Dance Techniques 231 Allison J. Gauer
Modern Historical Paper Jona Kulesza
Kristen Allen
Joel Teachout
Ryan Foll
Erick Hawkins
Erick Hawkins was born in 1909, and grew up in a small town in Colorado. At Harvard, he majored in Greek civilization and soon became interested in dance. His dance journey began in 1934 as one of the first students of George Balanchine’s School of American Ballet, where Hawkins was considered to be an extremely promising choreographer. Balanchine’s School of American Ballet was the beginning of the New York City Ballet, and it took Erick Hawkins to an American Dance Festival in Bennington, Vermont where he was used in one of Martha Graham’s pieces – American Document. Soon after, he became Graham’s first male dancer in her company.
In 1951, Erick Hawkins moved on himself by opening his own dance school. The mission of his dance school was to instruct the kinesthetic characteristics of the body to teach dancers how to dance without injury, while incorporating it with the mind and spirit. This technique of putting the body with the mind and spirit created a technique of grace and beautiful fluidity; a free flowing technique…. This choreography brought harmony between conflicting opposites: “the precision of classical ballet with the primitive joy of a Plains Indian dance, the clinical detail of scientific technique with the profound vision of the Artist, the tranquility of philosophy with the energy of Western drive, the eternal truths of ancient myths with the fleeting beauty of a quick wondrous movement” (ErickHawkinsDance.org). However, he wanted us to look past his “free flow” technique, and see the poetic perception in the clarity and sophisticated simplicity of his style. Hawkins was quoted to say, “The dance can be ‘good’ only when the body, as it moves, totally obeys nature. It moves as a river from its source, as a spring in the Rockies until it flows into the ocean.”
Hawkins’ choreography can be appreciated on two different levels. The first level, we can take pleasure in the natural flow of his dancers, the decorative costumes, although could be quite strange, and the primitive or ritualistic masks. One could also enjoy the story line in Hawkins’ dances, which could get to be very emotional. The second level is his work could be understood in a mythological and psychological implication. Hawkins once said, “I try to invent the movement from the unconscious around the poetic nugget or node, and later decide in my consciousness whether I use this or that movement that I invented or not.”
In the time of Hawkins choreography and creation, many other artists were in their prime. Hawkins made use of these many artists, sculptors, composers and designers. More than any other choreographer had done, Hawkins hired more American composers to create the music for his works. Of all the great American composers of the 20th Century, Lucia Dlugoszewski created 35 years of artistic impression along Hawkins’ side. After his death in 1994, Lucia became the company dance choreographer and artistic director.
Currently, the Erick Hawkins Dance company is under the artistic direction of Ms. Kathy Duke. Through research, Ms. Kathy Duke has dug up works by Hawkins and Dlugoszewski that were previously unseen, and she has continued to carry out Hawkins’ unique, revolutionary, radical modern dance technique by enriching her own works with Hawkins style.
Erick Hawkins radical style has influenced many great artists, not only Ms. Kathy Duke, but Louis Kavouras of The Universe of Joe, Joe’s Aesthetic Philosophy & Artistic Endeavors, who studied under Hawkins and Dlugoszewski in 1983. By 1996 Louis Kavouras became a principal dancer in 1996 and he continues to perform for the company. Influence of Erick Hawkins also extended to the renowned Russian dancer and actor Mikhail Baryshnikov, who has said, “The daring and innovative visions of Erick Hawkins rewrite the rules of what dance can tell us.”