declaration" was
introduced by the interlocutor, who referred to the Declaration of Independence
in his Statement:
An American- What is an American? 1776- Five men wrote a document. Its name rings like a bell. Here it comes: Declaration!7
All the dancers came on stage, once again using the minstrel show
" Walk Around" as a device to begin the section. Sophie Maslow and Erick
Hawkins came forward and danced a duet which was followed by group
choreography.
6Manning, 184,185.
7Manning, 185.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In the next section," Occupation," the interlocutor asked the question,
" W hat is America?":
America-what is America? It is a great continent, a new world. I do not remember, You do not remember... We do not remember the Indian prairie Before these states were. But my blood remembers, My heart remembers.8
Graham performed a solo titled " Native Figure." She slowly walked
toward with downcast eyes, reminscent of dances of Native American women.
The dance historian Susan Manning felt the solo dealt with remembering.
" Together with her downcast eyes and inward focus, Graham's gestures
suggest a meditative quality that corresponds with the text's emphasis on the
action and emotion of remembering."9 Graham ended her solo center stage in a
kneeling position. Then the group performed a dance that was a lament to the
land, and the interlocutor spoke lines from "Red Jacket of the Senecas."
" The Puritan," the next section, included a dance by Graham and
Hawkins. " Graham and Hawkins danced to text that had fiery admonitions of
the Puritan minister Jonathan Edwards. Graham was in low-to-the-ground
postures and Hawkins used upright, strong movements. Also, Graham was all
curves and twists and Hawkins was all straight lines. The ’W alk Around’ was
8lbid„ 185.
9Manning, 186.
permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. used again, marking a break before the next section 'Emancipation'."10
To start the section " Emancipation," the interlocutor read aloud from
Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. " That goverment of the people,
by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth."11 The group
danced, using gestures which included spreading their arms wide while looking
up in semi-cricle formation. Graham and Hawkins performed an ecstatic duet to
end this section after the group finished their dance. The final section was titled
" Hold Your Holds!"12 It began with three women dancing while the interlocutor
recited:
W e are three women. We are three million women. W e are the mothers of the hungry dead. W e are the mothers of the hungry living. W e are the mothers of those to be bom.
After the trio of women exited, Hawkins entered and performed a solo
for the first time in the work. His movement was in full stride, with arms and
legs straight and extended. Next, Graham returned and danced a solo and then
the group re-entered. Graham, dressed in bright red, entered for the "Dance of
Invocation" to the words of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.13 She was joined by
Hawkins, then by the group toward the end of the production, as the interlocutor
10Costonis, 303-304.
11!bid., 303-304.
12Costonis, 304.
13lbid., 305.
permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. said:" Ladies and Gentlemen, may we wish you goodnight."14
Erick Hawkins' appearance in American Document helped shape both
his career and that of Martha Graham. It marked his first appearance in a
professional modem dance company, and it influenced Graham's future
choreography in terms of gender-specific identities for male and female dancers.
Susan Manning wrote:
In works choreographed after American Document, gender- specific identities for male and female dancers became the rule in Graham's choreography. In fact, her choreography came to assign certain movements to men-large, thrusting, open, phallic movements-and other movements to women—small, closed, circling-back-on-themselves movements. Or, more accurataly, her narrative dances from the 1940s and 1950s derived their drama from the exchange o f" masculine" and " feminine" movement qualities between male and female dancers.15
Many critics noted that American Document represented a radical
line of departure for Graham. Critics could no longer gibe at Miss Graham's
"grim" and " sexless" dances, but instead commented on her innovative use of a
" positive male presence" in the person of Erick Hawkins. " One of the most
obvious reasons whv this dance was considered a turning point in Graham's
development was that, for the first time, a man was invited to join the
company."16
American Document was the first major statement by Graham of an
14Manning, 190.
15lbid., 191.
16Manning, 297.
permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. American theme. Don McDonagh commented that this dance foreshadowed a
whole line of dramatically based dances that produced for Graham the largest
public following she had yet achieved. He also described American Document
as a pivotal point in her development; it was, he claimed, not on ly" a major work
on an American theme but also marked the opening of a whole phase in her
work."17
Appalachian Spring was first performed at the Library of Congress,
Washington, D.C., on October 30, 1944. The music was a collaboration
between Aaron Copland and Graham, costumes were by Edythe Gilford, sets by
Isamu Noguchi, and lighting by Jean Rosenthal. The work was based on the
idea of a newly wed American couple who set up their house in a new place in
the wilderness. The original cast included Martha Graham as the Bride, Erick
Hawkins as the Husband, May O'Donnell as the Pioneer Woman, Merce
Cunningham as the Revivalist, and Nina Fonaroff, Pearl Lang, Marjorie Mazia,
and Yuriko as the followers.18
The dance opened with a processional entrance, which both introduced
the characters and set the scene. Noguchi's set consisted of one wall,
indicating the presence of a house now or in the future. There was a bench
along the wall and an open porch with a rocking chair. There was also a section
17McDonagh, Don. Martha Graham: A Biography. (New York: Praeger Publishers, Inc., 1973), 137.
18McDonagh, Don. The Complete Guide to Modem Dance. (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1976), 60.
permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. offence, placed downstage left, and a raked tree stump that served as the
revivalist's pulpit. After ail the characters came on stage, the husband and his
bride took possession of their new house to start a life together. They danced a
warm, joyous duet that expressed their shared hopes for the future. Graham
created a portrait of the husband as a practical man who would try to be a good
provider and protector. Hawkins danced with his back straight and with large,
expansive movements. Hawkins' actions toward the Bride were protective; he
led her down from the porch where she had been watching his dance, and they
walked and prayed together, and kneeled side by side.19
The preacher, a Revivalist, was an outsider and an independent person.
He never used the house in the same way as the other characters did. He did
not go inside or lean against it, nor did he sit on the porch rocker or on the
bench along the side.20 There were four girls who surrounded him while the
preacher allowed himself to be included in their dance of celebration. These
four female followers danced in unison most of the time, including steps of tiny
waltzing or promenading or squatting on their toes. They beat their cupped
hands together near the sides of their faces. The preacher sank down into a
squat, then immediately sprang straight up in the air several times. During
much of the action, the preacher placed himself on the fallen tree stump with
head tipped back, chest lifted, elbows stuck out, thumbs hooked in his lapels,
19Siegel, Marcia B. The Shapes of Change: Images of American Dance. (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1979), 148.
^Ibid., 149.
permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 23
and his back turned to the rest of dancers.21
The pioneer Woman was very solid and serious, even while she danced
joyful dances with the four female followers. ” She was the most iconic of the
characters, either exercising her soothing influence over the others or watching
from the sidelines, waiting, accepting, inspiring, but never revealing her own
thoughts."22 She had a kind of spiritual calm.
The Bride had two solos. These two dances were her interior
monologues; she seemed afraid of space. Graham ran a few steps toward each
of the characters. She could not really reach out to any of them because she
contracted the center of her body, as if fearful of what the future might bring.
Deborah Jowitt wrote that these solos" suggest that she is a city-bred girl; her
brushing gestures at sky and ground bespeak her present joy and timorousness
before the vastness of the wildeess...."23 The Bride took an imaginary baby
from the Pioneer Woman and rocked it a few times, then gave it back; she
touched the house, then circled the yard in her second solo. At the end of this
solo, the husband carried her off the porch and took her down to the fence. The
Bride ran to each of the characters who faced away from her, then stood alone
for a moment. The Husband came up behind her and closed her arms with his.
Towards the end of this piece, the Bride went to sit on the rocking chair and the
21lbid.
“ Ibid., 146.
“ Jowitt, Deborah. Time and the Dancing Image. (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California, 1988), 220.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Husband stood behind hen both of them looked out over the land together.
Applachian Spring was created when Martha Graham was in her fifties.
Paul Magriel wrote:" Applachian Spring is, perhaps, the most successful of
Graham's lighter or tenderer dances. Not that it is less serious than other
works, but what it reveals is simpler and more open, and has an emotional bias
different from the works surrounding it."24 John Martin said:" Nothing Martha
Graham has done before has had such deep joy about it."
Hawkins's roles both on stage and off during the creation of Appalachian
Spring significantly overlapped. His role as Graham's lover and companion
during this time provided Graham with a sense of joy and fulfillment. During the
period when Appalachian Spring was composed Graham, by all accounts, was
passionately in love with Hawkins. He was handsome and sensual, intelligent
and curious, and highly educated in literature, music, phiiosphy and art.
Although much younger than Graham, Hawkins provided her with a sense of
strength and security and new intellectual directions.
On stage, in Appalachian Soring. Graham created a role for Hawkins
which included a symbolic story that paralleled her life at that time. The off
stage relationship between Graham and Hawkins was often difficult; he was
young and ambitious and she was driven, competitive and jealous. Their love
affair was calmer in the earlier years, but eventually became severely conflicted,
particularly after their marriage in 1948. Appalachian Soring took its inspiration
24Magriei, Paul. Chronicles of the American Dance: From the Shakers to Martha Graham. (New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1948), 244.
permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 25
from Graham's hopes and fears in her relationship with Hawkins. He portrayed
a husband who moved with strength and beauty and was protective, loving and
conquering. She portrayed a woman who yearned for this strength and love
and the new feelings this brought; but a woman who was also fearful and
hesitant of her new emotions.
For Erick Hawkins, Appalachian Spring was an affirmation of his strength
as a man and artist. His role was central to the drama as an accomplished
dancer, and he held the stage with assurance. Working with Graham had given
him broad technical security and challenged his interpretive abilities. It would
not be too long before his skill and assurance would translate into forging his
own pathway as an independent performer and choreographer.
Niaht Joumev premiered at Cambridge High and Latin School,
Cambridge, Mass., on May 3, 1947; music was by William Schuman, sets by
Isamu Noguchi, and lighting by Jean Rosenthal. Martha Graham was Jocasta;
Erick Hawkins created the role of Oedipus, Mark Ryder was the seer Tiresias;
and there was a Greek chorus of six women.
Martha Graham created Niaht Joumev based on Sophocles' play,
Oedipus Rex. Each character was given a movement vocabulary that
distinguished them from the others.25 Jocasta portrayed a tragic role and
strangled herself in the end. Oedipus danced with a rigid torso, strutting and
stamping his legs, with decisive energy. Tiresias was a strong and powerful
25Siegel, 209.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. figure. He occupied lots of space as he moved or stood still. The chorus acted
as one character members of the group were always in angular shapes with
contracted upper body and percussive energy reflecting, foretelling, and
reacting to the events.
At the beginning of Nioht Jomev. Jocasta stood swaying and holding a
length of white rope. Tiresias entered with huge steps, swinging his staff ahead
of him to announce his presence. He thrust his staff onto the ground at each
step toward Jocasta, then took the rope from her hands. This was followed by
the entrance of the chorus of six women. Tiresias stood on a stool downstage
right, facing the audience and the chorus; the six women came to him one by
one with pleading gestures. Tiresias ignored the chorus and went to stand on
Jocasta's bed, which tilted upward and had on it skeletal protuberances.
Jocasta moved from one side of the stage to another between the two
landmarks, the stool and her bed, while she clutched with anguish at her
breasts, her abdomen, and her arms. Jocasta then ran to Tiresias, catching his
staff to struggle with him. Tiresias shook her off and lifted the staff over his
head. Jocasta climbed to her bed with her head toward the audience and lower
body twisted, and Tiresias went off stage. Graham had set the stage for the
unfolding of the drama.
The chorus entered to introduce Oedipus with their hands holding
branches of laurel leaves, treating Oedipus like a hero while he lifted his chest
and stood still. Erick Hawkins, as Oedipus, showed physical strength; his dance
permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 27
was full of stomping and punching movements. Oedipus lifted Jocasta off the
bed and carried her downstage on his shoulders, placing her to sit on the bench.
He jumped in place with flexed feet, side to side, slapping his hip when he
landed, indicating power and authority.
What followed was a duet in which the two expressed the play of power
and love between them. At the end, they danced together with holding and
rocking movements, and then climbed into the bed. The chorus entered with
both hands covering their eyes; dancing with angular shapes and jumps while
contracting their torsos.
Jocasta led Oedipus down from the bed, holding one end of the rope and
walking with it in opposite directions until the rope was stretched as far as it
would reach. They dropped the rope and Oedipus immediately picked her up on
his lap and held her upside down over the rope. Jocasta grasped the rope with
both hands and the chorus continued to dance in agony. As the chorus sank to
the floor, Oedipus and Jocasta were standing entwined in the rope but pulling
away from each other. Tiresias entered using his staff, touching the rope when
Oedipus and Jocasta fell apart. While Jocasta lay on the bed, Oedipus leaned
over her, plucking the large brooch from her dress then putting it over his eyes.
Oedipus held the brooch like a mask and walked off stage quietly and slowly.
As the chorus was on the ground, Jocasta rose standing for a moment, then
took off her outer costume. She found the rope and held it above her head.
Then, she wrapped the rope once around her neck, pulling both ends. As
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 28
Jocasta fell to her back, Tiresias wallked across the stage with his staff, beating
on the ground. This ended the piece.
Since Erick Hawkins was a student of Greek literature at Harvard, it is
likely he awakened in Martha Graham the dance potential of Greek tragedy. In
the book, Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham, Agnes De Mille wrote:
".. .He was dogged and he was brave. He went back to the source, to the
Greek myths, which since his student days had been his particular province. It
was Erick’s joy and privilege to teach Martha.”26 Her choreography based on
the Greek dramas and myths developed during the time she and Hawkins were
together, and she continued to create works based on this material after they
had parted. Agnes De Mille also wrote specifically about Night Joumev: " The
ballet, reflecting Graham during this period, is comprised of mighty and
desperate ideas, frantic cries for identification. At this moment Martha was at
the apex of her creative powers, and just then her lover had begun to attempt to
identify himself, to claim parity with her in her own company, on her own
stage."27 In the book. Deep Song: The Dance Story of Martha Graham.
Ernestine Stodelle said:
Once embarked on her own Hellenic journey, she was to enter her Greek period and create theater works that matched those of the great poets for character analysis and majesty of vision. The very next composition after the intermediary Errand into the Maze would be the most penetrating, and the most radical
^De Mille, Anges. Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham. (New York: Random House, Inc., 1956), 279.
27De Mille, 281.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 29
to date: Niaht Joumev.28
From 1946 to 1963, Graham created several dances utilizing Greek
myth including Cave of the Heart (1946), Errand into the Maze (1947),
Niaht Journey (1947), Clytemnestra (1958), Alcestis (1960), Phaedra (1962),
and Circe (1963).
Erick Hawkins spent thirteen years working with Martha Graham. He
was challenged as performer and solo artist, and participated in the
development of her choreography. These were formative years for Hawkins
and gave him the technical security and artistic maturity to venture forward on
his own. The three dances discussed were chosen because of their importance
in Hawkins’ growth and because of their significance for Graham. His struggled
to become a choreographer on his own began with Ballet Caravan in 1937,
when he created Showpiece. It was only after he had spent considerable time
working as Martha Graham’s partner in dance and life that he was ready to
venture fully into the choreographic realm as a mature artist.
28De Mille, 283.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission CHAPTER 3
A CHOREOGRAPHER EMERGES 1951-1970
Erick Hawkins created a few pieces of choreography before and during
the period of time he danced with the Martha Graham Dance Company, from
1938 to 1951. His first choreographic effort was Showpiece, and Hawkins
made this for Ballet Caravan in 1937.1 The dance was in ten sections for
eighteen dancers.2 Showpiece was just what the name implies. " It was an
opportunity for each dancer to show his individual talent, building the dance
up to a ’ grand finale'."3 As composer Lucia Dlugoszewski said:" In an
intuitive way the ' concrete' element of his non-abstract poetic idiom was
already evident in Showpiece and for this, Balanchine praised Hawkins as his
most promising choreographer."4 Other pieces Hawkins created during his
1 Showpiece had music by Keith Martin and was first performed on July 15, 1937.
2Showoiece included Introduction, Scherzino, Jig, Bolero, Pantomime and Imitation, Round, Zarabanda, Threesome, Adagio, and Workout and Finale.
3Reynolds, Nancy. Repertory in Review: 40 Years of the New York Citv Ballet. (New York: The Dial Press, 1977), 57.
“Dlugoszewski, Lucia. (Comment written in the program). The Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse, Hunter College of the City University of New York, February 18-23, 1997.
30
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 31
time with the Graham Company were John Brown (1945), Stephen
Acrobat (1945), and The Stranger (1948).
After leaving the Graham Company, Hawkins began exploring and fully
developing his own aesthetic and technique. Here and Now with Watchers
(1957), Eight Clear Places (1960), and Black Lake (1969) have been chosen
to show Hawkins' development as a choreographer through 1970.
Here and Now with Watchers, with music by Dlugoszewski and
costumes by Ralph Dorazio, was first performed at the Hunter College
Playhouse, New York, on November 24, 1957; the two dancers were Erick
Hawkins and Nancy Lang. Don McDonagh wrote about the importance of
this dance for Hawkins:
When it was given its premier performance, he had been working on it for over two and half years and it clearly indicated his own individual creative direction. During the time he was with the Martha Graham Company, his pieces showed a marked influence of her work, but in Here and Now with Watchers he subsumed the Graham aesthetic into his own and made a definitive personal statement. It also marked a significant musical collaboration between composer Lucia Dlugoszewski and himself that continues to the present. It has elements of ritual, humor, and mystery presented with flowing, nondramatic movement having the flavor of Eastern ceremony.5
The original titles for Here and Now with Watchers were Threshold of
5McDonagh, Don. The Complete Guide to Modem Dance. (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1976), 298.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 32
Changing Twins and then Double and Single Labyrinths .6 The title was
changed to express the immediacy of pure movement. Here and Now with
Watchers is a duet. It is seventy-five minutes long, with one musician playing
on the timbre piano, which was a Dlugoszewski invention.7 She explored
timbre by using various instruments to pluck, scrape, pound and hit the strings
inside the piano and she used elements of western and non-western music.8
The costumes by Ralph Dorazio helped contribute to the overall poetic
quality of the dance. The first collaboration between Erick Hawkins and artist
Ralph Dorazio was Openings of the Eves (19531 Hawkins also worked with
other artists, but his work with Dorazio was one of his longest collaborations.
In her dissertation, Erick Hawkins. Modem Dancer: History. Theory.
Technique, and Performance. Julia Keefer writes:
Dorazio made a two-dimensional set for Here and Now with Watchers in 1957. He designed two L-shaped screens, nine feet high and ten feet long with cardboard centers and balsa wood frames. Dorazio painted designs on them in black ink," reminiscent of Japanese calligraphy." In this dance, they began using felt appliques of tiny abstract designs sewn on the leotards. Dorazio also began to use humor in design in the Clown's
6Keefer, Julia L. " Erick Hawkins, Modem Dancer: History, Theory, Technique, and Performance." (Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1979), 306.
7Hawkins, Erick. The Body Is A Clear Place and Other Statements on Dance. (Princeton: Princeton Book Company, 1992), 78.
“Keefer, 267.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 33
costume9
The dance has a series of solos and duets separated into eight
sections. Hawkins said the first six sections are related to " art in its first
function." By this he meant that the dances were created for the sake of
movement alone, to bring forth what he called" wondrousness.",0 The last
two sections he called:" Clown Is Everyone's Ending" a n d " Like Darling";
these were focused on human experience and relationships. He discusses
this in The Body Is A Clear Place and Other Statements on Dance:
At the end of the last dance, a love duet," Like Darling," after my sweetheart exits, I stood dead center downstage. The music had become silence. I was tired from almost a solid hour of straight dancing. I stood there, still. Sometimes, I was aware of my beating heart, sometimes I could see in the darkness the faces of the watching audience, the watchers, and then finally I took time to know that I was alive and that was enough, I almost coolly turned and walked off the stage to one beautiful szfbrsando note on the piano."
A 1958 picture in Dance Magazine from the first section of the dance,
called " The," shows Erick Hawkins and Nancy Lang, dressed in short
kimonos with openwork wings.12 Each of them holds a large shield which
covered their hands. Lang is in a low position with open legs and her left
9lbid., 233-234.
10Hawkins, 54.
11 Ibid., 107-108.
12Dance M agazine January 1958, 83.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. knee touches the floor. Hawkins is behind Lang standing on his left leg with
the right leg bent in the air and the upper body tilted forward. Both of them
face opposite directions and look toward the wings of the stage. The picture
shows a soft and trusting relationship between the two dancers, man
and woman. Lang is leaning her head on Hawkins' body, and he is dose to
and supporting her.
Another photograph of Here and Now with Watchers shows two
dancers leaning against each other with the same feeling as in the first
picture.13 Hawkins is in a lunge position with his right leg bent, and his right
arm pointing directly out to the side. The other dancer, Nancy Meehan, leans
against Hawkins by touching one side of his shoulder and hip. Her left leg is
raised to the side in the air about ninety degrees, and her left arm points to the
same side as her leg. Her left arm and Hawkins's right arm make one line
parallel to the floor. In both these pictures, there is a sense of delicate support
and trust between the two dancers.
Hawkins explained:" For the man and for the woman I would like to
discover as many levels of movement as I, as a live person, can imagine from
the gentlest opening of the mouth, the fastest blink of the eye, the tiniest
wiggle of the toes, to the strangest leap and the deepest mystery of the
13Cohen, Selma Jeanne. The Modem Dance: Seven Statements os Brief. (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1966), 42.
permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 35
spine."14 Hawkins explained how he wanted to expand and alter the dancing
image and relationships of men and women.
Throughout the dance, for me, the delight would be to show the identity of man and woman, not their struggle for domination, nor their aggressiveness toward each other. As a statement of my deep belief in woman, I would like to rescue man from his neuter, embarrassed role in the nineteenth and twentith century ballet and give him a new image, almost unknown in our culture, where his strength would be not a necessary evil but a joy, where his physical liveness would be his deep refinement, where his beauty would be his gift of love.15
Many critics were positive about Here and Now with Watchers. The
writer Lawrence Witchel stated:
Erick Hawkins...one of our most contemporary, imaginative, and sensitive artists...as a technician his capacities are limitless...his subject matter is abstract almost to a point of being stark, but it is performed with plastic softness that speaks of sensuality...simplicity rules his creative instincts and the unfolding of an arm, or a hand extending its fingers becomes a gesture seen for the first time through the eyes of an innocent being who views the world as if everything were beautiful, strange, and new...16
Eight Clear Places was first performed at the Hunter College
Playhouse, New York, on October 8, 1960, again with music by Dlugoszewski,
and costumes by Dorazio. The first cast included Erick Hawkins, Barbara
14Hawkins, 10.
15Hawkins, 10.
16Pance Magazine. January 1958, 84.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Tucker, Kelly Holt, and Kenneth LaVrack.17 Later, this piece became a duet.
It was fifty-minutes long with eight sections.
The sections of dance were titled" North Star,"" Pine Tree,"" Rain
Rain,"" Cloud,"" Sheen on Water," " Inner Feet of the Summer Fly,"" They
Snowing," and " Squash."18 In an essay titled " What Comes After the Avant-
Garde," Robert Sabin wrote:" The choreographer of Eight Clear Places is
perhaps one of the most important creative minds of our time, innovator,
visionary, poet. His theatre is now seen as the most profound attempt to
consider nature in a totally new dimension."19 Don McDonagh wrote:" This
dance is a celebration of nature and man's awareness of it told in highly
stylized movement and costuming."20 McDonagh also stated:
The piece has a zany logic that brings the costuming, movement, and music together in a way that almost defies logical analysis. It is a meditation on states of nature which is at one moment very strange and at another very clear and obvious. The two dancers don't really try to be pine tree and snowstorms but provide movement correlatives for what these states of nature might be like. The piece is inventive and so varied that it is a bit of a surprise to realize that it has a small cast of two.21
Eight Clear Places was a great challenge for the cstume designer.
17McDonagh, 299.
18Keefer, 320.
19Sabin, Robert. "What Comes After the Avant-Garde." Five Essays on the Dance of Erick Hawkins. (New York: Modem Dance., Inc.,}, 60.
^McDonagh, 299.
21 Ibid., 300.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Ralph Dorazio did not make costumes with real shapes for" Pine Tree" and
" Squash." For" Pine Tree," Dorazio used a mask which was contructed out
of a narrow block of wood with five curves. It was held with string across
Hawkins's face.22 Dorazio designed 101 instruments used by Dlugoszewski in
collaboration with her needs for the music. They included drums, gongs, glass
wind-bells, brass tubing and rattles covered with rice paper. It was a process
of trial-and-error " Dlugoszewski would ask for a drum with a dull note; he'd
make it, then she'd test it."23 In this fifty-minute work, "two percussionists
created a symphony of sounds with new instruments, exploring rhythm, timbre
and dynamic and avoiding pitch entirely."24
In the first section "North Star," a woman danced with a large black
screen which had a four-pointed star on it. Then the screen and the woman
disappeared into the wings after a series of crystalline tinkling sounds. The
next section was "Pine Tree.” Hawkins entered with a sheath on his left arm
and one on his left leg. McDonagh wrote: "He turns slowly and stamps his
feet looking like some emerging half-human, half-grotesque creature. It is
ritual circling and acknowledging of all points of the compass, in which one
has the feel of a solidly rooted being that also displays little surface shoulders,
“ Ibid., 299.
“ Keefer, 234
24lbid., 280.
permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. much as a tree will shake in the wind."25 The third section was called" Rain
Rain." A female dancer entered carrying a tall and crooked pole which she put
down on the stage to a sound like heavy rain on a roof. Her head dress was a
straight piece of balsa wood. After she bowed and ran away, a male dancer
carried a robe and moved across the stage with tiny steps. He cupped his
hand and then took the crooked pole with him offstage.28
One of the last sections, toward the end of the dance was called "Inner
Feet of the Summer Fly." At one point, Hawkins had a stick attached across
his shoulders with small flags dangling down at either end.27 At the end of this
piece, he entered and wore a tightly fitted body suit with a squash shape
covering his head. Hawkins covered himself with long vines, which made a
robe with leaves on it as he lay down. After rising, he walked slowly offstage.
In her analysis of Eight Clears Places, writer Julia L. Keefer discussed
the rhythmic and spatial elements of the piece:
There is a lot of walking in which the complexity comes from the combination of meters, matros and changing pulses. In feet, there are fifty changes of tempo in this dance. The spatial patterns are precise and geometric. In " Pine Tree," Hawkins describes such a perfect circle it looks as if it could bum through the floor. In " They Snowing," the dancers walk in perfect squares.28
25McDonagh, 299.
^McDonagh, 299.
^McDonagh, 300.
28Keefer, 320.
permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 39
In New York, on October 20, 1969, Black Lake was first performed at
Theater of the Riverside Church. Added to the familiar team of Dlugoszewski
and Dorazio, was Robert Engstrom as lighting designer. The cast included:
Sun - Beverly Brown Star - Nancy Meehan Night People - Kay Gilbert, Erick Hawkins, Natalie Richman Night Birds - Erick Hawkins, Robert Yohn Moon&Clouds - Beverly Brown, Nancy Meehan, Natalie Richman Comet - Kay Gilbert Thunder&Lighting - Erick Hawkins, Beverty Brown Bears - Kay Gilbert, Robert Yohn Milky Way - Beverly Brown, Kay Gilbert, Erick Hawkins, Nancy Meehan, Natalie Richman, Robert Yohn
Black Lake had as its theme the idea of our relationship with nature,
an important theme in several of Hawkins dances from 1951 to 1970. Black
Lake began with a solo dance of the sun setting, and traced all the activities of
the night:" The appearance of the first star, the night birds casting shadows
across the white luminosity, the moon with clouds, long comet hair, summer
thunder (with lighting), the frolics of a little and big bear and finally the dazzling
wash of the milky way."29
" Setting Sun," the opening section of the dance, was originally created
for Beverly Brown. In her article," Where I Stand," Brown described her
experience of this dance as a huge challenge.
There are two things which I must perform that are very significant tests of my ability to " center." One is that I
29Keefer, 323.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. must walk slowly in a big circle around the stage. It is what I call a " people walk1’... But to simply walk beautifully and alone around that stage I must center myself totally into the experience of walking, to say," This is where I stand; now I am walking." The second test is an experience equally common to all people-clapping...Three times in the solo I must clap, one perfect clap, with my arms opening to the side and then coming together extended out in front of my body. The challenge is heightened by the fact that I am wearing a mask that shuts off much of my vision....The only way for my hands to find each other perfectly and without fail is to sense the flow of the arms' weight back into center.30
The dance of the Sun ended while dancers for the section" Night People"
appeared in a line against the back of the stage, their arms stretched out and
extended to their sides; the dancer called Sun exited slowly off stage.
Hawkins entered with a dancer named Star, holding a piece of black
paper over the dancer's head dress. After she took her place on the stage,
Hawkins ripped the paper in two to reveal the white luminosity of a small four-
pointed star on her head. Then, as Hawkins went offstage, Star danced by
shifting her weight and jumping in the air with long, slow leg extensions. Next,
the dancers called Night Birds rushed in with fast steps, creating figure-eight
patterns and circles with paper wings attached to their shoulders. The dancer
called Moon entered and the dance became smooth; her slow movements had
flowing dynamics. She was dressed in white and earned in front of her a
circular balsa wood sculpture. The dancers called Clouds entered in black,
30Brown, Beverly. " Where I Stand." Seven Essavs on the Dance of Erick Hawkins. (New York: Foundation for Modem Dance, Inc.,).
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 41
and played with pieces of white tissue paper, throwing them into the air and
catching them.31
The dancer called Comet, with her floor-length paper tresses, entered
to interrupt the white moon; she whirled through space, turning, jumping and
running in circles. Hawkins returned as Summer Thunder, creating a huge
noise by ripping, crinkling, rattling and pounding on the black construction
paper of his costume. Just after Hawkins' entrance, the dancer called
Lightning appeared with a stomp and quick turn, a white zigzag on her back.
At the end of this part, Hawkins tore the black paper off, and then picked it up,
dragging it behind him. Finally, he lifted the paper up over his head and
exited, shaking it roughly in the air.
The Bear duet was for a male and a female dancer. They played with
each other by touching and jumping. They also had a partner dance in which
they caught each other as they fell. In the final section, the dancers called
Milky Way entered with their backs to the audience, walking slowly onto the
stage. When the six dancers turned around, the white felt stars on their black
tunics became one long diagonal series of connected stars. The diagonal line
stretched from the right side of the stage to the left. At the end of this final
dance, all, except Hawkins and a female dancer, took off their masks.
Hawkins walked slowly behind the female dancer, who still wore her mask,
31 Keefer, 325.
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and stopped. He took her mask off, ending this dance.
In Black Lake. Hawkins and Dorazio wanted to represent unusual
metaphors of nature. Dorazio used the long rectangular, felt costumes as
the basic theme for the dance. Some unique materials were used in Black
Lake: a circular balsa wood sculpture for Moon, tissue paper for Clouds,
and the black paper sheets for Thunder. Dlugoszewski employed Western
and Eastern structural principles while composing the music for Black Lake:
Western formal disciplines o f" fugue" and" chaconne;" and Eastern formal
canons of nondevelopment and transparency. The musical score was played
by chamber orchestra and timbre piano.
By the time he choreographed Black Lake. Hawkins had fully developed
his technique based on free flow and subtle shadings of dynamics. Rather
than present the viewer with extreme contrasts in energy, Hawkins had many
levels of shading, which rewarded the viewer with a totally different range of
experience. In the essay called " Opening the Eye of Nature," Mark
Woodworth w rote:" As typified in Black Lake’s cosmic whirl, these dynamics
have released a power with purity that makes a Hawkins dance, like Donne's
sea,' as deepe in a calme as in a storme'."32
Here and Now with Watchers. Eight Clear Places, and Black Lake were
all collaborations of Erick Hawkins and Lucia Dlugoszewski. Lucia
32Woodworth, Mark. " Opening the Eye of Nature." Five Essavs on the Dance of Erick Hawkins. (New York: Modem Dance, Inc.,).
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Dlugoszewski was a student at Wayne State University in Detroit from
1946 to 1949, majoring in physics and mathematics. After leaving Wayne
State University in 1949, she came to New York to study the piano with Grete
Sultan. At the Mannes School of Music, she took a composition class with
Felix Salzer in 1950 and 1951. In 1952, she started to work with Erick
Hawkins and wrote many pieces for his choreography including Here and Now
with Watchers (1957), Eight Clear Places (1960), Black Lake (1970),
Geography of Noon (1964), Of Love (1971), Cantilever Two (1963), Early
Floating (1961), Angels of the Inmost Heaven (1971), Lords of Persia (1965),
and Each Time You Carry Me This Way (1993). One of the most important
influences on her music was Haiku poetry, which she also wrote. She
received the Tomkins literary award for poetry in 1947. During the early
1970s, Dlugoszewski gained increasing recognition for her music. After
Hawkins died in 1994, she was appointed to be artistic director for the Erick
Hawkins Dance Company.
Dlugoszewski's collaboration with Hawkins was formative for both
artists during this time. They reinforced each other's views that movement
and music were close to nature and should be free of man-made tension and
anxiety. In ail three dances, both artists sought to rid themselves of existing
conventions, and create techniques that would coincide with their views of
nature as harmonious, sensuous and poetic.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 4
THREE CHOREOGRAPHIC HIGHLIGHTS 1970-1980
During the first two decades of his choreographic career, Hawkins
developed movements which emphasized free flow awareness of nature,
and a sustaining and tender relationship for male and female roles. In her
essay," Erick Hawkins: Redefining America,” dance historian Naima Prevots
wrote that in the dances after 1970 " the heavy emphasis on nature imagery
shifted to images of male/female more exclusively and a broader feeling of the
sensuality and joy of life and people. These dances are personally reflective,
but in an abstract way. They are also characterized by a delicious humor-
sometimes subtle and sly, and other times we are allowed not only a chuckle
but a guffaw.’” Two pieces from the period 1970-1980 have been chosen for
analysis: Classic Kite Tails (1972) and Plains Daybreak (1979).
Classic Kite Tails was first performed at the Meadowbrook Festival in
Detroit, Michigan, on July 11, 1972, and then in New York at the ANTA
Theatre on October 26, 1972. The music was by David Diamond, set by
Stanley Boxer, and lighting by Robert Engstrom. The original dancers were
’Prevots, Naima. ” Erick Hawkins: Redefining America." The Aesthetic Biography of Erick Hawkins. (New York: Foundation for Modem Dance, Inc., n.d.c.) 1984.
44
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Beverly Brown, Carol Conway, Erick Hawkins, Nada Reagan, Natalie Richman,
Lillo Way, and Robert Yohn.
In Classic Kite Tails, there are three brown benches upstage and three
sculptured seats on each side of the stage. The dance is divided into a series
of solos, duets, trios, and quartets. The dance begins when the dancers
gracefully walk one by one to the center of downstage, and then toward their
seats. The last to enter is a male dancer who makes two circles between the
sculptured seats and then places himself left upstage to start. Another male
dancer joins him in a short phrase, and they then walk together toward the
sculptured seats.
A variety of solos, duets and trios for the women happen after this. Their
phrases create both sharp and soft qualities through balancing and jumping
movements. Some of the strong visual images are created when the dancers
hold their arms over their heads in a V shape, letting their legs fly off the ground
as they go in the air. There is a sense of flying here, with the image of kites
metaphorically presented by the dancers.
After this section, there are alternating solos, duets and trios as well as
unison movement. The dance consists of various groups and dynamics. The
qualities of movement are full of joy, combining the jumping and turning with
images of floating spirits. The dancers travel through the whole space with a
variety of patterns freely and happily.
The music for Classic Kite Tails was composed by David Leo Diamond,
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. an important twentieth century American composer. Diamond was bom in
Rochester, New York, on July 9, 1915. In 1930, he received a scholarship to
the Eastman School of Music, where he studied the violin with Effie Knauss and
composition with Bernard Rogers. It was at Eastman that he wrote his first
large work for orchestra, Symphony in One Movement.2 Diamond went to New
York in 1934 and received a scholarship to the New Music School where he
studied improvisation with Paul Boepple and composition with Roger Sessions.
He became a member of the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music in 1965,
and was also elected to membership in the National Institute of the Arts and
Letters in 1967. In 1973, he was appointed professor of composition at the
Juiiliard School of Music in New York.3
The choreography in Classic Kite Tails emphasized Hawkins' free flow
movements. The dancers move without tension and make energy flow through
their whole bodies. They have the capability to center their bodies as they move
and shift their weight easily, as they fly through the air. In his essay," What
Comes after the Avant-garde", Robert Sabin wrote:
The Hawkins" free flow" movement theory has unique gravitational implications related to its psychological insights into effort. His is not the dominating of gravity of Classical dance, nor
2Ewen, David. Composers Since 1900: A Biographical and Critical Guide. (New York: The H. W. Wilson Co., 1969), 164.
3Ewen, David. American Composers: A Biographical Dictionary. (London: Robert Hale, 1982), 178.
permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 47
the resisting of gravity of Romantic expressionistic dance, nor the succumbing to gravity of untrained non-dancers, but, rather, the cooperating with gravity. This cooperating with gravity (actually the removal of inappropriate and restricting interference with the gravity continuum), this specific insight opens up a new range of technical skill. Extremely quick contractions and decontractions and sweeping side lifts become possible, sudden spontaneity in transitions, very rapid shifts of weight, and a curious weightlessness in leaping in space, a kind of floating speed."
The writer Don McDonagh was very taken with Classic Kite Tails when he
saw it in 1974:
The program consisted of five works from repertory, the most recent of which is " Classic Kite Tails" which received its premiere performance in the foil of 1972. It has a lovely singing score by David Diamond, and Mr. Hawkins has matched it with a lyrical flow of movement that breathes joyousness...The women sway and skitter around the performing area without a care, and the men are happily cavalier. It's like a hoedown of zephyrs, conducted amid the odd little angular sculptures of Stanley Boxer. It is a dance of play, of spirits unleashed and listing merrily wherever the impulse takes them.s
In his book, The Complete Guide to Modem Dance. Don McDonagh
wrote:" The piece is a hoedown of free and floating spirits sweeping joyously
along while having a wonderful time."6
The second piece to be analyzed is Plains Daybreak. This piece was
4Sabin, Robert. " What Comes after Avant-Garde.” Five Essavs on Dance of Erick Hawkins. (New York: Foundation for Modem Dance, Inc.,), 57- 58.
5McDonagh, Don. " Dance: Hawkins Troupe," The New York Times. Jan 4, 1974.
6McDonagh, Don. The Complete Guide to Modem Dance. (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1976), 301.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 8
created by Erick Hawkins in 1979 with music by Alan Hovaness, set by Ralph
Lee, and lighting by Robert Engstrom. The first cast members were:
First Man - Erick Hawkins Raccoon - Laura Pettibone Snake - Helen Pelton Buffalo - Douglas Andresen Fish - Cynthia Reynolds Antelope - Mark Wisniewski Coyote - Randy Howard Porcupine - Daniel Tai Hawk - Cathy Ward
Creating this dance marked the end of a long process for Hawkins. In his
personal files, he had extensive notes dating from 1976. Apparently a book he
had read as a youth impacted the creation of this dance. The book was A Far
off Place about Southwest Africa, by Laurence Van Der Post, and it had the
following story about a bird:
There is a bird called the honey guide. It comes to a man and sings, and the responsive Bushman follows, and somewhere along to where the bird leads them for the honey. Miraculously, the honey-badger goes up to the hole in whatever the bees have made the honey, backs up and lets out a gas which gases the bees, immobolizing them, while the man reaches his arm in and breaks off pieces of honey comb. The first pieces are for the bird and the badger, and then the man takes some- but only in proportion, as in ail events in their natural state. This livingness together is wonderousness, is it not?7
Hawkins's reading of this book brought back fond memories of his
7The notes for Plains Daybreak were found by Naima Prevots in Hawkins studio files in January, 1995. She was given permission to do research with the files at that time.
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childhood in Colorado. There was a picture of a buffalo in the house, and he and
his father saw prairie dogs when they took excursions in the country.
The first animal I remember ever being conscious of was when my lather took me out into the county around Trinidad, Colorado where I was bom, and seeing the prairie dogs. The one picture I remember in our house there was a large engraving (brown common at the time) of an enormous buffalo. So perhaps this dance can reveal our human essence and consciousness by showing the dancing of eight animals and man. There is no story, plot or sequence of any action, only a presentation of the relationship, then presented in a theatrical sequence form. Essentially the idea is an excuse to present livingness thru dance and music and visual form on the stage for sheer fun. But thru it all, by using these creatures and the set, perhaps it will remind the audience of how wonderful everything is.8
Hawkins explained how he set the title and chose the animals for this
piece. He wanted to choose animals that lived in the plains, but he also wanted
to choose animals that were familiar to many people. He did not want to imitate
the animals, but create an essence in movement and spirit that would
communicate through dance and a feeling of ritual.
The main image is simply the innocence of the creation, that is the daybreak, but locate it on the plains just for my sense of place and memory. Therefore I have chosen the animals as I have so that they might be a little more native to me but also perhaps a little closer to the feeling of many of the people who will watch the dance. But it is not a question of naive literalism. I shall not be concerned to imitate the animals. But only to be ceremonially aware of them. I have watched and learned how the Indians do their ceremonial dances, but they just do their own dance steps but with a little use of poetic metaphor, they suggest animals movements sometimes, or sometimes slightly abstract movements and certainly abstract the animals character in their
8lbid., 1.
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costumes. I never know how far I shall go with that until I am working. Whatever imitative elements occur I am sure will be transmuted into pure dance movement.9
His notes from 1976 reveal his struggle with this issue, and his lack of a
resolution for the problem. He wanted to make a contemporary work of art out of
source material that had ancient roots.
Should the music sound like a minuet, or a fox trot? It is a work of art made by us today, so should it sound like o u r" scientific" outerspace contemporary music, or should it use actual Indian themes? A big problem. The Indians never made a stage work of art like this, so do I use Russian ballet movements a la czar, or try to use some actual Indian steps?10
Hawkins gave a lot of thought to the masks and costumes. Again, he did
not want to be literal, but he wanted to capture essential elements. His notes
permit insight into his creative process as he reflected on degrees of abstraction,
literal presentation, and theatrical necessity.
This headdress could come out of something on the head which was a part mask. I can see as of now, the eyes quite open above the nose but with something going across the nose and cheeks which relates to the fastenings of the headdress around the chin and head. Right in Indian art, there are many degress of abstraction say for a buffalo, all the way from the actual real head and lace to pure abstracted forms. In the case of the snake and fish, probably the actual image could be the total creature beautifully designed in balsa wood and resting on the top of some base resting on the head. The animals I have chosen I think permit high designs, such as the porcupine with the abstraction possible from the quills. For the costumes, I
9lbid., 1-2.
10lbid., 3.
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would borrow from myself from what I used for a dance 'They Snowing." Firmly cut dress of the felt for the women dancers, and felt kilts for the men probably with bandoliers across the chest. All would have leggings such as I have used several times, as in Lords of Persia. I think I would take the color scheme directly from the Navaho sand paintings: black, white, light and middle gray, and light lemon yellow. Then individual items, say in head dress etc could have touches of other colors, but the general cast of color would be comparatively uniform and mellow.11
Hawkins had commissioned Alan Hovhaness to do the music for Plains
Daybreak in 1976 when he was writing his notes, but it had not yet been
finished. Hawkins felt th a t" the dance is tricky in that there is no emotional
progression which I have learned by experience is what most audiences can
follow."12
Hawkins finally wrote in his notes:" The trick is not only the music, but
what I have the skill to do with it in my imagination."13 He gave considerable
thought to the instrumentation. Hawkins was very practical. He ruled out
instruments that would not work for touring and he wrote:" Carrying anything
extra is just impossible."14
Plains Daybreak opens on a dark stage; two round sets hang from the
ceiling. Hawkins wrote about this in 1976:" The stage set is made up of
"Ibid., 4-5.
12lbid., 6.
13lbid„ 7.
14lbid., 11.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. sculptures hanging in the sky at back or sun and moon and stars."15 There were
some things that Hawkins imagined that never actually happened. He wrote, in
1976, about creating a set which would included plant-like piles on the stage.
Standing up from the floor evenly spaced at back of stage and probably about 8' high are
com beans squash tobacco
I hope to find a way to have them each in a heap on the floor as the curtain opens and then later in succession rise magically up to their full height. They could be of balsa wood carved in three dimension. This formal use of four plants of course comes from the way they are used in Navaho sand paintings.18
When Plains Daybreak opens, an Antelope and then other animals
gradually present themselves on the stage while the lighting becomes brighter.
All of the animals move slowly by shifting their weight slightly in unison. A
dramatic moment occurs when the First Man enters the stage and breaks the
peace of nature in the universe. The First Man and the animals dance in
various groupings. Four duets and a solo follow. Four pairs of animals not only
create their own movement portraying their characters, but also connect and
relate to each other.
The final part of the dance is a ceremony and all the animals with the
First Man dance in unison in a semi-circle. The posture of the dancers is
15lbid., 5.
16lbid., 5.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. slightly tilted with bent knees, a reference to American Indian dances. The
movement is simple and subtle; all the dancers become part of nature. The
quality presented here is peace and harmony.
It is interesting to see the final product from 1979, and to go back to
Hawkins notes from 1976. In one section, the duet for the Hawk and the Fish,
Hawkins thought a great deal about the qualities he wanted.
The fish may be difficult in a sense to find dance movement for- probably largely movement of the head, for the mask-headdress will be, I believe, a fish with beautiful shape about two feet long on dancer's head...The dancer, Cathy, for Hawk is very beautiful, very light on her feet, very fast flowing. W hile Fish would maybe stay in narrow range of space, Hawk would cover the stage enlargedly...Then at times register" hovering" by high suspension on one spot, but moving feet delicately and fast. ’7
On stage, the Hawk and the Fish have richer movement than Hawkins originally
conceived. The Fish moves her head and her arms with calm and still upper
body, travelling through limited space. The Hawk, on the other hand, covers
large amounts of space, but also has moments that consist of balance and
suspension.
In his notes, Hawkins describes the last section of the dance as a
ceremony. All the animals, and the First Man, dance in unison in a semi-circle.
There is a great deal of footwork: hopping, stamping, and jumping steps.
Hawkins's description in 1976 of what he wanted is also what he finally
17lbid„ 10.
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choreographed.
The dancers hardly move from the spot they take as this formation takes place. The whole side is apt to move in unison, turning from side to side, maybe sometimes wheeling around in full turn. The dancing is practically all foot work. Accents, rhythms, patterns working up in intensity to the biggest ecstatic paean of praise in celebration of the mystery of the creation of the world.18
Plains Daybreak was very successful and critics praised the
choreography, costumes, and music. In a review, Jennifer Dunning wrote:
" Plains Daybreak," one of Mr. Hawkins' most beautiful and poignant works, is set to a commissioned score by Alan Hovhaness that is as rich and simple as the dance itself. It is a serene ritual that takes place on " one of the beginning days of the world," as Mr. Hawkins puts it in intermission comments. Eight animals move through their world with the First Man, all dressed in tunics and leg-bands, their identities revealed by whimsical masks designed by Ralph Lee. Mr. Lee has fashioned, too, a haunting primeval world with its two glowing moons, pin-prick stars and an ochre band for a horizon.19
Dance critic, Anna Kisselgoff, stated that this piece was a wonderful
theatrical work by all the collaborators. She addresses the concerns that
it could be seen as an attempt to imitate Indian dance and ritual. Her view
is that Hawkins has created a beautiful metaphor, and his work is an important
artistic achievement. This is also true of the music work created by the
18lbid., 13.
19Dunning, Jennifer. "Dance: Hawkins’ Holiday Program," The New York Times. December 22, 1983.
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composer, Hovhaness and by Lee’s costumes. She wrote:
" Plains Daybreak,” for example, has deep roots in the ceremonial dances of the American Indians, but no one viewing this luminous evocation of a peaceable animal kingdom would call it an authentic Indian dance. It is a metaphorical essay, perhaps the most perfect one in the Hawkins repertory.
In short, Mr. Hawkins is giving us his view of the creation of the world and it is presented in highly theatrical terms. Each aspect of the artistic elaboration that has gone into the piece is highly integral to it. Alan Hovhaness’s commissioned score is of great beauty, mysterious in its melodies and sometimes Chinese in effect. Ralph Lee's contribution is major. His carved masks are really headdresses that come over the face. They are works of art in themselves but also functional. Each head dress carries an animal insignia.20
Plains Daybreak is a beautiful metaphoric dance of American Indian
ritual, and it is a theatrical piece which is based on ceremony. Hawkins created
harmony among human, animals, and nature. The quality of the dance is calm
and peaceful instead of surprising and exciting, but it still has a great deal of
variety in terms of movement. It is also a very successful artistic collaboration;
the music, movement, costumes and sets are all well integrated.
^Kisselfoff, Anna. " Creation of The World by Hawkins," The New York Times. Julyl, 1979.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 5
SELECTED CHOREOGRAPHIC HIGHLIGHTS 1980-1993
From 1980 to 1993, Erick Hawkins created thirteen pieces, including his
last work, Many Thanks (1993). Hawkins' works are varied in this period of time.
For example, New Moon (1989) and Cantilever II (1988) are abstract works and
don't attempt to have specific nature symbols as in earlier dances. Heyoka
(1981), based loosely on Native American Sioux ritual, is almost boisterous,
compared with a piece such as Plains Daybreak.1 Killer- of-Enemies (1991) is
based more literally on Navajo and Apache myths and ceremonies, and is one of
only two dances Hawkins created for children. This chapter will analyze three
works by Hawkins which date from 1980 to 1993; all of them share his basic
approach to movement flow, but are quite different from one another. The pieces
to be discussed here are Summer-Clouds People. Cantilever I I , and Killer-of-
Enemies.
Summer-Clouds People premiered February 8-13, 1983. The music was
composed by Michio Mamiya, the set by Ralph Dorazio, and the lighting by
Robert Engstrom. The original dancers were Douglas Andresen, Randy Howard,
Helen Pelton, Laura Pettibone, Cynthia Reynolds, Daniel Tai, Cathy Ward, and
1Kriegsman, Alan M. " A Hawkins Nocturne," The Washington Post. February 28, 1991.
56
permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Mark Wisniewski.
Lee Lourdeaux, an arts writer, noted that" Summer- Clouds People ....
is an airy, multisectioned work that repeatedly returns to images of gliding. Set
with Ralph Dorazio's huge, Calder-like hanging sculpture, the dance is full of
gracious bows and soarings."2 At the very beginning, the curtain rises to show a
hanging sculpture with an abstract shape. A female dancer lies below the
sculpture, rises, dances and then exits in silence. Four male dancers enter the
stage when the music starts to play. Four female dancers follow behind them.
All of them are in the same bodysuits. In various patterns, they dance in relation
to the sculpture's shape. Then, they dance in unison while moving toward the
front of the stage; all of the dancers quickly turn and stomp, and then gradually
go off stage as the music lades.
In the next section, the dancers are in kimono-like robes that leave one
shoulder bare; these become a metaphor for summer clouds.3 The dancers play
with their sleeves by holding them out or bringing them to their faces. There are
many gestures and bows which don't have any specific meaning.
In the last section, a female dancer performs a solo to the sound of jagged
music. The others enter and raise their hands to cover their eyes. The female
2Lourdeaux, Lee. " Dancers Show Graceful Nocturne," Durham Morning Herald. Friday, June 17, 1988.
3Kisselgoff, Anna. " Dance: Hawkins Piece Set to Score by Mamuya," The New York Time. February 11, 1983.
permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. soloist walks toward each dancer and removes their hands from their eyes. This
creates a sense that the energy is passing among the dancers. It is an amazing
moment. The Los Anaeles Herald Examiner dance critic Sasha Anawalt wrote:
" It suggests going from blindness to sight; it's like having your aura washed and
you're ready to accept whatever the dancers give."4 She felt that the dancers
gave their energy to the audience. Anna Kisselgoff, The New YorkTimes critic,
had a different opinion about this moment.
It is unusually angular for Hawkins choreography. When the others enter and appear to weep, she removes their hands from their faces. The paradox of a dramatic gesture in an abstract context is mysterious.5
Most of Hawkins' music collaborators were from the United States. But in
this piece he collaborated with Mamiya, a Japanese composer. Hawkins was
influenced by Asian art and philosophy; Mamiya was deeply influenced by the
West. Hawkins heard Mamiya's music in California and asked him to do the
music for Summer-Clouds People. Anna Kisselgoff wrote about this
collaboration:
It is a wonderful marriage. There is Mr. Hawkins, with his Zen- influenced affinity for Asian thought patterns and unhurried Asian theatrical time sense. Then there is Mr. Mamiya, a contemporary
4Anawalt, Sasha. " Erick Hawkins Dancers Redefine Beauty,” Los Anaeles Herald Examiner. Saturday, February 13, 1988.
5Kisselgoff, Anna. " Dance: Hawkins Piece Set to Score by Mamiya," The New York Times. February 11, 1983.
permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Japanese composer totally tuned in to the West.8
Before Mamiya completed the music for Summer-Clouds People. Hawkins
contacted him to disscuss the score and asked for sixteen to twenty-two minutes
of music. Hawkins did not have any concrete suggestions for the composer, but
wanted only seven instrument due to touring constraints, since he always used
live music. He also wanted instrumentalist to play in each performance, and the
company played in many different spaces.
It is likely that by using all of them it could in the proper way make enough volume that the music will carry in very large theatres where sometimes we have to perform. At the University of Minnesots, we play in a theatre seating 4800. The scores by Virgil Thomson and Alan Hovhaness and Lucia Dlugoszewski, for example, sound very full at the proper time and so carry.7
Hawkins mailed to Mamiya a list of instruments, and a tape with their
sound and range. The instruments included violin, string bass, flute, clarinet in B
flat, trumpet in C, bass trombone, and percussion.8 Hawkins wanted the music to
be more active rather than subtle, and all in one movement, without any breaks.
He explained:
Please write one long connected piece-not in sections like our suites where the music comes to a stop. However, within the one long stream of course variety of movements is theatrical needed. Say the way sometimes Western composers write
6lbid.
7Letter from Erick Hawkins, to Michio Mamiya. September 23, 1981. Found in Hawkins’s files by Naima Prevots.
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symphonies but say they are in one movement.9
Summer-Clouds People is pure poetry with joy; it is not about nature in
the same way as Black Lake or Eight Clear Places. In Black Lake, the character,
" Night Birds," ran with fast steps through the whole stage, creating figure-eight
patterns and circles with two paper wings attached to the dancers' shoulders. In
Eight Clear Place. Hawkins entered and wore a tight bodysuit with a squash
shape covering his head in the last section called " Squash". In these two pieces,
Hawkins' choreography and costumes were used to symbolize different aspects
of nature. But, in Summer-Clouds People , the choreography is more suggestive
and allusive. Alan M. Kriegsman, retired critic of The Washington Post wrote:
" It's one of those Hawkins' pieces in which one becomes particularly conscious
of the air the dancers move through—the traces they leave on it, the currents they
disturb or incite, the delicate weight of it."10 When the dancers flick their wrists
and tilt their arms in this work, they are not symbolizing a specific aspect of
nature, but rather presenting joy in the environment of life.
The second piece to be analyzed, Cantilever II. represents another new
direction for Hawkins, and it was choreographed in 1988. The music was
composed by Lucia Dlugoszewski, the set by Ralph Dorazio, and the lighting by
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10Kriegsman, Alan M. " The Height of Hawkins," The Washington Post. February 27, 1991.
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Robert Engstrom. The first version, created in 1963, was called Cantilever and
had only two male dancers and two female dancers. The completely
rechoreographed Cantilever II. was performed by twelve dancers: James Aarons,
Brenda Connors, Katherine Duke, Randy Howard, Gloria McLean, Michael
Moses, Laura Pettibone, James Reedy, Cynthia Reynolds,Daniel Tai, Sean
Russo, and Mariko Tanabe.
Cantilever II is full of exciting and surprising movements. The movements
combine subtle gesture, stillness with touching, and unexpected jumping. In the
Philadelphia City Paper. Susan Gould," As a paean to the sheer physicality and
apparent limitless diversity of dance, the 1988 Cantilever II (also to a score by
Dlugoszewski) is all whirls and thrusts, leaps and dashes, frantic crisscrossings,
lively jumps, hops and springs, with only a rare delicate touch (literally, of one
dancer's hand to another's leg)."11 The dancers tilt and twist their bodies,
especially as they jump to suspend themselves in the air. The dancers' bodies
intermingle with the sculptures, which are three striking curved tubes hanging at
various levels in the air. The male and female dancers seem to fly from the
wings with wide jumping positions in unison or canon. The New York Times
critic, Anna Kisselgoff, wrote about this piece:
Cantilever II. which had its outstandingly danced premiere with the Erick Hawkins Dance Company at the Joyce Theater on
11Gould, Susan. " Last Week at Annenberg: The Whirling, Liberating, Exhilarating Choreography of Erick Hawkins," Philadelphia Citv Paper. October 4-October 11, 1991.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 62
Tuesday night, is an exuberant pure-dance piece; it is about its relationship to the music as much as to its own structure and dynamic movement invention. More succinctly, it is about counterpoint and canon.'2
Hawkins played with a wide range of dynamics. The music composed
by Lucia Dlugoszewski is the same as the previous version, composed twenty
years before. In the new version, Hawkins creates movement with much more
range, scope, and energy. The dancers do not dance to the music; they
encounter it.
With all the energy and activity of Cantilever fl. there are still some
moments that reminiscent of Cantilever I. One example of this a quiet duet. The
dancers use the small gesture of touching one another. This part is calm and
peaceful with slow and circular movements. The energy passes through the
dancers; however, it is subtle, as the dancers’ hands touch each other’s legs.
Anna Kisselgoff pointed out this moment in a dance review. She wrote," These
are done without affectation and with the naturalness that defines the Hawkins
style as a whole."13 The duet is not traditional, in that a man lifts a woman or helps
and supports her to do a movement In an article," Home Game," Deborah
Jowitt wrote,
12Kisselgoff, Anna. " A Touch of Zen in Hawkins Premiere," The New York Times. Thurday, December 8, 1988.
13Kisselgoff, Anna. " When Erick Hawkins Sets out to Enlighten," The New York Times. Sunday, December 18, 1988.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 63
These do not involve fancy lifls or much traditional manipulation of a woman by a man; instead they are companionable, but with a passionate urgency. Partners seem to understand each other’s bodies quickly and by instinct— not by staring and groping, but by dancing so sensitively together that their skins become charged.14
Cantilever II is a pure-dance piece, and emphasizes the interplay
between the movement and the music. In a review, Anna Kisselgoff wrote," We
hear the music and we see the dancing, separate but equal; but as the composer
has aptly said, the music is meant to thrust into the dance and the dance thrust,
or cantilever, into the music."15 In terms of costume, the dancers are bare
legged, as is often the case in Hawkins's dances. They shift their weight and
follow the momentum from movement to movement quickly travling easily in
varied patterns. Cantilever fl also creates a risky quality by throwing energy out
in air and space, and there is a visual excitement that doesn't exist in Cantilever I.
The third piece to be analyzed is Killer-of-Enemies. This piece premiered
at the Joyce Theater in New York on April 7, 1991, and was also presented later
for the sixth annual Imagination Celebration Children's Arts Festival, co
sponsored by the Performing Arts Center, at the Kennedy Center in Washington
14Jowitt, Deborah. " Home Game," The Village Vice. January 3, 1989.
15Kieeslgoff, Anna. " A Touch of Zen in Hawkins Premiere," The New York Times. December 8, 1988.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission D.C., and the Orange County Department of Education.16 The music was
composed by Alan Hovhaness, costumes by Ralph Lee, set design by Ralph
Dorazio, and lighting by Robert Engstrom. The original cast was:
Ancient and Talking God Robert Engstrom Storyteller Jeff Kensmore Young Man and Killer of Enemies ...... Michael Moses Changing Woman Gloria Mclean Spider/Old Woman ...... Cynthia Reynolds The Sun Frank Roth Big Giant...... Othello Johns Monster Eagle ...... Douglas Andresen Big Owl...... Laura Pettibone Big Fly...... Joseph Mills Little Wind Catherine Tharin Holy People Breda Conners, Catherine Tharin, Renata Celochowska, and Kathy Oritz17
The story of Killer-of-Enemies is simple. A young man named Kiiler-of-
Enemies, who is the son of Changing Woman and the Sun, faces four monsters
who have been destroying his people. After he defeats the four monsters, the
wounded young man is celebrated and healed by four Holy People.'8 The dance
is fifty minutes long; a storyteller introduces the costumed dancers.
Killer-of Enemies is a theater piece based on Navajo and Apache myths.
Writer Wayne Lee Gay wrote that the dance presents a universal myth of
transformation through adversity, presented in an American Indian mode but
16Leader, Jody. " Hawkins Delights in Myth, Magic," L.A. Life. Friday, April 26, 1991.
17ibid.
18Gay, Wayne Lee. " Dance Program's Student Audience Deserves F for Its Performance," Fort Worth Star-Teleoram. Friday, February 28, 1992.
permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 65
with undertones of Judeo-Christian tradition and Asian mythology. Hawkins's
choreography presents" a gentle version of modem dance, absolutely free of
virtuosity and yet emotionally direct."19
Although inspired by American Indian myths, Hawkins expresses his own
style without being imitative. He said in an interview:" Indian dance is ritual.
They never did a theatrical dance. I think of it, Killer-of-Enemies, as being a
universal myth, done with insights from the Indians...I spent a long time writing
the script because the myth talks about miraculous things that you can't put on
the stage."20
Killer-of-Enemies was created for children. Hawkins felt that children
love myths, and he believed the colorful costumes and masks would reflect the
work's poetic nature and attract their imagination. Many critics felt the dance was
not only for children, but also for adults; it had metaphorical meaning that was
interesting for ail age groups. In his article," Hawkins' 'Divine' Touch," Alan M.
Kriegsman wrote:
If it turns out that the work proves more accessible for children than adults, it will only be because it speaks, as do all Hawkins’ dances, to the childlike wonder and sense of mystery in all of us. The further from childhood time takes us, the more doors we close upon fantasy, non-literal imagery and metaphor. But those doors can be and are opened by an art like that of Hawkins,
19Gay, Wayne Lee. "Leap of Faith: Native American Ritual Set to Music," Fort Worth Star-Telearam. Wednesday, February 26, 1992.
20lbid.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 66
which draws inspiration from the universality of world myth."21
The young man in Killer-of-Enemies is a hero. He must face the monsters
who threaten his people, and he must kill them. " The Sun" and " Changing
Woman" are the young man's parents. Before the young man can conquer
monsters, he must face his powerful father who tests his courage and then offers
to help him. The young man also has three helpers," Little Wind" " Big Fly" and
" Spider Old Woman," and even though he is afraid of monsters, he faces them.
The monsters a re " Big G iant,"" Monster Eagle,"" Big Owl," and " Monster Fish."
After the young man conquered all of the monsters, he returns to his mother and
is healed by the Holy People.
The young dancr, the hero, Killer-of-Enemies, moves through the story
meeting the various characters such as Big Giant, Big Owl, and Big Fly; these
characters were played by dancers who wore realistic masks. The critic Clive
Bames thought that the hero conveyed a wide variety of images. He wrote:" The
various battles and encounters of Hawkins' hero are related more to literary and
visual image than pure dance, and what dancing there is Hawkins's deliberately
kept ritualistic in form and manner."22 " Little Wind" danced with fast and
charming skipping steps;" Big Fly," beat his legs in the air with dazzling patterns
flying through space. Anne Marie Welsh wrote about this part of the dance:
21Kriegsman, Alan M. " Hawkins' 'Divine' Touch," The Washington Post. Saturday, April 13, 1991.
^Barnes, Clive. " These Feet Are in Good Hands," The New York Times. March 29, 1991.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 67
" 'Little Wind' and 'Big Fly'—circle the stage one last time, and the theater fills with
a sense of aliveness and happiness."23 At the end of this section, the hero seems
to be reborn after confronting the four monsters, and then healing by the four
Holy People. He removes his hand-shaped mask to reveal his human face.
Ralph Lee's costumes and masks symbolicaly express the dancers' characters in
this piece. Anne Marie Welsh noted:
Lee's colorful costumes and masks are also non-literal, distilling essences from nature and animal forms, most effectively for Spider Woman guarding the Sun, for the all-seeing and long- staring Owl, and for the comically homed toothed Big Giant.24
In the article," Imaginative Plot, Costumes Keep Enigmatic 'Hero'
Fascinating," the critic, Dave Nicolette wrote about the dance, and commented on
its impact through integration of music, movement, and overall clarity.
While the production as a whole has a grandness about it- despite the lack of any atmospheric lighting for the local production-it's great charm is its simplicity of movement and music, each fitting tightly as interpretive mates. Part of the expansiveness of the production derives from the measured narrative, each word weighted with meaning, and another part— and excellent instrumentalists."25
During the period 1980-1993, Erick Hawkins made new discoveries
23Welsh, Anne Marie. " Hawkins' Mastery Continues in ' Hero'," The San Dieoo Union. April 27, 1991.
24lbid.
25Nicolette, Dave. " Imaginative Plot, Costumes Keep Enigmatic' Hero' Fascinating," The Grand Rapids Press. April 5, 1991.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 68
about choreography, as exhibited by the three works: Summer-Clouds People.
Cantilever II. and Killer-of-Enemies. All have the free flow quality that
characterized Hawkins's works of the previous decades. However, they also all
have a much wider range of dynamics. Whereas Cantilever I. created in 1963,
had a gentle and quite tone even in its occasional surge of large dynamics.
Cantilever n was choreographed with a higher lever energy throughout. Alan M.
Lriegsman wrote about this in his 1991 review, when he compared the original
Cantilever I with the new one:
Again an abstraction, alluding to nothing more concrete than the device of the title—a projecting beam with support at one end only-the dance nevertheless generates a thrilling kinesthetic momentum. Perhaps its ruling concept is the idea of going out on a limb. In any case the twelve dancers convey a feeling of perilous but willing physical risk in their rushing leaps and overlapping, intersecting stage crossing ”
Increased use of physical risk, leaps, and exciting intersections were also
characteristic of Summer-Clouds People and Killer-of-Enemies: no longer was
Hawkins content to have the meditative quality of free flow be predominant. He
felt the need to expand his own choreographic vision and the scope of his
dances. He wanted to explore a broader range of movement dynamics, and he
expanded the idea of poetry of motion.
Summer-Clouds People showed another facet of Hawkins's new
^Kriegsman, Alan M. " The Height of Hawkins," The Washington Post. February 27, 1991.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 69
explorations in the last decade of his life. It is a dance that expresses the theme
of nature in an abstract manner. Hawkins uses delicate shapes and gestures,
combining various dynamic levels and shifts of weight. Hawkins's choreography
in this dance is not as symbolic and specific in its nature imagery as previous
works. In her essay," Erick Hawkins: Affirming the Aesthetic Dimension,” Mary
I. Norton wrote:
The aesthetic impulse present in Summer-Clouds People, in the carvings with their subtle evocation of cloud forms, in the interweave of the music and the choreography with its unrestrained delight in movement has no purpose other than to awaken us to this particular reality at this particular time. In this unpragmatic, unpedagogical, nonsymbolic world, nothing points to something else.27
Earlier in his choreographic career, Hawkins was more concerned with
specific nature imagery. In Black Lake, a female soloist called "Star" dances by
shifting her weight and jumping in the air with long, slow leg extensions. Her
movement qualities are soft and light. The dancer wears a small four-pointed
star on her head. Another character, called "Night Birds," runs with fast steps,
creating figure-eight patterns and circles on the stage. Paper wings are attached
to the dancers' shoulders. The movement and costumes reflect specific aspects
of nature. Even the titles in each section are quite specific. In one of the
27Norton, Mary I. " Erick Hawkins: Affirming the Aesthetic Dimension." Seven Essavs on the Dance of Erick Hawkins. (New York: Foundation for Modem Dance, Inc.,).
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 70
sections of Eight Clear Places. " Pine Tree," the dancer makes a perfect circle
that looks as if he were growing from the floor up into the sky. The dancer turns
slowly and stamps his feet looking like a tall and strong tree with heavy and
earthy qualities.
In Killer-of-Enemies. Hawkins returned to the use of text, which he had
not done since he choreographed John Brown in 1945.28 In John Brown, which
was a solo for Hawkins, an interlocutor recited the text, taken from a poem by
Robert Richman; both Hawkins and the interlocutor were dressed in street
clothes with boots and jackets. The choreography for this piece emerged from a
workshop at Bennington Summer School for the Dance. Hawkins intergrated the
story of John Brown, a legend in American history, into his choreography. Brown
was an African-America bom in Connecticut in 1800 and executed in Virginia in
1859; he became a symbol of the struggle against slavery in America.
John Brown spent his last fiften years in the fight against slavery. While
living in Richmond, Virginia he built a secret hiding place for runaway slaves.
Later, while living in Kansas, he helped runaway slaves escape through through
Missouri to Canada. His most famous fight in 1859 against slavery, at Harpers
Ferry, was also his last.
Harpers Ferry was situated on narrow land controlling entrances to
28Hawkins created John Brown in 1945; the music was composed by Charles Mills, set by Isamu Noguchi, and the text and the poetry by Robert Richman.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 71
Maryland and Virginia; it was also the site of a federal arsenal and armory.
Brown's wish was to start a slave insurrection and capture this strategic
geographic and military place. As soon as he began fighting, federal troops
arrived to crush the fight, after a struggle of thirty-six hours. Brown was put in jail
and then hang in public on December 2, 1859.
In the video Erick Hawkins America, a short excerpt from the solo is
introduced and explained by Hawkins. He explains that he felt words were very
important and he wanted there to be a dialogue between an interlocutor and the
character of John Brown. Erick Hawkins Dance Company presented John Brown
at the Joyce Theater in 1984; this work had not been seen in New York since
1968. Jack Anderson was not pleased with either the piece or use of text. Both
performers talked as well as moved, and they did so in a sculptural setting by
Isamu Noguchi dominated by a construction that simultaneously suggested a
tree, a clothes rack and a gallows...And though they talked about a lot of things,
not much ever really happened.
Most of the action consisted of reactions to unseen events that were referred to in the text, but which never came alive in either a realistic or an allegorical manner on stage. As a result," God's Angry Man" seemed more blustering than eloquent.29
The use of text is more successful and highly developed in Killer-of-
Enemies. This piece is fifty minutes long; based on an American Indian
29Anderson, Jack. " Dance: Erick Hawkins and ' God's Angry Man'," The New York Times. Oct 19, 1984.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 72
mythology.
In Killer-ofEnemies. Hawkins used two interlocutors. The wise man
chants these words to the young man:
I am Changing Woman's Son! I am Changing Woman's Son. Eastern Mountain, Chief of all Mountains, I walk with your feet, I walk with your legs, I walk with your body, and with your mind, and with your sound. The feathers on your head I walk with: they are in front of me, beautiful;under me beautiful; on top of me, beautiful. Oh Mountain of the East, I am the one that lives on forever. Everything is beautiful. Everything is beautiful. Out of my mouth beauty, and around me, beauty. I am everything man! Around me everything is beautiful. Around me everything is beautiful. Around me everything is beautiful. Around me everything is beautiful.30
Erick Hawkins lived a rich and long life, and his choreography and
pedagogical work in dance became an important part of our American cultural
heritage. Through his writings, his teaching and his rich imaginative work on
stage, he was able to provide new insights into dance for audiences and dancers
alike.
30Engstrom, Robert. " Killer-of-Enemies: The Divine Hero," Study Guide.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Publications
Anawalt, Sasha. " Erick Hawkins Dancers Redefine Beauty.” Los Anoeles Herald Examiner. Saturday, Feb 13, 1988.
Anderson, Jack. " Dance: Erick Hawkins and ’God’s Angry Man'." The New York Times. Oct 16, 1984.
Barnes, Clive. " A Matter of Tradition". Dance Magazine. February 1995.
______. These Feet Are in Good Hands.” The New York Times. Mar 29, 1991.
Boyer, Richard O. The Legend of John Brown: A Biooraohv and A History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1973.
Coe, Robert. Dance in America. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1985.
Cohen, Selma Jeanne. The Modem Dance : Seven Statements of Belief. Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1966.
Costonis, Maureen Needham. " Martha Graham’s American Document: A Minstrel Show in Modem Dance Dress." American Music. Fall 1991.
DeMille, Agnes. Martha Graham: the Life and Work of Martha Graham. New York: Random House, Inc., 1956.
Dunning, Jennifer. " Dance: Hawkins’ Holiday Program." The New York Times. Dec 22, 1983.
Ewen, David. American Composers: A Biographical Dictionary. London: Robert Hale, 1982.
______Composers Since 1900: A Siograwhicai and Critical Guide. New York: The H. W . Wilson Co., 1969.
73
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Gay, Wayne Lee. " Dance Program's Student Audience Deserves F for Its Performance." Fort Worth Star-Teleoram. Friday, Feb 28, 1992.
______. " Leap of Faith: Native American Ritual Set to Music." Fort Worth Star-Telearam. Wednesday, Feb 26, 1992.
Gould, Susan. " Last Week at Annenberg: The Whirling, Liberating, Exhilarating Choreography of Erick Hawkins." Philadelphia Citv Paper. October 4-11, 1991.
Hawkins, Erick. The Body Is A Clear Place. NJ: Princeton Book Company, 1992.
Hering, Doris. " Reviews". Dance Magazine February 1989.
Highwater, Jamake. Dance: Rituals of Experience. Third Edition. NJ: Princeton Book Company, 1992.
Hutera, Donald and Robertson, Allen. The Dance Handbook. Boston: G.K. Hall&Co., 1988.
Jowitt, Deborah. Dance Beat: Selected Views and Reviews 1967-1976. New York: Marcel Deker, Inc., 1977.
______. Time and the Dancing Image. Berkeley: University Press, 1988.
______. "Home Game." The Village Voice. Jan 3, 1989.
Keefer, Julia L. " Erick Hawkins, Modem Dancer: History, Theory, Technique, and Performance." (Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1979).
Kisselgoff, Anna. " Erick Hawkins, a Pioneering Choreographer of American Dance, Is Dead at 85." New York Times. Nov 24, 1994.
______. " Creation of The World by Hawkins." The New York Times. July 1, 1979.
______. " Dance: Hawkins Piece Set to Score by Mamiya." The New York Times. Feb 11, 1983.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 75
______. " A Touch of Zen in Hawkins Premiere." The New York Times. Thursday, Dec 8, 1988.
______. " When Erick Hawkins Sets Out to Enlighten." The New York Times. Sunday, Dec 18, 1988.
Koegler, Horst. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Ballet. Second Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.
Kriegsman, Alan M. " A Hawkins Nocturne." The Washington Post. Feb 28, 1991.
______. " The Height of Hawkins." The Washington Post. Feb 27, 1991.
______. " Hawkins' 'Divine' Touch." The Washington Post. Saturday, April 13, 1991.
Kriegsman, Sali Ann. Modem Dance in America: The Bennington Years. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1981.
Leader, Jody. " Hawkins Delights in Myth, Magic." L.A. Life. Friday, April 26, 1991.
Lourdeaux, Lee. ” Dancers Show Graceful Nocturne." Durham Morning Herald. Friday, June 17, 1988.
Magriel, Paul. Chronicles of the American Dance: from the Shakers to Martha Graham. New York: Da Capo Press, 1948.
Manning, Susan. " American Document and American Minstrelsy." Moving Words. New York: Routledge, 1996.
Mazo, H. Joseph. " Obituaries: Erick Hawkins". Dance Magazine. February 1995.
McDonagh, Don. The Complete Guide to Modem Dance. New York: Doubleday&Company, Inc., 1976.
______Martha Graham: A Biography. New York: Praeger Publishers, Inc., 1973
______. " Dance: Hawkins Troupe." The New York Times. Jan 4, 1974.
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Morgan, Barbara. Martha Graham: Sixteen Dances in Photographs. New York: Morgan & Morgan, Inc., 1980.
Nicolette, Dave. " Imaginative Plot, Costumes Keep Enigmatic ’ Hero' Fascinating." The Grand Rapids Press. April 5, 1991.
Norton, Mary I. " Erick Hawkins: Affirming the Aesthetic Dimension." Seven Essavs on the Dance of Erick Hawkins. New York: Foundation for Modem Dance, Inc.
Oates, Stephen B. To Purge This Land with Blood: A Biography of John Brown. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 1970.
Pennella, Florence. " The Vision of Erick Hawkins". Dance Scope. Spring/Summer 1978.
Prevots, Naima. " Erick Hawkins: Redefining America." The Aesthetic Biography of Erick Hawkins. New York: Foundation for Modem Dance, Inc., 1984.
Reynolds, Nancy. Repertory in Review: 40 Years of the New York City Ballet. New York: The Dial Press, 1977.
Sabin, Robert. " What Comes After the Avant-Garde." Five Essavs on the Dance of Erick Hawkins. New York: Modem Dance, Inc.
Sandla, Robert. " Reviews". Dance Magazine. May 1992.
Siegel, Marcia B. The Shapes of Change: Images of American Dance. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1979.
Sorell, Water. " Erick Hawkins (1909-1994)". Dance Magazine. New York: Dance Magazine, Inc., February 1995, p77.
Stodelle, Ernestine. Deep Sono: The Dance Storv of Martha Graham. New York: A Division of Macmillan, Inc., 1984.
Thom, Rose Anne. " Reviews". Dance Magazine. New York: Dance Magazine, Inc., May 1994, p79-80.
Welsh, Anne Marie. " Hawkins' Mastery Continues in 'Hero'." The San Dieao Union. April 27, 1991.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Woodworth, Mark. ” Opening the Eye of Nature." Five Essavs on the Dance of Erick Hawkins. New York: Modem Dance, inc.
Videorecordinqs and Performances
Erick Hawkins. Erick Hawkins' America. Produced by Princeton Book Company, 58min., 1988. Videocassette.
Erick Hawkins Dance Company, Kavebill Soring Season 1997. The Sylvia & Danny Kaye Playhouse, Hunter College of the City University of New York, New York, 21,22 February 1997.
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