Natasha Simon: We are now recording.
Gerald Otte: Okay. Sounds good to me. Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies.
NS: I am Natasha Simon, and I am sitting in the drawing room.
GO: Parlor.
NS: Parlor floor of Gerald Otte’s home in New York City on West 81st Street. And it is the 21st of September 2021, and we are about to embark on a conversation between myself and Gerald about his, uh, tenure, shall we say?
GO: Okay.
NS: Association -- and life with Alwin Nikolais. But we don’t want to start there. We can start earlier than that. So my question, first, Gerald, to you, is why dance, for you? What is it that -- that sparked joy for you?
GO: That’s -- that’s inexplicable. I think it’s true for most -- most dancers, and that is: when you do it, you realize, “Oh my God, this is what I’m supposed to do.” And that’s exactly what I found out in college.
NS: In college, okay. That’s an experience that a lot of men -- certainly men -- experience as opposed to women of a certain age, let’s say, because I think things have changed over time. So what was it about college that pointed you in the direction of dance?
GO: It was bizarre circumstances. My best friend at the time said that his -- his girlfriend talked him into taking a class with her, a modern dance class, and he says, “I had so much fun and, Gerald I think you’d really like it.” And he convinced me that I owed him a favor because he was the only boy in the class -- and he wanted some -- another guy in the class, so I said sure. And that’s how it began.
NS: Was this a -- was this Modern Dance I, or was this Fundamentals of Movement, or what was it structured as?
GO: It was -- well, you have to understand: at that time dance was not for men at the university level -- at least certainly not the University of Colorado, as I learned later. I could not major in it because I was a male. Women could major in it, but -- but men couldn’t.
NS: Nineteen --
GO: Sixty-four.
NS: Sixty-four.
GO: But I -- I just loved the class. I just thought it was so much fun.
NS: What was fun about it?
GO: Well, I was always physically very active, but I’d never taken a dance class of any kind in my life, and here I was, 17 years old, and I could move without feeling I was competitive. I disliked participating in team sports because I didn’t want to compete. You know, yeah, I played a little football in junior high and high school, and you’d try to bash the other person as hard as you could, and I thought this is really stupid -- (laughter) -- because I had no desire to do that.
And here I was getting to move and jump and run and roll and hop and turn and all these things, and it was absolutely liberating for -- for me. I’m sure I was terrible. I was waiting -- after like the third or fourth class -- [00:05:00] I was waiting outside of the office of the lead teacher, and I didn’t go in because I heard that she was clearly on the telephone. “Oh yes, we -- we have a new male student.” Silence, silence. “No, I don’t think there’s any hope.” (laughter) So that was --
NS: Well, did you think that that was because it was you that she was referring to?
GO: Well, it was me she was referring to. I was the only new student around. (laughter) Well, she turned out to be a magnificent teacher. Her name was Charlotte [York] Irey Short [1918-2017]. She was a Bennington girl. [Bennington College]
NS: Aha.
GO: And that, you should know, I’m sure, what that means.
NS: I almost went to Bennington, but I was a Vermonter, and so I wanted to leave the state, but I was quite taken with Bennington as an institution.
GO: Yeah. And basically they were -- said when they graduated, “Go out, spread dance in America.” (laughs) And Charlotte went to the University of Colorado, and she created -- over the years she was there, which were many, many, many -- she created a full dance program and eventually got it out of women’s PE and into the theater program, and so it’s now the theater and dance program.
NS: Program in Boulder.
GO: Mm-hmm. And they built a new building, the Charlotte Irey Dance Building.
NS: Did you like, or -- not -- like isn’t the right word so much as, what were her classes like? Do you remember them? I mean, we’re going back here, so I understand.
GO: Yeah. Oh yes, easily. I -- I could still teach the very first warm-up.
NS: Really, from hers?
GO: (laughs) Yes.
NS: Because her warm up was…?
GO: No, because I have really good body memory. And so, all I have to do is go into that opening Humphrey-Weidman technique and – [Doris Humphrey, 1895-1958; Charles Weidman, 1901-1975]
NS: So you’re -- is it a standing -- you want to --
GO: You’re standing, mm-hmm.
NS: You’re standing, and you’re in whatever, first parallel, first position.
GO: No, like this.
NS: Oh, okay. You’re out.
GO: Like this. This is Humphrey-Weidman.
NS: Weidman. Wide man, right? Humphrey-Weidman.
GO: (laughs) Well, Doris and Charles, (laughs) although I had no idea who those people were at the time. But it was -- it was something. And then, the summer of my sophomore year, Charlotte had hired someone, like they did every summer, for an intensive -- I don’t remember how long they were -- four weeks, five weeks. A summer intensive, and she hired Murray Louis [1926-2016]. So he came, and I took to the classes like a duck to water. And that’s when I discovered creativity because, of course, you did a two-hour technique class. You did an hour of improvisation. Then you did an hour or an hour and a half of composition. So I was really given the gamut right there. And I’m sure I was terrible, once again, but, you know, because I was a boy, I was encouraged. A woman in that situation would never have been encouraged the way I was. I’m sure of that. And I continued. I took every dance class they offered. But my --
NS: But the spark was lit there in Murray’s class or before? Well, before, with Charlotte?
GO: Before, mm-hmm, yeah.
NS: The difference that you just mentioned, though, the difference was that -- in Murray’s workshop that summer, was your exposure to creativity.
GO: Exactly. Which of course is the real core of Nikolais, is that each person is a creative being, and I’m sure you’ve heard many versions of that. So I did my next academic year, which was my junior year, and then the intensive was so successful [00:10:00] with Murray, Charlotte hired him again and also booked his company to perform, and that’s when I met Phyllis [Phyllis Lamhut, 1933- ]. And it was a very exciting time, and I saw dance. I saw Calligraphy. I don’t know if you know Murray’s Calligraphy [Calligraph for Martyrs, Murray Louis, 1961]? Yeah, I saw that, and that was, you know -- it’s dated now, but at the time, it was, you know -- because that was beginning of the anti-war, Vietnam War period.
NS: Especially on campuses.
GO: Yeah. But Murray warned me, “Don’t you get involved in that.”
NS: Oh really? Oh dear.
GO: I know. It’s probably not a memory he -- he would have been happy to --
NS: Well, I think that he probably was saying, “Look, you’re -- you have this gift, and nurture it in dance. Don’t go wasting it in the streets,” essentially.
GO: Maybe. Maybe.
NS: We could be generous.
GO: Oh, I can be very generous with this next thing because he was. He said to me and a beautiful young dancer named Louanne [Trainer?], he said to the two of us, “Okay, you two” -- this was the end of the summer’s intensive.
NS: In 1960…?
GO: Six. He said, “Okay, you two, you choreograph -- the two of you choreograph a program, and I’ll fly from New York to see it.”
NS: (gasps) How delicious is that?
GO: And so what motivation could you imagine could be better than that? And so we did. We worked -- we had no idea. No student had ever done such a thing on the campus before. Now, I used my theater credentials to get the theater, and so that was a first.
NS: Absolutely. That is fabulous.
GO: So it came time, and we called him. He couldn’t come to the show, but he could come the day before the show and see our final dress [dress rehearsal], which he did, and he made some suggestions.
NS: Do you remember those suggestions?
GO: He wanted us to change the name of a couple of the dances. He -- Louanne and I had created a gorgeous costume, absolutely stunning. It was crocheted, and we hand-crocheted our own costume, and it was mostly holes, but it was like a unitard of holes. Mine was purple, and hers was orange. I still have it upstairs. Murray thought those were the greatest costumes, and he stole it. (laughs) And he had it made in New York for he and Phyllis, and it’s on the cover of a Dance Magazine,[1] and -- but we never got credit for it. But he didn’t like the version --
NS: Well, you know that all artists are thieves --
GO: Oh, yes. Well you know the old saying: a good artist steals from other artists.
NS: Exactly.
GO: No -- a good artist borrows from other artists; a great artist steals. (laughter) (I can tell another story on that one about Murray and Alvin Ailey.) But he didn’t like how they came out because whoever did them was a professional, and they were so perfect, every hole the same size.
NS: His or yours?
GO: His. Ours were just us. (laughs) And the holes were all these -- and that’s why he loved it because it was so strange. It made the body look so strange. I don’t have any pictures of that concert. And then we did a piece, and he said, “You should call it Tent.”
NS: No!
GO: And we did. And it began with this huge piece of cloth that covered the stage, and the dancers all underneath, and there were pulleys to lift it up. And my friend, very good friend at that time, Jim Van Abbema –
NS: Yes, yes.
GO: -- was in technical theater in Boulder, [00:15:00] and he rigged it, so he could operate that tent to go up and down.
NS: Great. Uh-huh.
GO: And in 1967, Nik made a piece called Tent. Jim was there.
NS: Jim was there, yes.
GO: And Jim figured out the rigging and everything. That’s because one day, I called -- from New York, I called Jim in Colorado and said, “Jim, what are you doing there? Come to New York,” and he did immediately. He dropped school. He didn’t care. (laughs) And Nik had a job for him, and away they went. So that then was a long tenure with first Nik and then Murray.
NS: Back to your -- your student concert.
GO: (laughs) Yes?
NS: Okay, so you should call it Tent, and you did. Did he talk about --
GO: Perhaps you should know the name before it was Tent.
NS: Okay?
GO: It was called Mazola.
NS: Mizzola, M-I-Z-Z-O...
GO: No, M-A-Z-O-L-A. You don’t know what Mazola is, huh?
NS: Is it --
GO: It’s a cooking oil.
NS: Oh, Mazola, yes, okay.
GO: It’s a cooking oil.
NS: Now why did you choose that name?
GO: (laughs) Well, remember, this is --
NS: 1965, six, yeah.
GO: Mm-hmm, and, um... (laughs)
NS: That’s what one used in cooking.
GO: It was a much more liberated time than now, and, uh, I -- our ideas were first really quite innocent. We didn’t know what an orgy really was, but we knew it was bodies intermingling and everything, and that’s what began. You know, the tent was like this and the bodies underneath are -- are just moving and writhing.
NS: Oozing and writhing.
GO: Oozing, and uh, so that’s -- (laughs)
NS: That’s where the title comes from. Great. I love it. I love it.
GO: But um, yeah, I did a boring piece called Trains, (laughs) but that was -- you know, that was one of the first pieces I did.
NS: And the -- and not to diminish the effort of -- of an idea that becomes real and realized on -- on stage.
GO: On stage, mm-hmm.
NS: Um, and then shown to the world, which is -- also takes a great deal of guts.
GO: It took a lot of guts, but we were too naïve to realize, I think. You know, and we did the whole show. The whole show lasted -- there was over an hour of dance, which is a lot for two young, first-time choreographers.
NS: Absolutely.
GO: So we did it, and Murray saw it and critiqued it very nicely. He stayed at my house. My mother was a wonderful, gracious host.
NS: Because you were a local boy, at that point, in Boulder, that you grew up in Boulder.
GO: Yeah, grade school, junior high, high school, university. So yes, I was a local boy.
NS: But after that summer -- after that season, your debut season at the University of Colorado, did you complete your stay in Boulder, and then --
GO: Yes, I did. I graduated then in ’67.
NS: And then?
GO: Worked three jobs all summer long, so I could afford to come to New York because I had to come to New York. My parents both knew I always had wanted to come to New York. They knew that from way back, and I did. I came to New York and immediately went to Henry Street [Henry Street Playhouse].
NS: Because of your association earlier through Murray, that you went to Henry Street as opposed to New Dance Group?
GO: Another thing that happened that last summer in Boulder was -- I believe it was the 25th anniversary in Colorado Springs of Hanya [Hanya Holm, 1893-1992] teaching.
NS: Yeah.
GO: And Murray told me I had to be there, so I went down. And that’s when I met Nik. And saw all these wonderful -- because there were [00:20:00] a lot of wonderful people at that special concert, old Hanya dancers and quite a few other things. So that was a special time, and I worked those jobs. I didn’t get much sleep.
NS: You look -- you instantaneously -- because we’re not filming, I should say that you looked instantaneously just now exhausted at the memory of three jobs.
GO: I was so tired, but that means I had money to go to New York. How did you get to New York? My parents drove me there -- (laughs) -- because that’s how you did things then, and they drove me, left me, waved goodbye, and I cried for about, oh, four days, I guess. My first time away from home.
NS: In the big city.
GO: Yeah, on Mott Street, just off of Grand.
NS: Uh-huh, so you were quite close -- I mean, it was just a stone’s throw to Henry Street.
GO: Mm-hmm. Well, a quick walk every morning.
NS: Who were your teachers at Henry Street?
GO: The most memorable one was, of course, Phyllis.
NS: And that would be because?
GO: Because she was teaching most of the composition classes. I saw Nik and had classes from him, but I was not on the upper level, and that’s the classes he mostly taught, up in one of the two little --
NS: Two little studios.
GO: Upstairs.
NS: So your classes were on the stage, were they?
GO: Mostly.
NS: Mostly, the technique and then the improv or pedagogy or composition.
GO: Yeah. Mm-hmm, right. It was -- you know, it was a whirlwind. And then starting at about eight o’clock at night, I sold records in a record store on Times Square.
NS: Oh gosh.
GO: That was the heyday of that era of Times Square.
NS: I’m surprised you made it out of there alive.
GO: Well, as I always said to people, can you imagine what kind of people on a Saturday night in Times Square are in a record store trying to buy records at one o’clock and two o’clock in the morning? (laughter)
NS: Oh God.
GO: “Hi. I’m looking for a record. It goes (sings a tune) in summer time.” (laughter)
NS: Oh great.
GO: But, you know, but how better could I have been introduced to New York City? I lived in Little Italy. I was working in Times Square, and I was taking classes at Grand Street.
NS: On the Lower East Side. The classes that you took at Henry Street -- I always ask -- you’re not alone in my asking the question of people -- do you remember the concepts that you were introduced to at that point?
GO: Well, I’d already been introduced by Murray in those two summer sessions. They were quite good. If you ever want to know how I understand the technique, go online --
NS: I have. I’ve seen your -- yes.
GO: -- to gerotte.com. Did you go to History?
NS: Yes, and I’ve read your syllabus.
GO: Oh, you have? (laughs) Okay. I don’t know how many people have ever looked at it.
NS: No, no, I do have that, but again, it’s already been thought out and printed and directed, and so --
GO: Yeah. I never got to teach it.
NS: So my questions of you, now, are more of the moment, which actually is probably the most important aspect to any discussion of the Nikolais, in air quotes, technique, is the moment.
GO: Yeah, because you know, Nik refused to ever call it “Nikolais technique.”
NS: Yes.
GO: He says, “I teach in the tradition of Wigman [Mary Wigman, 1886-1973], Holm, and myself because dance only lives through living people as it travels and matures and there’s no other way it can be dance because dance is people moving live.”
NS: Yes.
GO: [00:25:00] (laughs) I’m sure other people have told you very similar things.
NS: Well, it’s an interesting concept that I think needs to be even more fully fleshed out and explored, which is that we really do adhere to the notion not of technique, but of principles of movement and motion. So when you talk -- when someone says the Nikolais technique, I think to a person that I’ve interviewed, there’s this immediate alarm that goes off, and they say, “No, it’s not technique. We’re dealing in -- or what we’re exposed to are the -- are the principles of motion,” you know, and then you discuss -- or people end up talking about space, time, shape, energy, motion, dynamics… however you wish.
GO: Yeah, but that’s -- you know, that’s Laban [Rudolf von Laban, 1879-1958] andWigman, pure, and they were the ones who said this is what dance can be.
NS: Now, if you were to -- as you say, if you were to describe yourself in that continuum, the way that you then -- if I’m quoting you correctly, of saying that Nik always talked about a continuum -- that I teach in the continuum of Wigman to Holm to Nikolais to Gerald -- now how would you put yourself in that continuum now?
GO: Absolutely because Nik is who taught me how to dance. I got a little bit of technique in Colorado, not much. I was pretty raw. I’m one of probably the last four people that Nik ever completely taught because I’m sure -- I’ll just make a passing note because you probably know this: when the Dance Touring Program[2] at the NEA[3] was first formed, it was to try to make it possible for dance companies to survive by having actual short but real residencies, so they made a minimum of two-and-a-half days on college campuses and so forth, so that there wasn’t just a performance, but there were master classes and lectures and that kind of thing. That was really important.
What that did at Henry Street is it triggered the decision to split the companies. That was a monetary thing because then, for the first time, Nik could afford to have his company, and Murray could afford to have his, and then of course Phyllis kind of pulled off of that, too, because Murray wasn’t going to be as booked as full -- as fully as Nik.
So that was a major shift. Nik and Murray knew this, and Nik then, in his mind, decided, “Okay, I need -- I’m going to need four new dancers in the fall of ’67.” (Yes. No, fall of ’68.) “I’m going to need four new dancers.” And so Nik, for about seven months, taught we four. Other people were in the class.
NS: Who were the four of you?
GO: Okay. Claudia Melrose, Virginia Laidlaw. (I don’t know the other names.) Bob Beswick [1945- ] and me. Ginny didn’t last very long. I think her husband, at the time, said, “No, you’re gone too much.” And, you know, Bob was insane. He still is. Wonderfully insane. That’s not a pejorative. Uh, he also made Nik insane in a very different way. (laughter) [00:30:00] Because I think ultimately Bob wanted to be a Cunningham dancer [Merce Cunningham, 1919-2009] so badly, and he -- he had that. And, um, Claudia was around for a while, but after that 17-week European tour, when the great firing occurred.
NS: That was when he redid his whole company, correct?
GO: Well, basically he fired everyone in the company except me. And he told Suzy she could re-audition, Suzy McDermaid [Suzanne McDermaid, 1947- ] I think he also told Jim Teeters -- who on that tour was an understudy -- he told Jim he could also audition, if he wanted to, and he did.
NS: The motivation for that, from Nik’s point of view, or from your memory of what was going on then, is that this was a long tour. This was --
GO: Seventeen weeks.
NS: Seventeen weeks abroad.
GO: And like two or three days off that full 17 weeks. It was so exhausting. Carolyn Carlson [1943- ] said, “I can’t do this.” She said, “This is too much.”
NS: I think Jeanette Stoner [1943- ] has said that that was just, uh, a beast, brutal, yeah.
GO: So brutal. Thank goodness I was really young, (laughs) and -- so my body could take it. But it was a brutal...
NS: For those -- I mean, you and I could talk about the brutality of touring because, we both have that experience -- but -- but not everybody knows how brutal it can be. So why was it brutal?
GO: We had, I think, just two full programs of pieces, and you were doing those five and six days a week. You had nothing stable. You had no idea whether you were going to be eating Tunisian food or Romanian food or Greek or -- and your stomach was dying.
I got ulcers on that tour and ended up in the hospital in Tunisia because -- but I didn’t know what it was. I just was suffering such pain. I had no idea I had ulcers. The doctor who was the head of the hospital that they took me to in Tunisia, after three days in the hospital -- they got the pain down and everything -- he came in, wanted Nik there and so forth, he said, “You know, I did my full internship in Washington, D.C.” He was a Romanian man, and he said, “If I had been in Washington, D.C., and Gerald came in with these symptoms, I would have known immediately what was wrong. But we don’t have ulcers here in Tunisia, and it never entered my mind.” (laughter)
NS: I don’t know whether that’s -- that’s French imperialism or D.C. inside politics. (laughter) Who knows, right?
GO: Who knows. But he fixed me up with things I was to take, and I then was fine. I did miss one performance. But, it -- it was brutal.
NS: It’s the food. It’s -- and I would suspect --
GO: And sleep. Oh God.
NS: The sleep. I -- I would suspect also that particularly if you’re touring with Nikolais’s repertory, that you’re spending an awful lot of time in a tech -- tech rehearsal.
GO: Huge amounts of time, yeah. The attack I had came during a tech rehearsal, and I was standing there, holding an aluminum tower piece,[4] and I just said [00:35:00] to whoever was near me. I said, “I’m going to take it off -- off stage now. I -- I can’t stand up.” And it was getting towards dawn, so the lighting couldn’t go much longer -- because it was outdoors. But that’s why brutal.
NS: That’s -- brutal, yeah. And not to mention that the stages are all so different.
GO: Oh, and some are so primitive, and some were wonderful, and that’s when I learned, not in a classroom, but for real, what a raked stage is.
NS: Those are -- those are disconcerting.
GO: And don’t leap upstage because the floor will come way too soon. (laughter)
NS: True. Very true.
GO: Always leap down stage and prolong the glory. (laughter)
NS: Either that or do the grand jetés on the moon, right?
GO: (laughs) Right.
NS: So the four of you -- so we can go back to Nik --
GO: Nik teaching us. This is what he wanted.
NS: And those were -- that was -- the four of you plus the company is on this tour?
GO: No, not the company. Murray was with most of the company in India. [1967]
NS: Right. They had the State Department tour in India.
GO: So there were, I don’t know, usually 10 people in the class, 12 at the most, just the higher level students, and --
NS: And this is 1968, nine, ’70?
GO: No. Um, it’s hard to remember these dates. This was ’68, ’69.
NS: Okay. And Nik is still at Henry Street?
GO: Yes. Yes. It wasn’t ‘til right after that when he moved to that little attic place.
NS: Well, he moved from -- In 1970, I believe it’s ’70, he moved from Henry Street. He moved to 36th Street, to the Space for Innovative Development.[5]
GO: You’re missing a space.
NS: No, I’m not, because I went to Henry Street in ’69, ’70. I was at Henry Street --
GO: Have you forgot when they moved out of Henry Street, and they moved to that –
NS: May, June of ’70, we were at Henry Street. And in September, we were at the Space, so there may have been a time in between, yeah.
GO: There was another space. It was like a second floor, floor through, with some offices in the front, uh...
NS: Uh-huh. Eighteenth Street, but that’s afterwards.
GO: No, no, no, no, no. That’s much later.
NS: Yeah.
GO: Oh, I’m trying to remember.
NS: Well, we can -- we can do -- we can look at the archives, but -- but there was that tiny little -- okay.
GO: There was that space.
NS: But that’s where you and the -- the four of you were teaching -- were taking --
GO: No, we were at Henry Street, yeah, upstairs in the larger of the two studios.
NS: And that was the class of 10 that included the four of you?
GO: Right.
NS: Got it. Okay.
GO: And some others, like, uh, [Mary Staten?]. Do you remember Mary?
NS: No, I don’t. She had gone by the time I...
GO: Who else was there? I can picture her. I can’t think of her name. But, you know, there were people who had been around a while. And the four of us were required to lead every class, and -- because he wanted to just concentrate on us, and he did.
NS: So as a mentor, or under his tutelage, what were those classes for you that you -- that you can remember?
GO: They were brutal.
NS: In not the same way because you weren’t tech-ing. There wasn’t brutal tech-ing. You weren’t feed -- he wasn’t feeding you then. Brutal because…?
GO: It was hard, hard work. That’s the time when I learned how to teach someone to lift their leg. Things like that, that are never regularly taught.
NS: How does one, à la Nik, lift one’s leg?
GO: Oh. He has very specific exercises, and I’ve done it a couple of times. But the dancers hate it because it’s so hard.
NS: This is the time when I wish we had a camera, so that you could demonstrate because it’s very hard to put motion into words.
GO: Yes, it is. Basically what it was is you start with your toe on a barre or a chair or whatever, in attitude, and you stand there, and you plié. Now, don’t trip on the cords [to Natasha, who begins to demonstrate]. Yes, and your arms -- right, arms in second, and you plié, and you go as far as you can. That’s it. Now, as you rise, you keep the knee right where it is, and the foot lifts off of the arm. There you go. And then -- no, don’t extend, and back. And plié. And rise. No, it must rise with you. And rise. And you do that a few times. Then you do it extending the leg, and then you come back and settle. So you lift. So now you know where the entire thing comes from, in the hip.
NS: So essentially what you’re also -- if I can also interpret what you’re saying --
GO: Sure, sure.
NS: -- is that the -- the leg lifts as it -- is coordinated with you because the leg lifts because you’re lifting.
GO: Mm-hmm, yeah. So the leg becomes a part of the whole thing. Here you are, and -- and you plié. Now, you go -- I can’t do it anymore. (laughs) Because --
NS: We’re all -- we’re all geezered.
GO: I can do the other leg, but yeah.
NS: But -- but it’s related to the change in level that your body is undergoing at the same time.
GO: Exactly, exactly. And then -- and it’s almost magical, but it does take two, three weeks. If you do that every other day, or if you can stand it, because (gasps) let me tell you, it’s exhausting -- (laughs) -- suddenly you have an extension. People today don’t have extensions. They do in ballet class, but they sure don’t in the contemporary classes. But anyway, so that’s the kind of thing that, you know, he just put us through.
NS: And that comes from his work with Hanya and Hanya’s work with Wigman.
GO: Yes, mm-hmm, and Wigman’s work with Laban.
NS: And Wigman’s work with Laban.
GO: Her husband. Did you know?
NS: What?
GO: Wigman was married to Laban.
NS: No, I did not know.
GO: Yeah. I think his third wife or something. It wasn’t very long. (laughs) It was all so incestuous.
NS: Well, yeah. Well, so -- but to return to the upstairs studio with Nik -- so he would -- you would meet with Nik in the beginning or at 9:45, before the 10 o’clock class, and you -- and he would say, “I want to work with this, so this is what you -- I want to work with -- with extension -- leg extensions today.”
GO: He never told us.
NS: Okay, yeah.
GO: He was just, “Okay, this is what we’re doing now.”
NS: But -- but he had taught you. And then you were the one to work on that in the class.
GO: Yeah. So that was what it was.
NS: And that was the full semester of work.
GO: A little more, yeah. Eventually Murray came back and they were exhausted, Murray and Phyllis. I don’t remember who all else was on that tour.
NS: In India.
GO: Yeah. Ray.
NS: Ray Johnson [1946-1987]
GO: Yeah. Did you ever see him dance? (sighs) And he was probably the first one we lost to you know what.
NS: To AIDS.
GO: Because they didn’t know what it was. Doctors couldn’t figure it out. Anyway.
NS: [00:45:00] (sighs) That’s a whole other chapter.
GO: We lost a generation. We literally lost a generation of dancers and choreographers. (sighs) So then, at the end of that term, that’s when Nik said to us, “We would like you to come back and start rehearsing with the company.”
NS: The four of you.
GO: Yeah, in September. Because we weren’t told anything about why we were getting all this attention. Nik -- Nik was always secretive.
NS: Ah.
GO: Most people don’t...
NS: Do you think it was that he was --
GO: No, I think I know what you’re going to ask. Go ahead.
NS: No, is it that he’s secretive, or is it he was in the moment a lot.
GO: (laughs) Well, that’s it, you know. Oh -- he would never have said it this way, but it really was, “Well, all you need to know… That’s how I deal with life. I don’t think they need to know that.” (laughs)
NS: “It’s unimportant there; this is more important here.”
GO: No matter what I say about any of these people, just know I loved Nik with all my heart. I -- he was so special to me in so many ways. He taught me so much about life, living, that it’s hard for me to even deal with sometimes because he was so important to me, and losing him the way I did, not when he died, but before then, losing him that way was so devastating, especially since I truly believed what we were doing was to save the company because at that point, Nik had lost most of his interest in the company.
NS: What year are you now?
GO: Eighty-four.
NS: Ah, okay, so we’ve jumped a ways then.
GO: Way aways.
NS: When you say -- can we unpack that because you --
GO: You can. It’s so important.
NS: Because it is very important. There’s -- and I think what you’re talking about is -- is at least five fold because you’ve -- you’ve laid out, you know, at least the importance that Nik as a person was to you. That’s number one.
GO: Yeah. I literally did anything he wanted me to do, and it made enemies in the company because they often thought that I was working against them, the other dancers. As Tom Caravaglia [photographer, 1928-2014] always said, “You know, Ger, Nik put you in the worst possible position.” And in some ways he did, but I took it on because I thought I was doing the right things.
NS: You’re also -- I think that you’re talking about when he fired the company -- is that --
GO: Well, at that time, he knew --
NS: Are you also talking about the -- about unionizing the --
GO: That’s what I was specifically referring to, was the unionization of the company, because he was about to lose about six members of that company, were going to walk out on him.
NS: Mm-hmm, because of working conditions?
GO: And his lack of attention to them. When we were discussing it one time, I said, “Okay, Nik, besides me and Jessie [Jessica Sayre], name another member of the company.” He couldn’t do it. He just sat there and looked at me: “That’s not important.”
NS: Really?
GO: Mm-hmm. And that’s how they felt, of course. He didn’t know who they were. I mean, he worked with them all day every day, but he didn’t know who they were.
NS: There’s an interesting arc in an artist’s [00:50:00] development, and one of the more fortuitous, I guess it is, or that I’m lucky enough to have spoken -- interviewed Gladys [Gladys Bailin, 1930- ] and Phyllis, and Joan [Joan Woodbury, 1927-2023], and Coral [Coral Martindale 1935- ] are, say, the four… Joan is not one of the originals, but she was so intimately tied up with him that I put her there.
GO: Yeah. You didn’t get to interview Dorothy [Dorothy Vislocky, 1927-2013], did you?
NS: Dorothy died before. There were four people, Dorothy, Beverly [Beverly Schmidt Blossom, 1926-2014], and Bill [Bill Frank]. I mean, there are huge gaps because the project started after many people had died, but [pause] the -- the substance -- Nik, as a person, is a very different person in 1947. He’s still the same man, but he’s a very different artist in 1948 and nine than he is in 1982. And some of that is because you -- you grow as an artist.
Some of it is because the world grows in different ways, and I suspect that the interaction of those two -- sometimes interaction, sometimes collision of -- of those -- competing interests collide in a way that makes for someone like Nik, who -- who became and grew up as an artist in -- in that -- I use it all the time, but that Henry Street cauldron in 1948 and nine and through ’56 or ’58, ’60 maybe. And that when you describe the Dance Touring Program and the National Endowment explosion in the arts or Artists in Schools[6] that it became -- it entered a new phase in dance production and performance that meant that someone like Nik was compelled to -- to -- competed with his instincts to be a creative person as opposed to an entrepreneur. And consequently, that creates the tensions that you’re discussing and talking about, I think, or not? Maybe -- maybe I’m characterizing it differently or wrong.
GO: I didn’t think we’d get to this part of -- of my life with Nik, but towards the end, uh, life was getting to be hard for him, physically and emotionally. Um, [pause] there’s a lot of things I won’t say, but... [pause] he almost didn’t want to create. He came to that point where he said, “The only reason I’m making this piece is because I have to,” and that’s kind of a sad place to be. He says, “Because I’m the engineer on this train, and it’s going, and I can’t stop it.”
NS: So he knew what he was -- what was happening?
GO: He really did. You know, he’d already had some major health things, when he collapsed on the stage at Beacon Theatre, and I almost carried him out of the theater. They said, “Ambulance?” I said, “No, taxi. We need him now.” And sure enough, there was a taxi, and that taxi got there faster than any ambulance could have ever gotten him there. And when I went in, he was still in the back seat of the taxi, and I -- you know, “Yes, what do you want?” [00:55:00] I said, “I have a man who just lost about two quarts of blood out of his butt in the taxi,” and pow, there were emergency people out there, pulling him in so fast. It’s amazing. You know, I said the right thing. (laughter) And that was down at Beth Israel. I think that was the hospital, and that’s where his doctor was and then was immediately attending him, so... And he lived through that one quite well, but, that was tension.
NS: Tension and a confrontation with mortality maybe.
GO: And a confrontation with mortality, but he was preparing to open at the Beacon Theatre. That was a big deal. And so it went on without him.
NS: But you were there for him.
GO: Yeah. I -- I practically carried him out the door of the theater to the taxi, and then they took over from there. Oh, I did more than once. I shouldn’t remember these things. They’re kind of hard because I loved him so much. I -- and to think -- he thinks I betrayed him. I know that’s what he believes. Murray believes it, too. Murray, in front of a large crowd, accused me of murder. You know how Murray can be. There was a big dance thing downtown, and I was on a panel with Murray and about five or six other people, and packed auditorium. And Murray made that statement to all those people. Yeah. What do you say?
NS: The knives can be drawn, you know? Do you mind my asking about the -- when you say that -- that -- I mean, I don’t want to pry. I only want you to talk about what it is that you feel comfortable about.
GO: The only thing that I have limits, and I will just say...
NS: When you say that you loved him, there are -- there are people who -- who love Nik because he’s -- he’s described as being jovial sometimes. He’s described as being immensely nurturing. He’s described as being very generous, and a spontaneous, wonderful cook. I mean, there are -- there are many --
GO: Yeah, he taught me to cook.
NS: There are many ways in which people describe their closeness to Nik. “He taught me how to see the world,” is another, ... or, “He taught me how to cook. He taught me how to see the world.” “He taught me how to raise my leg.” “He taught me…” -- I mean, there are so many ways that Nik gave of himself, okay? So I would -- I don’t -- so --
GO: I know what you’re trying to broach. Don’t.
NS: No, no. I’m not. I’m not. I’m not.
GO: Okay. He truly mentored me. I never mentioned this to other -- to the other dancers, but on tour, he would give me physical problems to solve. He would say, “Okay, I want you to show me how you would begin a warm-up, but standing instead of laying down.” And oh God, I worked on that for two weeks and never came up with anything I was happy with. (laughs) But you know, he would do that on tour, and that helped keep me sane sometimes.
NS: Yeah. That’s also a great problem, you know?
GO: Oh, it is. (laughs) Especially for someone who, all that time, began warming up on the floor. [Natasha demonstrates an exercise] (laughs) No, no. No. No. We never did that with Nik.
NS: Oh, so that -- okay, so then I predate you. Okay. I predate you on that one.
GO: With Nik? Nik did that with you?
NS: No, no, no.
GO: No, no, no, no, no. [01:00:00] Murray did that.
NS: Yeah, yeah.
GO: Yes. Uh, no, Murray did the -- the Joe Pilates[7], Hanya Holm warm-up.
NS: But -- (laughs) -- what I like about that story, however, is that you talk about a tour being brutal, okay? One of the ways that one survives a tour is by being curious about one’s surroundings or one’s art. And so this was a way to keep -- for you to be curious about and for Nik to be curious about the art – art form.
GO: Because he’s so --
NS: You’re giving out constantly. You know, it’s like come on, I’m worth something here on the inside.
GO: But this is something I was taught in theater in Boulder, Colorado. (applauds) That’s what you’re working for. And when they shout your name, woo, what a high. (laughs)
NS: Yes, yes, yeah. It’s a very -- and it’s legitimate for everyone.
GO: Absolutely legitimate. Yeah.
NS: Yeah. The -- I have always been curious about the -- the -- the rift in -- in the Nikolais school around unionization. It’s always been -- it’s -- it’s a topic that ends up being immediately the -- the cement wall goes up, and no one -- and it’s either -- you know, it’s -- it’s -- it was a very divisive moment even. And it was a long moment. It wasn’t a short -- it wasn’t simply a flicker because I think people have very, very strong views on workers, artists, unions, and the way in which one organizes a culture and a society.
GO: Oh yeah.
NS: Did you come from a union family at all?
GO: No, not at all. My father, when I was born, was a farmer, and, (sighs) through a long series of things, he became a mechanic and a very good one. And my mother eventually became an accountant. So that’s -- that’s my history. Uh, [pause] a lot of people think I started the idea. I didn’t.
NS: Of unionizing the dancers?
GO: Mm-hmm. I didn’t. Two dancers came to me and said, “Gerald, we have a problem. You know – [somebody] yesterday needed to go to the toilet during rehearsal, and Nik said, ‘No, we have to keep working on this.’ Well, she peed herself. Do you know how embarrassing that was for her?”
NS: I can well imagine.
GO: Yeah. I mean, that’s -- that’s what he said to me, this other person. He says, “That can’t be. If you have to go, you have to go.” And she knew she had to, and I said, “Well, you know, da, da, da, da, we can talk about this.” There was a second incident where a dancer came to me and said, “Gerald, this just isn’t right.” It was having to do with rehearsing. We were -- we still, at that point, had some rehearsals on unemployment. We were officially unemployed, but we were in rehearsing and that person thought [01:05:00] that was wrong because it was illegal, and they were serious. And then one of those three people said, “Do you think we could ever have a union contract? Because I’ve done some union work before I became a Nikolais dancer, and I know work rules are one of the basic things that is put into contracts.” And, uh, so that’s how it started. And, uh...
NS: Did you go to Nik with those concerns?
GO: I went to him about: the when you’ve got to pee, you’ve got to pee. And he said, “Oh, they can just leave the room.”
NS: It’s hard when you’re talking to a god. (laughter) You don’t ask God’s permission.
GO: Can I pee, Mr. God? (laughter)
NS: Yeah, no, it’s -- yeah.
GO: How are you doing?
NS: Good, good, good.
GO: Okay. (laughs) I never broached the unemployment rehearsing because I knew they [Nik and Murray] thought that they had to do that to survive. I’m not sure that’s true because I knew how wealthy Nik and Murray were, and of course that’s the foundation of unionism. If the top people are getting really rich off of your work, why? Why aren’t they sharing it with the worker? So anyway, that -- we can -- I can discuss that with you some -- maybe another time because that was really the tail end of my tenure with the company. Nik didn’t fire me. He made me an offer that he told me I couldn’t refuse. Which was he wanted me to work with, um -- I’m so bad on names.
NS: Sounds like? Maybe I can help. (laughs)
GO: Yes. Musician, wrote an opera. Help, Help, the Globolinks!
NS: Menotti. [Gian Carlo Menotti composer, 1911-2007]
GO: Menotti. He had told Menotti that he had someone who could choreograph the aliens in Help, Help the Globolinks! in Angers[8], and that would be me. But of course, I knew the company was going on tour during that period. So that meant if I said yes, I wouldn’t be in the company, and he knew that, too. And so basically that was him saying, “Gerald, you’re not in the company anymore.” I took it. Had a wonderful time. It was great fun to do.
NS: So tell me what the Angers experience was like.
GO: Well, that -- that had nothing to do with the teaching in Angers. This was Menotti.
NS: Menotti, okay.
GO: This was his performance for, big, full house of mostly young people of his opera. I had, I think it was, three weeks with the dancers that they chose to be their aliens, and I came with all these amazing new costumes that Nik had created.
NS: Oh, lovely.
GO: My favorite was, of course, a white unitard, and it had -- on spring wire that stuck out like this all over the body -- little mirrors. All over. They could hardly move, but when they did, those mirrors went like this and the lights surround them everywhere.
NS: There’s a theme there. [01:10:00] That’s an interesting -- the reason my eyes light up is that I interviewed last week I had -- sat down with Helen Kent [1949- ] and -- or Helen Kent Nicoll at this point, and she was describing being in a -- in the children’s theater at Henry Street in ’56 maybe, something like that. She was in the kids’ theater, and the children’s piece, it was a -- it was an adult piece, but the children were in it, and she was one of the children and that it was all -- they had black. It wasn’t a white unitard. It was a black [leotard] with black gloves, but there were sequins attached to the fingernails of the fingers. The kids are all like hiding their head, and then when they extend their fingers, it’s all these sparkle things.
GO: Yeah, yeah.
NS: Not to mention that I -- I -- I’m terrible with the titles of Nik’s pieces, but in an interview with Tito [Alberto del Saz, 1960-] he talks about a particular piece that -- where he feels that -- that Nik was working on the whole notion of or principle of reflection, and that it has -- with mirrors.
GO: Is that the piece he did in -- in Japan?
NS: China or Japan?
GO: No, Japan.
NS: Japan, so that it was -- it was about the mirrors, again, and reflection, you know, seems to be a thread line through Nik’s choreographic output.
GO: I think once I tried to explain what I thought a piece of Nik’s was about to Nik.
NS: Okay. Interesting.
GO: And that was the first and last time. (laughs)
NS: That you ever did that.
GO: Did you ever see the piece Scenario? [1971]
NS: Yes. I think so. Yeah, yeah, I’m sure.
GO: And I told him I thought it was about building a human being.
NS: And what did he say?
GO: He said -- after I explained why I thought that, he said, “Oh, that’s really interesting.” Because, you know, he never explained a piece.
NS: Absolutely never.
GO: Not even a hint of it.
NS: And resisted it. And also actively resisted any of that. And when you read, it’s -- it’s an interesting phenomenon as a dance writer or critic of writing a review of a Nikolais concert and what the tensions are in a critic’s job at that point, to extract -- as a critic -- to extract what themes they received, you know, as an audience member, and how it’s really difficult because you’re actually in opposition to the artist at that point.
GO: Mm-hmm. My favorite painter is Mark Rothko [1903-1970], and to try to explain any of his paintings…
NS: Yeah.
GO: And yet, when I was in London and they had the four Marlborough huge paintings in one room, it filled most of the four walls, and benches in the center of the room, and I walked in, and I’m looking at it, and the tears are streaming down my face. I cannot explain it. Impossible. I just -- it made me weep. Those four, maroon black paintings absolutely captured me and pounded at my soul. I don’t know why or anything else about it, but there I was, and I’m looking. [gasps] Oh I know my heart was speeding up and everything else. Why? Why did that happen? I don’t know. And Nik said, “I am an abstract expressionist period. I give you an abstract [01:15:00] expression. That’s what I give you. You take what’s there.” And that’s the best description of every piece.
NS: I always -- and I don’t know whether it’s because of my roots in dance or not, but when someone asks me to describe what a Nikolais piece is about, I don’t -- it’s -- it’s -- I can’t talk about it in terms of a concept or an idea. It’s much more of a sense of: “Well, I started breathing very heavily at this section, and that made me really squirm later.” Or, “I started yawning because it…” And all of my reactions to a piece have much to do with a kinesthetic reaction rather than an ideational one.
GO: Absolutely. That’s what it’s about. You know, if I go to a good dance concert, I’m exhausted at the end because I’m sitting there dancing the whole dang thing. Sometimes Ken [Ken Sherrill, 1942-2023] has to go: “Settle down.” (laughter)
NS: When you -- when you left Nik, and you went -- I’m -- now I’m -- that diversion is here.
GO: We just skipped 20 years.
NS: But you -- you -- you left Nik, and you worked with Menotti for a bit, and then what did you do?
GO: Well, I came back.
NS: Flailed around for a bit.
GO: No, not really. I -- I had a group of dancers, and because of my feelings about so many dancers willing to work for nothing, I refused to do that. And so I just worked like a dog at anything I do. I would take any little class I could to teach, so then I always paid them during rehearsals. I didn’t -- I thought I could be -- what’s the right word? I -- I thought it would -- I would still have some kind of relationship with the Nikolais/Louis Foundation for Dance, Incorporated. I didn’t realize how much Murray hated me.
Anyway, because they were, at that time, renting out the studios when there weren’t classes, just to get a little more income, and I said, “Well, I’d like to do that for this four-week period. I’m having six dancers, and -- which studio C was the little one,” and then I signed up for it and paid them for that period. Well, Murray wouldn’t have that. After about three days, he started coming into the studio and saying, “I need this studio to rehearse myself.” I’d already paid the money for it, and, he did that over and over again, until I said, “Well, I guess this didn’t work out.” You know, it had nothing to do with him needing that studio. I did put on one concert in the big studio.[9]
NS: With Claudia Gitelman, right? [1936-2012]
GO: Well, she danced with me. She danced in one of my pieces, which she hated. (laughter) And then I continued [01:20:00] with that almost 10 years with my company, teaching whenever I could. At that time, I was going to Europe every year for some period.
NS: To Belgium. You were teaching in Belgium.
GO: All over. I was named a Fulbright Scholar, and I taught in Portugal and Germany and Belgium and Netherlands… I did lots of teaching in Europe. And it paid fairly well. But eventually, I decided I can’t keep doing this: “I want to create, and yet I spend all my time raising money and funding to be able to do a concert that I -- oh, that’s right. I have to create dances for this.” (laughs) I’m sure you’ve heard this. (laughs) And I said that doesn’t work. So I started looking for a more full-time job teaching. I taught down in, uh, South Carolina for three years.
NS: Wow.
GO: Yes. And I said no, no, it has to be in New York. So then I started looking around, and a wonderful person at Marymount hired me. I can’t even think of her name right now. God, was she wonderful. I just adored her. We got along so well. We had such --
NS: Was she a teacher there?
GO: She was head of the department.
NS: Was it Lynda Gudde? [d. 1996] It wasn’t Lynda Gudde, okay.
GO: No, no. And certainly not the one who’s currently head. But after my second year there, this new person talked the dean into getting rid of her. And eventually she got rid of everyone that she’d hired, and I was one of those people. She had tenure, and they couldn’t get rid of her, but she was basically relegated to nothing. So anyway, so then I had a company for several years. Then I taught there, and from there, I moved to Hunter, [Hunter College] where I taught for 17 years until I retired, and that wasn’t very many years ago.
NS: If you were to describe your teaching career, how did that change over time for you, or did it, in terms of the way --
GO: Well, it was insane in South Carolina because after I got there, they told me I would be teaching one ballet class twice a week.
NS: (laughs) I’m sorry. I don’t mean to laugh, but -- (laughs)
GO: Well, not having ever had any ballet, I immediately went to a book store and found a beginner ballet class book, (laughter) and I tried to stay at least one full class ahead of the class. But it got worse. I also had to teach a jazz class.
NS: Oh God.
GO: (laughs) As one of the students said, “Gerald, I’ve taken jazz classes for years. This is so different.” (laughs) You bet it was. So anyway, that’s how things change.
NS: Yeah. What we do for art, right?
GO: Right.
NS: For employment.
GO: Three students from those days became lifelong friends. And I just got a birthday greeting from one of them the other day.
NS: Nice, nice.
GO: A wonderful artist himself. Now he’s teaching. And those little kids are now in their late forties. (laughs)
NS: [01:25:00] So -- so when I ask you how has your teaching changed over time, obviously you were able then to return to your roots in modern dance and specifically with teaching not the Nikolais technique, but the Nikolais philosophy, okay.
GO: (laughs) Well, I also taught modern, and that, we just went. (laughs) That was just fun. I don’t think I was a great teacher. To the students that got it right away, they practically worshipped me, but that was never the vast majority, by any sense.
NS: Why do you say that, though?
GO: Because I asked too much of them. And when I was let go at Marymount, I was still friends with one of the other teachers, and I saw her, and we were doing something, and she said, “Oh, Gerald, you should have been at new student orientation.” This is the following fall after I was -- she says -- and she said the name of one of the young dancers was then an upperclassman, and he -- he told the freshman class, “Now, you’re going to have a class from Gerald, and you listen to him because he’s good, and he’ll make you work.” But of course, I wasn’t there anymore. But she says that was -- she said, “He so completely understood what you were teaching,” (laughs) and he did. I was not the kind of teacher for just anybody.
NS: Teaching is an art form, too. I mean, we forget that often.
GO: It’s so hard. Well, I was lucky at Hunter because then the last several years, I basically -- I taught two things. I mentored student choreographers, so it was one-on-one, and they chose their mentor. So it was people who wanted to work with me. And then I also taught basic musicianship for dancers, which was great fun.
NS: Why was that great fun? And this is a whole new element.
GO: Because I know a lot about music.
NS: Okay, but that’s -- that you haven’t mentioned before. (laughs)
GO: No. All the dances I choreographed all those years, I made all the music for. I have a pretty good-sized library of music I’ve composed.
NS: Is it electronic?
GO: Mm-hmm. Well, you know, with modern electronic instruments, it’s whatever you want it to be.
NS: Sure.
GO: And I have a studio on the top floor.
NS: Here, in the house.
GO: Mm-hmm. [gestures to piano in the room] This is Nik’s piano.
NS: Oh, whoa, what history that has.
GO: And before that -- and before that, it was Edgar Varèse’s [1883-1965] piano. You don’t know the name. He was an early proponent of sound as the basis of music and not notes, and when he decided that was it, he gave his piano to Nik and Murray, to Nik specifically. You know, Nik was a good musician, and, um, when they moved from East Broadway [Nik and Murray’s home], Nik asked me if I wanted the piano. He says, “You pay to move it, it’s yours.” So I did, and that’s another whole story. But here it is.
NS: I mean, moving a piano is no --
GO: Well, I had to hire people to do it, yeah.
NS: But I mean, it’s still even tricky to get it through -- you know.
GO: Yeah. Well, it got really tricky and much worse. (laughs)
NS: Pulleys and up through windows and things like that.
GO: Well, they attempted to take it over the roof of the apartment house we lived in at the time. (laughs)
NS: Oh my God.
GO: They tried. (laughs) Couldn’t do it.
NS: So did they have to undo it and put it back together again?
GO: That wasn’t possible.
NS: [01:30:00] Oh gosh.
GO: Well, it was just a minor breaking and entering. (laughter)
NS: Okay.
GO: We had a patio on the back, and there was a little wall between us and the next place over. And the next place over was a clear shot from the street, up some stairs, through the hallway, into that apartment and then out that back door, over the wall, into our back door.
NS: Oh my God.
GO: Well, they weren’t home.
NS: No!
GO: They were on vacation and had been for a couple of months. I talked the super into letting us in, of that building. So I got to the room where the door should be, and there was no door. Well, from my backyard I know exactly where the door is. I went back in, and I’m feeling around. They papered over -- they put wallpaper over the door. (laughs) So here I am with six workers, carrying a piano, and I’m saying, “Oh, I’m going to get in so much trouble for this.” I broke through the wallpaper. (laughs)
NS: I hope that this wallpaper was not 600 dollars a square foot, chinoiserie. It wasn’t. Oh, good.
GO: I opened the door, and they took the piano through, over the wall, in our back door. (laughs)
NS: Oh my God. That belongs in a New Yorker story about piano moving, you know? It’s -- it’s --
GO: It would. It really would. So it was pretty easy when we moved to here because it was this wonderful, big family that lived there, and they thought this was the greatest thing in the world, that this piano was going to come over the wall and come in their back door. (laughs)
NS: I love that.
GO: But the previous people, they wouldn’t even talk to me.
NS: Well, you broke into their house.
GO: No, no, no, no, I said I would pay for everything. “I’ll pay for that whole wall to be redone. You tell me what I need.” “No. We never want to hear from you again.” Boom. Because, of course, they were furious that the super let me in. (laughs)
NS: Yeah. Oh God. Well, didn’t you tell them that this was not any old piano, that this was the most important --
GO: Well, I tried to explain, but they wouldn’t -- they didn’t want to hear it. All they know is they came back, and here was a slice through their -- (laughs)
NS: Oh gosh. Oh dear.
GO: So Edgar Varèse, okay. You want to guess how old this piano was?
NS: Okay, Edgar Varèse, now I did know -- I -- I -- I didn’t put my hearing aid in. Edgar Varèse. Okay. He’s in the 1880s, ‘90s?
GO: Remember, you know, Nik did a piece to his music.
NS: Am I correct? 1880s, ‘90s?
GO: Uh, he did his big shift in 1910 or something like that.
NS: So he was composing in -- I was a little -- okay.
GO: He probably was not the original owner because it’s so old. 1861 when this piano was built.
NS: Wow. Nice.
GO: I can’t keep it in tune anymore.
NS: Really? There isn’t anyone who -- or it’s just too old for that?
GO: There’s a section of about five notes where the pins can’t hold, in the pin rail.
NS: Oh, that’s too bad.
GO: And they’ve tried everything. I’ve had people in here, and I can keep it tuned for a couple of days, and that’s it. Then I have to retune that section. I have all the tuning stuff here, so I can do it, but, uh, amazing sound. This is not a modern piano. This is pre-modern.
NS: What’s the -- what’s the distinction?
GO: The touch and how the hammers hit the strings is completely different from modern pianos.
NS: Sort of like the typewriter and the computer keyboard difference maybe.
GO: Maybe, yeah. And, um, so 1861. And yes, for a mere 200,000 dollars --
NS: It could be mine.
GO: -- it could be completely refurbished.
NS: Wow.
GO: [01:35:00] Completely, using the same wood where there’s damage, completely refurbished. They have all the notes. I contacted them. I was hoping it could get done for about 50, and they said no.
NS: Two-hundred is a lot.
GO: Yeah, and probably when they were done, it would have been more than that. Because you have to ship it to Austria.
NS: Okay, yeah.
GO: But this is pretty easy to get out now. (laughter)
NS: But the delivery fee, the postage on that would be astonishing.
GO: It’s a little high. Should we call it quits?
NS: Do you want to?
GO: I think so.
NS: Okay, good. Well, we could talk forever and ever, but um, but it’s been --
GO: It’s been very emotional for me.
NS: It’s been a time. Good.
GO: As I think you can imagine.
END OF AUDIO FILE
© all rights reserved 2025, The Nikolais/Louis Foundation for Dance, Inc.
[1] “Illume”, 1966, Dance Magazine, Vol. XLV No.2 February 1971 photograph: Max Waldman.
[2] Developed under the direction of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA, established in 1965), The Dance Touring Program was an important source of touring support for primarily modern dance companies in the ‘60s and ‘70s. By 1985 the NEA stopped its sponsorship of the DTP.
[3] Established by Congress in 1965, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent federal agency. It is the largest funder of the arts and arts education in the United States.
[4] Referring to a prop in Tower, 1968.
[5] The Space for Innovative Development: Built in 1903, ‘The Space’ was originally the Presbyterian denominational Christ Church. The Samuel Rubin Foundation purchased the abandoned building on West 36th Street in New York City’s garment district in 1970. Its purpose was to support experimental theatrical groups in need of rehearsal and performing space. Alwin Nikolais and Murray Louis Dance Companies were the Space’s original tenants and were subsequently joined by the Open Theatre, Free Life Communications, the Multigravitational Aerodance Group, Quog, and Space Videoarts.
[6] The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) launched the Artists-in-Schools Program in 1970. In addition to dance companies, it funded artists' 2- and 3-week residencies in public schools throughout the United States. The program's stated purpose was to promote the integration of the arts into the educational curricula as well as to encourage the natural spontaneity and expressiveness of children. Schiff, Bennett, Artists in Schools, Washington, National Endowment for the Arts, 1973.
[7] Joseph Pilates, 1883-1967, invented and promoted a method of physical training.
[8] Created in 1978 and based in Angers, France, the Centre national de danse contemporaine d’Angers (Cndc) supports the creation of contemporary choreography. The school at the Cndc is an institution of higher learning under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation. The Ministry invited Alwin Nikolais to serve as the first director of the Cndc and he served in that capacity from 1978 to 1981.
[9] ChoreoSpace, 33 East 18th Street, choreographic works by Gitelman and Otte, September 1981.
