Helen Kent Nicoll: Hi, Tash.
Natasha Simon: Hi, Helen. I am sitting in the family room of Helen Kent Nicoll's apartment [etcetera...] but a sunny--
HKN: Twenty twenty-one.
NS: -- a sunny conversation. It’s part of the Alwin Nikolais Oral History Project. I’m Natasha Simon, and I’m the one who’s asking questions of Helen.
HKN: And I’m the one who hopefully will answer --
NS: Good.
HKN: in sentences. (laughter)
NS: The first question that comes to mind is actually based on several of the interviews that I’ve done previously.
There’s an interesting generational arc to people’s memories of Nik and Nikolais Dance Theatre and his philosophy, both of motion and pedagogy -- as a mentor, as a teacher, as a magician, and certainly as the head of Henry Street Playhouse when you, Helen, arrived there. So can you talk about your arrival at Henry Street?
HKN: You know, I really wish I could ask my mother for a more accurate description of how it all began, but in -- in my memory, I grew up in Stuyvesant Town, the Lower East Side in Manhattan. It was 1952 when I moved there, and --
NS: And you’re three years old by then, right?
HKN: I’m just about three. My sister was just born. And it was, you know, the -- the new era. Stuyvesant Town was built for returning veterans, and it was middle income housing. It was a place to create a community of young families, and I -- my parents were very hip. I mean, they were progressive, liberal, Jewish, politically active people. And all I know is that the way my mother said it, I never stopped moving. I walked very early. I walked at eight months.
NS: Me too!
HKN: And -- and here we are.
NS: And --
HKN: Dancers. (laughter)
NS: Yes, yeah. She was always chasing me down the supermarket aisle.
HKN: Well, and, you know, this was astounding to my mother, who never knew anything about raising kids, but she was -- she was up on, you know, where to go and what to do. And so as a young, a very young, youngster, I went to Bank Street Nursery School, which at the time was on Bank Street. And I guess she asked where to take me for dance lessons, and she was told to go to the Greenwich House which is on Sheridan Square, West Fourth Street.[1] And I do have a memory of going across the floor in their gymnasium. And all I know is that at some point either the teacher said to my mother or my mother said to the teacher, “Where -- where else can she go?” You know, (laughter) ’cause that wasn’t enough. And I -- I think it was the teacher who said, “She should go to the Henry Street Playhouse. They have a full children’s program. And this is where she should go.” And that’s where I went. And I was young, and --
NS: So how old were you when you went, when you arrived at Henry Street?
HKN: That’s the part that’s a little unclear, but I would say it’s somewhere between 1956 and 1957.
NS: Wow, so you were really the baby in the -- in the history.
HKN: Yes. I was part of the children’s school, and pretty early on I was asked to go into the children’s workshop, which was a professional program [00:05:00] for children that Alwin Nikolais, and I assume Murray at the time, devised. [Murray Louis, 1926-2016] It was serious. We met twice a week during the week after school and once on Saturday. Saturday mornings were three to four hours long.
NS: Wow.
HKN: And I do have very vivid memories of my father driving me down there on Saturdays and my grandfather taking me on the weekends. That program, the professional children’s program, was serious. I mean, we had technique class. We had improvisation. We had composition. Then we had lunch. And then we had acting.
NS: When you’re describing the children’s theater -- and the children’s classes -- I don’t expect you to remember if it was a Tuesday and a Thursday or a Monday or a Wednesday, but you are in first, second, and third grades in school, and you are out of school at 2:30 or 3:00, something like that.
HKN: I would think so. I went to P.S 61, which was on 12th Street. I have a very vivid memory of getting French fries with my grandfather who would take me to Henry Street.
NS: Aha, nice.
HKN: And that I had on the bus. The very early years are not as clear to me as when I got involved with the children’s workshop.
NS: Okay. The children’s workshop is the Saturday --
HKN: The twice a week and the Saturday.
NS: And the Saturdays. So when you arrived you go upstairs to the studios at Henry Street?
HKN: Correct. I’d go up those stairs, and there would be the office. And there was Betty.[2] And there was Ruth [Ruth Grauert, 1919-2020]. And -- and then I remember -- the leotards were cotton-ish, with a zipper in the back, and they were kind of, uh, turquoise or gol-- not gold but turquoise-y color, I think.
NS: And did everyone have the same --
HKN: No.
NS: This was your special leotard.
HKN: This was not ballet.
NS: And so you changed your clothes, and you went into the studio, and who was there?
HKN: Kids. (laughs) Because I was in the younger division of the children, ’cause there were two divisions. I know for certain that Raymond Johnson [1946-1987] was in the older group. But I was the little pishkeh, and so I was in -- I think Dorothy Vislocky [1927-2013] was my teacher for technique class.
NS: Do you remember technique class at all?
HKN: Yes, very much so.
NS: So tell me about technique class.
HKN: So the feet together, long back of the neck. “Sit up straight, up, up, up. And you bounce, and you two and a three [sing-song].” Okay, so that started very early. And I do remember second position on the floor and my legs not going very far. And [00:10:00] really hating it.
NS: Oh.
HKN: Hating second position, but I longed to get up and go across the floor.
NS: And so when you got up and went across the floor, do you remember your across-the-floors?
HKN: You know, what was it? It was walking and running and leaping and jumping and skipping and hopping and -- and then there was improvisation.
NS: So that’s a key to, I believe, any discussion of anyone’s experience at or with Nik -- is the importance that improvisation plays in one’s development as a dancer and as a person, actually. Is it hard for you to remember any topics or concepts, or is it something that’s -- that’s ingrained in your --
HKN: I must be honest that I don’t specifically -- ’cause it gets melded into when I returned to Henry Street as a 19-year-old. So --
NS: So it’s hard to distinguish between what happens as a child and what happens as a near adult?
HKN: I mean, the only difference in terms of the technique part was that when I returned as a 19-year-old, we had pedagogy added to those: technique, improv, theory, and pedagogy.
NS: Pedagogy was Tuesdays, I believe.
HKN: We were in the same class.
NS: I know. (laughter) Did you -- do you remember also composition, the fact that -- that children were – that part of the curriculum that children experienced is making up their own dances.
HKN: That’s right.
NS: And that’s a hard one to also try and remember, what you’re --
HKN: Well, I have a very good memory of -- see, Nik would then produce the shows. And so, I don’t remember what the exercise was. I just remember what my dance was.
NS: What was your dance?
HKN: -- one of them. I was an ant crawling up an anthill.
NS: And you had produced this yourself?
HKN: I produced it. I had to create it at home, and I was always choreographing at home. And, I had to be the ant, and I also had to be the hill. So I have a memory of kind of rolling over on the floor with my feet over my head, and my hands were crawling up my body, and I was the hill, and I was the ant.
NS: Fabulous.
HKN: And then Nik would orchestrate these productions, and he would weave the children in and out of entering and exiting the stage. And we took over that Playhouse on Saturdays. I have memories of covering every part of that building: the dressing rooms, the two studios upstairs, the staircase down to the costume room, the basement, staircase to the stage, the balcony of the stage, and then off the balcony was an alcove, and that’s where the acting was.
NS: Ah-ha.
HKN: That’s where we had the acting class with Joe [Joseph Balfior, 1918-1998].
NS: Joe.
HKN: Joe. I don’t know his last name.
NS: Do we know anything more about Joe?
HKN: No. (laughs)
NS: Okay.
HKN: No more about Joe, except I do remember that we did soliloquies from Romeo and Juliet. Now, this is like nine years old and eight years old. And also, “I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree.” That part of the day was not my most favorite, I’ll tell you. (laughter)
NS: Well, and if I can -- if I can even interpret that to say that you were handed a script in that acting class as opposed to handing -- being handed an idea to explore.
HKN: Yes. Yes, yes.
NS: That there’s a difference and that -- so someone who’s excited by movement and someone who is creative innately is going to --
HKN: Yeah, why did we take acting? I don’t understand.
NS: No. Well --
HKN: Murray, answer me. (laughter)
NS: It could be too that it was simply one aspect of -- of your experience [00:15:00] that just didn’t fit and didn’t work.
HKN: But it was part of -- it wasn’t separate like the music school was separate. So it was part of the program I think. I mean, I know my mother did not sign me up for that. But -- this is the thing about going to Henry Street as a little kid and then as a young adult and then --
NS: As an adult performer.
HKN: And then as a professional.
NS: Yeah, yeah.
HKN: And going the whole way, doing the whole thing. When you’re little and you’re crea-- you know, when you’re little you play. And I just remember playing, and that was always just long sagas with my sister in my house. And then I’d put on productions, and I’d play music on Sunday mornings, and I’d dance, and everything was built about this concept of playing. And that was an extension of play.
NS: Hm, mm-hmm.
HKN: You know, so it was all -- so to me it was all delicious. It was all, like, “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, we get to play,” you know. And it was guided, and it was directed, and it was [pause] it was exciting. That was the thing.
NS: Mm
HKN: It wasn’t drudgery. It was always exciting.
NS: It also sounds too that when you say that Nik arranged the production or -- that it was focused, that there was a --
it may in fact be play, but it’s not like a freeform play. It’s more of a focused play? Or am I assuming too much?
HKN: Well, we also did productions. I mean, we did Orpheus and Eurydice [Murray Louis, 1959].
NS: Do you remember that at all?
HKN: Oh, vividly, vividly.
NS: Can you talk about that?
HKN: Which part, the part that I got yelled at because I was at the beauty parlor? (laughs)
NS: Yes, sure. And all of the parts.
HKN: Well, it -- I mean, we were the little kids, so, we were in Hades, so that was our part. We were in the underworld. And I think Lynn [Lynn Levine Rico, 1946- ] probably --
NS: Lynn has a whole story about Orpheus and Eurydice too.
HKN: All right. I don’t know who devised it, but we had gloves that were put on our hands, and then sequins were sewn in to look like eyes. And so there was this netting on our hands, and when our hands turned over, there were these sequined eyes so that when the light came on, all you would see, you wouldn’t see the bodies, but you would see these eyes and the eye. And I remember, it was the eyes that were traveling in space. And that was our big thing, was that. And then there was something about the river, and then there was some gigantic throne-type thing, but that was the older kids. And then there was Raymond as Orpheus and Fatima [Fatima Bien, 1947- ] as Eurydice, and -- and
NS: Lynn is in touch with Fatima.
HKN: Oh my.
NS: And so we might actually sit down with Fatima too.
HKN: Oh, wow. I mean, I was just in awe of Raymond Johnson. And then to think --
NS: And why? What was the impression?
HKN: ’Cause he was -- as a kid he was majestic. You know, he just had this thing about him. He -- he also was pretty muscular for, like, I don’t know, a 12-year-old or how --
NS: Wow.
HKN: I think that’s as old as he was.
NS: Wow.
HKN: And that, that was the older kid, so I was just sort of looking at him, you know, like I idolized him ’cause he was just majestic. And then for me, to get into Murray’s company and dance with Raymond was – ahh…
NS: My lord.
HKN: I was paired with him in Proximities [Murray Louis, 1969], and it was just incredible. Unfortunately, he left the company six months later. You know, there was that turnover, but I did get to dance with him, and it was thrilling.
NS: It’s aston-- I mean, in some ways it’s one of those astonishing trajectories where -- where this child of five and six years old has this idol that they’re looking up to, and -- and then lo and behold, [00:20:00] twenty years --
HKN: Ten years. Fifteen years later.
NS: -- 15 years later you’re --
HKN: Or less than that, 10.
NS: -- performing with him.
HKN: Yeah. That was great. It just was all, for me, it was just luck that my mother had the wherewithal to keep inquiring and to have found Henry Street. You know, maybe that teacher at Greenwich House, whoever she was -- and then to get caught up in this magical world as a -- as a child. And then to return when -- when Nik and Murray, and Phyllis… [Phyllis Lamhut, 1933- ]
Nikolais came through the Dance Touring Program[3] to the University of Wisconsin. They did a lecture dem and a performance, and, -- that was it. (laughter) You know, I just went, “I got to go back.” And, you know, when -- I remember going up to Murray and --
NS: After the performance?
HKN: After the performance in Wisconsin and telling him I was a child in the workshop, in the children’s workshop, and, I just love, love everything. And that I want to go back to New York and return and – and he said, “Well, I think you should.” And so I did.
NS: Can you just sort of – fill-in-the-blank between age, what, 10 -- 10 and --
HKN: When I left the workshop and --
NS: -- 17, 18 when you go.
HKN: Okay.
NS: Were you dancing during that time at Henry Street?
HKN: All that time I was. No.
NS: Or at other studios or --?
HKN: So after -- so in 1960 I was 10 years old. My parents moved out of New York. And they continued to take me in on Saturday mornings for a very short period of time. It just became impossible, really. So that -- that ended that whole time at Henry Street for me. And I continued dancing, and it’s like modern dance hadn’t really hit west of the Hudson. (laughter) So I went to the New Jersey School of Ballet [established in 1953], had very good teachers but nothing like the magic of Henry Street. The only time that that magic reappeared was my summers at a place called Indian Hill.[4] And that’s where I met James Waring [1922-1975].
NS: Mm.
HKN: And he was another magician.
NS: Mm-hmm.
HKN: And that was ages 13 and 14. And so I had a different creative approach with Jimmy.
NS: What’s the difference?
HKN: Jimmy’s training even though the improvisation and the choreography was extraordinary -- was very ballet- oriented. I did also have Marjorie Mazia [Marjorie Greenblatt Guthrie, 1917-1983] as my teacher, who was in Graham’s company [Martha Graham, 1894-1991] and was Woody Guthrie’s wife. So I -- I continued to have very good –
NS: -- and stimulating --
HKN: -- wonderful -- yes.
NS: -- teachers.
HKN: And Jimmy’s approach to – to composition and improvisation was very philosophical. And he was very --
NS: Can you define that?
HKN: Yeah. We had to come up with ideas about how to make a dance. And I do remember we had to come up with methods. And one of the methods I came up, again with the ants, was following (laughter) an ant on the floor, just realized that. (laughter) The ants.
NS: Insects. They’re taking over.
HKN: Following the ants on the floor and using them as a locomotor pattern.
NS: Huh. Okay.
HKN: So that is one thing I -- I remember. He would ask very compelling questions like, “If the ocean was made of fireflies, what would the foam be?”
NS: Mmmm.
HKN: You know, so he was very provocative and -- and dealt with the imagination that way. When I got into Murray’s company Jimmy would come to my shows. And he -- he was very enamored with me as a mover, and he loved the fact that I was dancing for Murray -- they knew each other -- even though their approaches were different. And when I went away to -- I knew I wanted to major in dance. My parents were not quite ready to have me not go to college. But when I went to the University of Wisconsin, which -- Don Redlich [1929- ] was there, you know, it was a tentacle of Murray and Nik.
NS: Mm-hmm.
HKN: But it was in Wisconsin after Murray and Nik came through and I started rethinking that, you know: “Gee, I really want to go back and play and have more fun.” -- That they said, “Go,” you know.
NS: Your parents did?
HKN: My parents, and --
NS: And?
HKN: -- the faculty and my teachers in Wisconsin.
NS: Who were Don…
HKN: Well, Don only did --
NS: -- Don was at Sarah Lawrence [Sarah Lawrence College].
HKN: Don only did the summer session.
NS: Yeah.
HKN: It was Louise Kloepper [1910-1996] and Molly Lynn [1918-2008] and that whole [era]. But they encouraged me to go back to New York. And -- and my parents said, “Well, since you would be a junior, we owe you two more years of education.” So I had a reprieve, and I had luckily -- which would have been my senior year in college -- is when Murray asked me to join the company. So, whew. (laughter)
NS: Enough of academics, right.
HKN: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
NS: Well, and it was not an out-of-the-way or a foreign decision to make at that time. There were lots and lots of us who were making that decision to --
HKN: I know. That’s so weird.
NS: -- leave college then.
HKN: Leave it. I think it was the climate, the politics, and the fact that, I mean ’cause these colleges were not -- I mean, like, why did you leave Sarah Lawrence?
NS: I wanted to dance, and it was -- it was hard to concentrate on academics at the same time that one wanted to study seriously in dance.
HKN: And also considering the schools we went to, concentrating on academics in the late ’60s was also pretty hard, between the Vietnam War and protests on campus and --
NS: And a lot of extracurricular --
HKN: -- organizing and whatever.
NS: And -- and - and let’s face it, it was tuning out --
HKN: Yup.
NS: -- or whatever the expression is.
HKN: Yup.
NS: But I think what both you and I share as an experience is that the dance departments, the respective dance departments that we were attached to, were a part of, that it was a vast network that knew --
HKN: Where to go.
NS: Where to go and --
HKN: And depending upon who you were --
NS: Who you were and -- and the fact that it was a -- a real flowering of dance at that point.
HKN: Yes. Yeah, and -- and we also got to see a lot because a lot of companies went through the touring program.
NS: Right.
HKN: Which had really started --
NS: In the, like the ’67-ish.
HKN: Around, like, that.
NS: Around there, you know, with, -- what was it, the National Endowment for the Arts[5] had started --
HKN: Mm-hmm, the NEA. Yup.
NS: -- the Dance Touring Program.
HKN: So we got to see a lot. It just seemed like a logical -- since -- since I do feel that that was a convergence, that 1969 back at Henry Street was a convergence of those of us who wanted to dance and were inclined to go towards Nik… Well, I have posters. The performance that sealed it for me, in terms of Nik, was, 1967 the premiere of [00:30:00] Somniloquy and Triptych [Nikolais, 1967]. And I remember seeing that. And --
NS: In Wisconsin?
HKN: No, at the Henry Street Playhouse. That also -- that was it. ’Cause that magic, and the -- Phyllis and Carolyn [Carolyn Carlson, 1943-], you know -- and I just remember that was just mind-blowing.
NS: Stunning in what way? Can you -- I mean, a photograph, we can supply a photograph or a film --
HKN: I think that --
NS: -- but, in words.
HKN: Well, visually, visually -- to see, visually to see motion in light -- in the lighting; it just looked like -- that’s one of his pieces, Kaleidoscope [1953, 1956]. (laughter)
NS: Yeah, well, it is kaleidoscopic. Yeah.
HKN: So just to see that and in that little funky theater, which I never thought was funky. I loved the Henry Street Playhouse theater, but to see that place transformed into this moving, swirling, colorful map of the universe. So I guess I was hit on so many levels, and of course the personalities of Murray and Phyllis and Nik. I mean, they all were, you know, the human characters to the bigger aesthetic, you know?
NS: Can you -- can you give some -- enlighten us as to the human characters to a --
HKN: I -- well, I -- I know -- well, I -- I just, you know, Murray -- I -- I talked about this at -- at the, um -- the Horse’s Mouth Henry Street Performance.[6]
NS: For Murray?
HKN: For Mur-- no, not for Murray. For Henry Street and Nik.
NS: Oh, for Henry Street and Nik, yeah.
HKN: Yeah. Because I do have this vivid -- I mean, they were all such a characters, and as a kid I had this image of Murray putting makeup on all the kids. And he would, you know, “Come here, doll,” you know. He’d be sitting on a chair with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and he had this stick of greasepaint and you’d come and stand there, and he would slab some -- some blue eyeliner and white eyeliner and then some rouge. And it was just like an assembly line -- getting made up to get on stage. It’s just that chatter. It was like Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney: Oh, you got to put a show together, you know. There was very strong intention, but it was kid-centric.
So then -- so then when I came back as a grownup, a young adult, there was that same sense of play but now with more verbalization of what it was we were investigating. Because we were feeling it and touching it and seeing it and doing it; then the words became more meaningful.
NS: So Murray is slapping the grease paint on and Nik is --?
HKN: He’s out in front.
NS: He’s in front saying I want this light --
HKN: Doing lights.
NS: -- on this thing. And Ruth is --?
HKN: With her pipe, next to him.
NS: -- next to him. And people are scurrying around, assembling children to --
HKN: Yes. Yeah.
NS: -- to be in the right place with their gloves to --
HKN: Oh yeah. Back to my being yelled at for being late. I don’t know why I thought I had to get my hair done, (laughter) but it was a performance. And I just, there was some beauty parlor down the street. Some, I don’t know, Puerto Rican beauty parlor down on, you know, whatever. And, uh -- and I had, you know, really short hair. So I don’t know what I was doing, but I thought I had to get my hair done. And -- (laughter)
NS: I love it. I love it.
HKN: And I was late for dress rehearsal ’cause I was still at the beauty parlor. (laughter) I probably had a [00:35:00] hood put on my head after that.
NS: After that. Like, we don’t need the beauty with the--
HKN: Yeah, I think, you know, with the eyes taken out. But it was great. It was really wonderful.
NS: When you got to Wisconsin, because the -- And -- and it’s understandable that you go to Wisconsin because there’s the Hanya connection [Hanya Holm, 1893-1992], with Louise Kloepper, and it’s a strong dance department. And it’s a journey because you’re also leaving home…
HKN: Uh-huh.
NS: But you went “uh-huh,” so what was the trigger there?
HKN: Well, it just was -- to think that -- it was impossible to get to, Madison, you know. No direct flights, and freezing, friggin’ cold beyond belief, and the politics was -- oh, and -- and the out-of-staters got to stay off-campus, so we were quite separated from the rest of the school. And there was no rah-rah. And it was very much the late ’60s and the politics of SDS[7] and --
NS: The food co-op. [Willy Street Co-op]
HKN: The food, yes, the food co-op. And all the waiters who waited on us in our house were marching in the street. It was really a lot. Lots of drugs, but then there was, you know, got to dance.
NS: Mm-hmm.
HKN: And, you know, serious dance major. Between all that there was a lot of push and pull. I mean, and it -- just probably homesick too, you know. I was glad I left.
NS: It also, in talking with people who arrived at Henry Street a little bit later -- earlier than that but also later than that or at the same time, that there’s an energy in the atmosphere. The atmospherics around dance at that time --
HKN: Was explosive.
NS: -- was explosive and – yes, there was Henry Street, and yes there were concerts to give. You had to -- you choreographed. There were at least two or three student concerts, and you had to commit to --
HKN: Oh, I do have those programs.
NS: You had to -- yeah, and but you also, you had to commit to a semester.
HKN: Yeah.
NS: It wasn’t that you were going --
HKN: You weren’t hopping…
NS: You weren’t hopping from one studio to the other.
HKN: No, no.
NS: Although, you know, we all snuck out to take another class.
HKN: Right.
NS: But there was this general beehive, sense of -- of activity. I think that that also was committed to total theater.
HKN: Well, but we didn’t have lighting classes.
NS: No, but we were exposed to it, I think.
HKN: Yeah. Nik’s work was total theater. But we were very much involved in the big four or five, you know, studying, you know, we had -- I mean, it was a very clear syllabus.[8] And it was very academic in a way, academic through dance. Articulated with a real conscious… I mean, did -- I don’t even know. Did Murray and Nik and Phyllis sit down and discuss the curriculum? Or was it -- how did that come about?
NS: There are descriptions of meetings in which, “We want to cover this, this, and this, and --”
HKN: Because it was very laid out. And all the teachers were responding to…, We had Joan [Joan Woodbury, 1927-2023]. We had Beverly [Beverly Schmidt Blossom, 1926-2014]. We had Hanya. We had Phyllis. We -- I mean, Hanya came and did Hanya. But it was all around a specific course of study. And then as company members, I mean --
NS: So tell me about that. So -- so there you are, and you’re on the stage at Henry Street, and we’re going across the floor and every day at 10:00 to noon.
HKN: Two.
NS: Well, it was --
HKN: Well, 10:00 -- 10:00 to 12:00.
NS: Ten to 12:00 was technique class.
HKN: Right.
NS: And then 12:00 to 1:00 was [00:40:00] composition, theory or pedagogy, and then we also had -- and then rehearsals because we were in people’s --
HKN: It was like 10:00 to 2:00.
NS: Yeah.
HKN: Ten -- wait, 10:00 to 12:00 was technique class.
NS: Right.
HKN: Twelve to 1:00 was improv.
NS: Right.
HKN: And then what happened?
NS: I think we had -- we --
HKN: Was that combined with composition?
NS: Yeah, and then -- then you could --
HKN: When did we show stuff?
NS: -- hang around and work on compositions.
HKN: Right.
NS: ’Cause I remember I had to go uptown to pick up kids.
HKN: I had -- oh, you’re the au pair.
NS: I was an au pair.
HKN: And I had to go uptown and -- and pretend I was working at Lou Harris and Associates.[9] (laughs)
NS: I remember that too. I -- I learned a lot at Lou Harris, actually, but yeah.
But there was a really specific curriculum is what you’ve said.
HKN: But not a bunch of esoteric verbiage. I mean, I have to say, it was almost like directions, you know, or instructions or like recipes.
NS: And concrete. It wasn’t an --
HKN: Yes, it wasn’t all hifalutin. Everything, whether it was from a technique class to a theory to -- to composition had a thread. And, it helped organize the chaos of the world, I have to say, because it was specific.
NS: The way that you’ve described your -- your -- childhood and play and then to come back to Henry Street and play again -- but this is now a different kind of play. And I’m sort of now thinking out loud. I’m trying to figure out -- I think that the strength that I’ve always thought of with the Nikolais technique, and I do air quotes around that --
is that there is that sense of play as an adult, that you’re really, you’re investigating. You’re exploring. You’re figuring things out. Things are not codified in a way that other disciplines may have been with specific steps and specific, uh -- phrases --
HKN: Mm-hmm.
NS: -- and specific intentions. Improvisation class was you -- you’re presented with a problem --
HKN: Right.
NS: -- and you get to play with that problem.
HKN: Right.
NS: You get to explore. And now, I mean, so -- so you’ve -- that sensibility is -- is ingrained in you, as a performer, as a professional too. How does it carry into the -- to your life as a professional dancer now? Do we lose it, that sense of play, or is that a more disciplined aspect of it? I -- I’ve never posed that –I don’t know.
[pause]
HKN: I don’t think that sense of play was there as a company person. But I also think it could be…
You know there was a time as a child, I have a very vivid memory, I had a very rich, again, play life after school with friends. We’d have these imaginary games, and everything was improvised, and it was all freeform. You didn’t say, “Oh, what we gonna play today?” But I wanted to play and -- and they were… And around the age of 12, that stopped. 11, 12. There was no -- it was like something stopped. There wasn’t that play thing anymore. You know, and it was like, gone. And I think that might have been true with… [00:45:00] I did feel that there was that sense of play in the back as a, you know, young adult coming back to Henry Street. But that -- that child play is gone. Improvising definitely brought that back in the context of the class.
NS: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
HKN: Um, but you were training to be a dancer. So it was different. It was different. And as a member of the company, that was different too because, you know, there was a lot of touring, and there was a lot of work. And, it’s pla-a-a-a-y, you know. (laughs) It was work.
NS: But you had a job.
HKN: But performance was -- the performance was -- the play. That’s where the sparkle came in.
NS: Mm-hmm. At one point, I don’t know whether -- I think you had left. Maybe you hadn’t left the company yet, but at one point you wrote to Hanya. And you were concerned about -- you were now an artist in residence at Wash U. Washington University. And you were -- you were nervous and anxious about -- would you run out of things to teach.
HKN: Mm-hmm.
NS: Or would it be a what-am-I-doing-here kind of panic or anxiety, and yet what you discovered for yourself was this -- was a rediscovery of that sense of passion for movement --
HKN: Mm-hmm.
NS: -- of finding, and I will quote you, “The -- the generative source of -- that’s in constant motion.”
HKN: I said that?
NS: Yes, you did. You wrote that to Hanya. That you found out again, because you were now working on your own choreography, you rediscovered or found again what motion inside -- what -- what was internal to you and how you could then express it as a choreographer. So can you talk about that as an experience? I mean, there’s the letter to Hanya that you have, as you’re in St. Louis.
HKN: Mm-hmm. I think I was reading her book.[10]
NS: And you were reading her -- her book. What was it like for you then to teach and to choreograph with people? I mean, you were now choreographing student -- with students.
HKN: Yes. It’s funny because I just spent the weekend with -- with, a friend [Suzanne Costello] who was a -- had just grad-- who -- who I’d worked with at Wash U.
NS: Annelise Mertz was head of the dance department.
HKN: Yeah, yeah, Annelise [Annelise Mertz, 1918-2011]. My own choreography was -- was more theatrical than -- I don’t want to say literal, but it was more theatrical than the -- it was more like Murray’s theatrical dances -- that Nik never really liked very much. (laughs)
NS: Oh, really? Yeah. (laughs)
HKN: No, no, not me, but I -- I think he was always critical of Murray’s theatrical dances. But, that was my bent anyway. I mean, that’s where I was going as a choreographer, into a kind of abstract narrative kind of thing. And that’s what I was working on in -- when I left Murray’s company. However, it all came from a motional beginning, otherwise I would have been an actress, and I told you how much I loved acting classes with Joe.
NS: (laughs)
HKN: So -- so, for me, everything came -- the germ came from motion.
NS: Mm-hmm.
HKN: And so, whether it was expressing a -- a feeling about Paris in the ’30s or, [00:50:00] uh, Ruth Etting [1896-1978] the torch singer, or any of the other pieces that I did, it all came from that kernel of – of motion, which is why I was a dancer and not --
NS: In the first place.
HKN: In the first place.
NS: How did you get there though? That -- that’s always the question I have is that, if you’re going to, to cite your example of, -- who was it, in the ’30s you just said?
HKN: Ruth Etting or Paris in the ’30s, I --
NS: Take Paris in the ’30s.
HKN: Okay.
NS: Okay. So if -- if that’s the idea in your head -- how does that get motional for you?
HKN: Yeah, well, what was interesting, this piece that I started at Wash U. that became a full night -- full evening piece with 27 -- cast of 27 -- started with the photography of Brassaï [Hungarian-French photographer, 1899-1984] and his photos of -- of nightlife in Paris. So now you’re looking at a static image, and --
NS: Which you found -- how did you find that?
HKN: I just came across -- I don’t know how I found it. But I came across a book of his photographs, and it was the basis of this whole big thing. They were a snapshot of something that was happening.
NS: Mm-hmm.
HKN: So they were a snapshot of a scene, a feeling, an atmosphere, and I just responded to it to -- I culled it --which ones I wanted to use, and I just started creating sections based on these images. But they came -- but they weren’t -- you know, they -- ah, if I was a singer, I would sing a song, or if I was an actress, I would act.
NS: So here’s an image of -- of a night boulevard en Paris, right. How do you get that into your body? What’s the -- do you look --
HKN: Okay, well, I think it depends on where you begin. You can begin from a shape. Or you can begin from a place in space. Or you can begin from some internal motor -- beat, pulse. You know, I don’t think, you know -- and people -- I know people say different things, but, you know, it could -- it could start anywhere.
NS: Mm-hmm.
HKN: You know, it doesn’t have to start from the motor base. It could start from a gesture. You know, but I think we were given those elements to work with. And that’s a whole other discussion about how do you choreograph? And it really, for me, it really -- people talk about the word gestalt. It’s just the understanding of whether you start from a shape or – or a quality of motion or – or some spatial direction –- whatever. Everything that happens has to follow what came before, not in any intellectual conscious way, but in an innate way. And that’s what I gleaned from choreographic development.
NS: Mm-hmm.
HKN: You know, and that’s what pisses me off so much about what I see now, you know, that there’s great qualities of motion. There’s great ideas, but nothing really gets developed or follows in any kind of organic way. It all seems so either intellectualized or thought out or random or dismissed. [00:55:00] I do feel that there is a logic when you create, that one thing logically follows another.
NS: You know, it’s interesting you say that because I -- I keep going back to those improvisation classes and those composition classes at Henry Street where you were presented with a problem, and you showed things. It wasn’t that you just sort of did it --
HKN: Did the kitchen sink. You were specific.
NS: You were specific, and you were also pressed on it: “Why did you do that?” Or, “What was the choice you made here?” Or, “Why?” I remember a couple of times where it’s like, “This doesn’t make any sense ’cause it didn’t come from this place. So, consider something else.” I mean, how many times did you throw things out because they didn’t work? You know, I mean, those -- that kind of investigation is a training in and of itself. That I think -- I don’t know if that exists now.
HKN: Well, people choreograph from, you know, they give assignments, like directions: “You’re going to do that three steps up that way. And then you’re gonna…” you know. I don’t want to be critical, but, when I used to choreograph: that things had to logically, within the logic of the movement, evolve.
NS: Mm-hmm.
HKN: You know, I think that I learned from Nik, you know, what that -- and it’s not an A to B to C to D. The-- it’s a -- it’s a --
NS: That -- that kind of logic is not what --
HKN: No, not that.
NS: -- what you’re talking about.
HKN: It’s logic of -- you start with something, and how you decide to go or how your body decides or how it decides to go is something that you have to listen to. You can’t impose something else.
NS: And so you took the -- the listening part is a very -- a key word, I think, in our lexicon.
HKN: Mm-hmm.
NS: You know, because I think that that --
HKN: And as an audience person -- you know, watching something that logically -- well, I keep saying logic, but I don’t mean logic like… maybe organically. Then you’re taken for that ride as an audience person, you’re with that – you’re with them.
NS: Yeah.
HKN: You’re not left dangling somewhere because it gets dropped or… You know like when you go to a movie and it ends badly? And you go, “What?”
NS: “What?” Yeah.
HKN: That’s not to say everything was perfect or made sense or, you know, but that was a -- that was a goal. Yeah. I feel like I’m all over the place with our discussion.
NS: Oh, no, it’s fine. It can grow organically. It’s not necessarily a linear progression anywhere.
HKN: Okay, That’s good.
NS: You know one of the other charms, I should [01:00:00] say, of the letter that you wrote to Hanya had to do with the revelation of width. You said for the --
HKN: I don’t even remember this letter.
NS: You said at some point in the letter --
HKN: Did I give it to you? Oh.
NS: At some point in the letter you say, “And three weeks ago I discovered width.”
HKN: (laughs)
NS: Which I find to be absolute -- it’s indicative, I think, of every single person that I’ve interviewed in this project is always, always -- and it doesn’t matter at what point in their life they are -- they’re always discovering something, or, in your instance here, you’re rediscovering. Well, no, actually, this was not a rediscovery. You wrote and said you felt width for the first time. Well, that’s -- I mean, how many times have you gone across the floor or been exposed to a problem that had width as part of the exploration? And then at age 30 or 25 or whenever -- then you discover width!
HKN: Well, you know, [pause] life’s experience… maybe a lot of what we were exposed to gave us kind of like a blueprint of [pause] the ability… Well, you see, when I found my lower abdominal muscles -- but in Pilates[11] you can work on something for a million years, and if you’re given the blueprint of what to feel and look for, then when you actually feel it, it’s almost -- then it’s -- it’s like, wow. You could talk about knitting those muscles together --
NS: Transverse abdominals, yeah.
HKN: I don’t know, but until you actually feel it -- but I also have that experience with ballroom dancing.
NS: What a great transition. So tell me. Okay, so now you’ve retired from modern dance.
HKN: Many years ago.
NS: Many years ago, and you take up ballroom dancing. You’ve discovered a new way of moving, or a new way of exploring how to move, or fill-in-the-blank.
HKN: Well, I think that, had I not been a dancer -- a Nikolais dancer, you know – Nikolais aesthetic, the training -- I would not have digested and got excited with ballroom dancing as much as I have. I think it’s because of where I was as a dancer and what I knew about dance that excited me about ballroom dancing. A lot of women go into it ’cause there’s a lot of women as an amateur -- which I am -- because they like the whole package. They like -- they like the competition. They like the makeup. They like the hair. They like the dress. And they do like learning the skills. But for me, it’s another part of playing. Because -- and they talk about it too. The -- the professionals who -- who are really, really good at it, they started when they were nine. So their experience in it, in the form, is kind of like mine in the sense that you start when you’re young, and the experience -- and some of their feeling, you know, like I’ll go, “Well, that doesn’t feel right,” and they say, “Well, you cannot just go by your feeling. You have to go by…” ’Cause you could feel like you’re doing it right, and then you could look at it and it could look wrong. You know, so there’s a –- there’s right and a wrong. There’s very clearly [01:05:00] a right and a wrong based not on style, based on – on the mechanics of doing it, the technique. What was I going to say about that? For me, I am excited by it because of everything I know about dance. I’m excited by: each dance has its own character, has its own quality, has its own timing, has its own space, has its own steps, has its -- you know, so there -- so again, it -- it’s like a puzzle.
NS: Space, time, shape, energy, motion, all there.
HKN: All of it. All there. And it’s codified much the same way that Nikolais technique is codified. Depending upon who, you know… And it’s a young enough profession or art form that it got passed down.
Another thing I was thinking about, verbally passed down from master to student to student becomes master. So that now there, you know -- ’cause it was about early 1900s that it was really codified. So about the time modern dance [became codified], ballroom dancing as a social activity became a discipline. And there are a couple left who are in their late eighties, nineties, who are the coaches and the, you know, the gurus of the generations that follow. And that’s just very similar in a very different way.
NS: Okay, you have to unpack that one. It’s similar in a very different way.
HKN: The finished product -- I mean, what makes a gorgeous ballroom dancer is all the qualities that comprise dance:
the quality of space, shape, time, motion, energy. When that is all in a package, no matter what form it is, whether you’re watching a Latin or -- or what I do is Standard [in competitions known as International Standard] -- or whether you’re watching an African dancer or whether you’re watching Irish step dancers -- I think when that is all great, it’s because of all those elements that we know -- are all innately put together, not extraneous, not bullshit.
NS: And it’s integral too. It’s all integrally put together.
HKN: Yes, yeah.
NS: Integrated.
HKN: Yes. And -- and that’s what has made me so excited about this -- this art form. It’s also a magic in its own way because what it looks like and how you -- and what it is is very -- two different things.
I remember I was in the company, I think, when PBS was showing ballroom dancing on television with -- Cyd Charisse was one of the announcers. You’d look at it, and you’d laugh, and you’d think that it’s so funny, and it looks so weird, and what are they doing? And then, as you begin to study the form, you understand why the head looks that way and the body is turned in a certain way -- it’s deceptive because you can’t imitate it. You can look at it and think that you can copy it, but you can’t. Because, unless you know what you’re doing, it just is not -- it’s not going to come up looking what you think it looks like.
NS: I can remember a piece that Phyllis choreographed called Hearts of Palm[1976].
HKN: Was that at the Delacorte?
NS: No. I don’t think we ever did that --
HKN: Yeah, I saw it at the Delacorte.
NS: I think, Delacorte was – was Mirage Blanc [1979]. That was -- we were outdoors at the Delacorte.
HKN: Oh. Thought I saw Hearts of Palm there.
NS: Hearts of Palm -- actually, it was ballroom -- we were in ball gowns. And she brought in a ballroom dancer to coach us. And I can remember it was harder than hell. I mean, it was difficult to learn.
HKN: No shit.
NS: It was very -- I mean, there’s -- I can remember, specifically [01:10:00] two or three things that I think are illustrative but also they were the bugaboos of our lessons. One is balance.
HKN: Mm.
NS: Because your balance points are constantly changing.
HKN: Mm-hmm.
NS: All the time. And you never arrive at a spot because you’re on to the next. So balance was always a really tricky -- a very tricky concept. The other, as a woman: it was really hard to be always led.
HKN: Oh, that goes away quickly.
NS: Oh, okay.
HKN: Yeah.
NS: Okay. Um, it didn’t go quickly for us. (laughs) In the company.
HKN: I remember when we gave Phyllis that surprise party. And the pros were dancing, and I remember Lukas [Lukas Chockuba, 1979- ] saying, “I can’t believe these dancers cannot follow.”
NS: (laughs) It’s true.
HKN: Because, particularly female, you know --
NS: Yeah, yeah, totally.
HKN: And yet that ability to follow… But we’ve done improvs with leading and following.
NS: Yeah.
HKN: But that ability is really a timing thing and really sensing what your partner is doing and -- and being able to hear him through his hands and through his contact points.
NS: Which isn’t foreign to any --
HKN: It shouldn’t be.
NS: It’s not foreign to composition or improvisation or a performance.
HKN: No. No.
NS: You’re always at that particular point, yeah.
HKN: Anyway, so it’s fascinating. But I think that the thing about our training is that its application is everywhere. And it’s not like it’s a secret language. It’s just that it’s a clarifying language. For those of us who have experienced it and can marvel in how we see it, see things in the world. So you know, do I think it -- I don’t think it’s a secret language ’cause I know that other -- but -- it was codified in a way of studying and understanding what it is to dance and what it is that makes you have an eye for anything else that moves, whether you’re watching birds in formation or, you know, anything.
NS: You also -- I’m going to quote you on another --
HKN: Gosh, I didn’t know I was quotable.
NS: You -- you wrote a fairly angry letter at one point to --
HKN: Pffstt!
NS: -- a critic in Minnesota.[12] And, uh, fairly angry. I think you excoriated him until he -- (laughs) in ignoring the German expressionism as a --
HKN: Oh.
NS: -- as a lineage of dance. Um, and you know, you were -- you picked him apart. It was quite a clearly incensed letter. And I -- I hope he took it to heart and --
HKN: You mean like that doctor I sent you to?
NS: Yeah, right.
HKN: (laughs)
NS: Well, I hope that this critic learned something, started to investigate -- based on your letter to him. But one of the things that struck me in the letter, and I hope he took this because I -- I’m going to use it as a mantra. But you talked about Hanya. You said, “You’ve ignored Hanya in your…” critic’s reviews and things -- but [you wrote] that she was working at trying to find ways of abstraction, quote, “abstraction based on motional principles” –- which, frankly, you can apply as you just did to ballroom dancing, or to your experience in Murray’s company, or at the Playhouse, playing [01:15:00] as a seven-year-old, or studying as a 19-year-old, or watching birds in formation -- finding the abstraction based on motional principles.
HKN: Mm-hmm.
NS: There’s a universality to that too.
HKN: Mm-hmm.
[pause]
NS: I think one of the things that you point to early on in this conversation that strikes me as being a really important part of Nik as a historical figure, as someone in dance, is that he’s -- he’s investigating all of those: space, time, shape, motion, energy. He’s -- he’s working at that at the same time that he’s working at inventing sound to go with that motion, at the same time that he’s inventing new light structures and lighting effects and then at the same time a -- a theatrical experience i.e. sequins on black gloves that glow in this dark because seven-year-olds are going to want to play with their gloved hands. So his strength is really in his totality. What is your reaction to that?
HKN: He was -- truly for his time, no one was like him. No one was doing the kind of visual theater that he was doing. He was really painting. But he was a motional painter. And he was painting in three dimensions. And that was his art. And then there was the teaching. So that was two different things, but I think when he sat in that audience -- we were part of his canvas, you know. And dancers were either part of the -- whatever --
NS: Of his vision.
HKN: -- of his vision. And that’s different than his… And that’s his creation part, his theater, his vision. And then there is his -- the training part as the dancer.
NS: Which is his aesthetics of --
HKN: Of motion, of the art of dance.
NS: And principles. Yeah, yeah.
HKN: I think anyone who came out of the school -- Murray’s work was very different than Nikolais’s, and -- and Murray was Nik’s lead male dancer -- but his own creative thrust was very different. And I would say probably true of everyone who went on.
NS: He did not clone dancers.
HKN: Well, I think if people -- he -- he didn’t clone --
NS: Himself. He didn’t clone himself.
HKN: -- himself.
NS: That’s what I meant.
HKN: Yeah.
NS: Yeah.
HKN: I think he would not be happy if he went and saw little mini Niks around.
NS: I think he would -- I mean, one would hope, based on what we’ve said, that he would sort of say, “Well, why?”
HKN: Yeah. You know, the whole idea was, I do believe, although he was critical of Murray’s theater pieces. He wasn’t a big fan. (laughter)
NS: You mean, he didn’t like --
HKN: Catalog? [1975] No. I don’t think so. And that was such a nice…
NS: When you showed it and Nik saw it, what was the impression?
HKN: We never heard the conversation. It’s just that the next day might’ve not been the best rehearsal. We got the -- we got the brunt of whatever Murray got from [01:20:00] from Nik. But that’s -- you know, that’s hearsay. That’s imaginings. It would have been interesting to see how Murray’s development as a choreographer would have been if he didn’t have Nik’s influence on either squashing things or -- Because, um, [pause] they were different.
NS: What was -- when you were in Murray’s company, he choreographed several pieces from scratch with you.
HKN: Many pieces.
NS: What was that process like?
HKN: Terrifying and exciting. Because he never came in with everything worked out. And whether he would… He would come in with some music sometimes. The music could change, often changed. But Schubert [1977], was always Schubert, and Porcelain Dialogues [1974], you know, he had the music. So that became his guiding light. Then when he had an idea, like Hoopla [1972] or Scheherazade [1974] or Catalog or what are the other theater pieces? Hoopla, Index [1973], I mean, Index. Yeah, I was there for a lot of the really good ones. A lot of the really good ones.
NS: So he would walk into the studio… You were there playing --
HKN: I think he’d -- I think he would have an idea. Well, when there was music, then there was music, so we could work with that. When it was an idea, theater idea, I -- I think he might have plotted out some things, like characters and he might have had bits and -- because the music was varied for different sections, but the overall idea, like Scheherazade, he had that idea. Now, did he come in and say, “Dolls, this is a story about --” you know? No. He would have in his mind, he -- he would have the relationship between the alter ego of Scheherazade to himself. And then each number would be based on a section of Scheherazade. But he did not come in with -- except for his solos. All his solos for people he made on the spot. So it was just kind of standing there waiting for something --
NS: The next direction.
HKN: -- something to happen. Terrifying.
NS: Did he come in with steps?
HKN: He would come in with qualities. Whether he got that from the music or he got it from putzin’ around himself. Or -- you know -- I don’t know; he never discussed his creative process. I was witness, I was a part of the process. I mean, I just remember in Catalog, that was the big -- the big event where he gave all the women a solo, all four of us [Anne McLeod, Sara Pearson, Dianne Markham, Helen Kent]. We each had a solo, which was, wow. (whispering: Oh God, Nikolais hated that piece.) It was based on the Sears-Roebuck Catalog, and it was Murray’s ode to women with the suffragettes and the -- the costuming, which was so gorgeous. He had the music for each section, and it just never got developed, I think -- because I think someone didn’t like it, and it was very hard to tour ’cause there was a lot of stuff. But there were some wonderful things in it. And I just remember my solo -- never got -- was the same. It was changed over and over and over again. So I never danced it more than once or twice without it being changed.
NS: And would he --
HKN: Why? I don’t know. (laughs)
NS: Well, the question I have for that is, he would -- was he in it?
HKN: No.
NS: Okay, so he would watch it -- and then say, “Oh, that doesn’t work. I got to change this.” And then you would -- he would call you into the studio the next day and say “Okay, it’s gonna be this, this, this, this…”
HKN: No, we would be working on it. I think the couple of times the quality of it wasn’t right in terms of [01:25:00] where it was in the piece. I think it was the last solo. But we didn’t get to do it very much. It was one of those pieces that we worked really hard on, and it -- it didn’t --
NS: Which is a shame because I think one of the --
HKN: It’s a shame because there’s no record of it either.
NS: Well, that’s a whole other -- oy.
HKN: Well, let’s not even talk about that.
NS: It’s also a shame because I think one of the -- one of the more delicious parts about -- or aspects, one of the more delicious aspects about being a performer and having the opportunity of performing a piece over time, not simply a three-night or, -- is that it does change.
HKN: Yup.
NS: And it changes because of the way it sits in your bones. And it moves in your --
HKN: Right, of course.
NS: -- muscles rather than from afar.
HKN: Right. Right.
NS: So to be denied that experience with a piece that you like is lousy.
HKN: That was unfortunate that that piece was not able to evolve ’cause I -- I do think it -- it was a really good piece.
NS: The description I just gave of a piece that grows on you --
can you give an example of one that did and that -- that you were able then to enjoy as something that --
[pause]
HKN: Well, we did 100,000 performances of Hoopla. I can’t say I enjoyed that. (laughs)
NS: But it changed.
HKN: It changed, and it was -- we played it all over the world, and we had some fun -- fun times with it. And yes, and I also had some fun times with it where I would, after like a hundred performances, I -- I’m surprised I was still allowed in the company after I did what I did.
But I went on stage during his -- Murray’s magic number and it was in a bunch of different places, and I rented a gorilla suit the first time, actually, Carlo Pellegrini [1952- ] saw the company in Minneapolis. And I don’t know. I don’t know. I must have been very ballsy. But there’s a point where Murray flings his wand and -- and a box disappears. There was this magic part. And I scurry -- normally scurry on in my little black cape, and -- and I pick up the -- the box, and it was a touring box, and run off stage, and he turns around, and the box is gone, and he goes, “Magician. I did it. It disappeared.”
So this one night in Minneapolis, big audience, I rented a gorilla outfit. And when his wand goes off, I enter as a gorilla. And his back is towards me, away. His back is towards me. He’s away. His face is away. And I enter the stage, and normally he hears little scurrying. And there was no scurrying. There was this gorilla. And I plop over to him, gorilla like, and tap him on the shoulder with my claw. And he turns around, and he sees me, and he lets out a scream. And then I scurry off, gorilla like.
And he -- he got a kick out of it, thank God. I mean, thank God. But -- I really, that was -- that was a risk. However, see, we toured a lot. It was the ’70s. We were like 38 weeks on the road. We were all over the world. And you know, it could get -- Hoopla was a big hit, and it could get tiring.
So I also, in Colorado, rented a saloon girl outfit, a floozy with really high heels and a big, blonde Dolly Parton wig and that saloon girl outfit and appeared as her one night. And he liked that one too. And then the last one I did was at Jacob’s Pillow. I entered as a nurse ’cause in the company I was known as Nurse Kent because I had all the what-if medication. And I come on, and as a nurse, a [01:30:00] sexy nurse, and I go up to him with my stethoscope, and I tap him on the shoulder, right. (laughter) So those were, you know, fun times.
NS: Well, and not only fun times, but I’ll point to -- that there’s that sense of play.
HKN: Yeah. And he had a great sense of humor, thankfully. And that was the way to win Murray, it was through humor.
NS: And -- and play.
HKN: And play.
NS: When you talk about play, it’s important that we not lose that sense of play as adults.
HKN: Right, right, right. And he had that. I mean, he had also the opposite of play, but when he was in play mode, he was a delight. You know. And had a great laugh, and just -- we had a lot of fun. So you know, that was the way to his heart was through his comedy and his sense of play and fun.
NS: Do you think Nik had that too, that sense of play?
HKN: I think people amused him. I mean, he -- I don’t think he was particularly funny. But I think he enjoyed -- ’cause he had it in his work. Yes, yeah. But Murray was funny.
NS: Yeah. (laughs)
HKN: You know.
NS: I think that --
HKN: You have enough?
NS: I think this is a good place to stop playing.
HKN: Okay. Okay.
NS: Press the unplay.
END OF AUDIO FILE
[1] Greenwich House, a New York City settlement house with a main building on Barrow Street, was established in 1902. Like many settlement houses, its mission to provide social services to a largely immigrant population included a commitment to the arts, offering arts classes to children and adults.
[2] Growing up on the Lower East Side, Betty Young was a member of one of the Henry Street Settlement’s many clubs. She eventually became the school administrator and co-director of the Playhouse with Nikolais. For further information see Helen Hall, Unfinished Business (New York: Macmillan, 1971) and Ellen M. Snyder-Grenier, The House on Henry Street (New York: New York University Press, 2020).
[3] 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.
[4] Stockbridge, Massachusetts Art Workshop founded by Mordecai and Irma Bauman. Indian Hill was the first summer school in the arts for high school students in the United States.
[5] 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.
[6] Created by Tina Croll and Jamie Cunningham, From The Horse’s Mouth is a dance/theater production celebrating various dancers and dance institutions. Kent Nicoll is referring to the Alwin Nikolais 100th Anniversary event held April 30, 2010.
[7] Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a national student activist organization founded in 1960. In the years Kent attended, students at the University of Wisconsin, Madison held many demonstrations against the Vietnam War, the draft, Dow Chemical Company.
[8] In her essay “Sense Your Mass Increasing with Your Velocity: Alwin Nikolais’ Pedagogy of Unified Decentralization” Claudia Gitelman refers to the Henry Street curriculum of the “big four” of time, shape, space, and motion emerg[ing] as overarching categories of movement that teachers and students investigated.” In The Returns of Alwin Nikolais; bodies, boundaries and the dance canon, Gitelman and Randy Martin, eds. (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2007), p.34.
[9]Louis Harris and Associates,Inc.; the Harris Poll.
[10] Probably referring to Walter Sorell’s biography: Hanya Holm: The Biography of an Artist (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1969).
[11] A physical training technique developed by Joseph Pilates, 1883-1967.
[12] Helen Kent to Mike Steele, The Minneapolis Tribune, November 10, 1981.
