NS: Good morning, my name is Natasha Simon, and I am sitting in the dining room of Phyllis Lamhut’s home at 225 West 71st Street in New York City. It is July 12th, 2016. And sitting across the table from me is Phyllis Lamhut who is about to narrate the story of her life, whether it’s whatever we decide we want to talk about, and specifically whatever Phyllis decides. So, my first question to you, because this is an oral history project about Alwin Nikolais, is what did Nik -- as he’s fondly called – what did Nik learn from you?
PL: I think he learned about dealing with a 15-year-old, quiet -- believe it or not -- wide-eyed, and totally obedient to the information that was coming at me, which I did not intellectually understand. But some innate spirit within my being was receptive to his concepts of moving.
NS: So, when you say that you didn’t intellectually understand, was it that he was talking in a foreign language? Was he talking in a language you just hadn’t been exposed to? Can you be specific there?
PL: Yes, because when I met him at the Henry Street Playhouse for the first time, in 1948, prior to that I had studied ballet. And the language was mainly French, corrections, looking in the mirror to see if you were in a proper state of technical line. And so, when he said, “Let’s walk across the floor,” for the first time, I had never walked across the floor -- ever. So, that was a trip. If he said, “Walk backwards across the floor” -- I mean, these are basics in technique that also was. And so everything that he gave was new to me. And the language, the isolation of the body, undercurves, overcurves -- relevés I was happy with, because that was still the French word “relevé” -- it’s just the language was so simple in a way, but yet I never was able to equate it, in the moment, to dance as I knew it.
NS: What you had known prior to arriving at Henry Street is --
PL: It’s structured, extremely structured.
NS: -- you stand at the barre --
PL: Yes, I take a ballet class, which consists of standing at the barre, doing center work, coming across the floor, and mastering the specifics of certain steps. I’m not quite sure how my mind functioned. I think my ego and my enamored-self functioned really well in the ballet. But I was quite humble, I must say, when I first took class. But I was very excited because it was new. And you have to understand that I wanted to dance from a very early age. So, this “dance” was in me, and I had been fortunate to go through various stages of it. So -- actually two stages pre--
NS: Do you remember your ballet teacher’s name?
PL: Oh yes. Where -- at Henry Street or prior?
NS: No, prior to Henry Street. We’re talking now back to when you were how old? Eight?
PL: Well, do you know how I got there? How I got to take the ballet? I was one of those children that twirled around the house, like all children do, and of course I was probably an annoyance to everybody around. I had two older sisters who were out and about -- much older -- 13 and 15 years older. And I used to dance. We used to sit [00:05:00] around the radio and listen to the opera on Saturday afternoon -- three o’clock, I believe, or something like that. And when it was quiet, I asked, “Why is it quiet?” And they said, “Well the dancing is happening now.”
NS: Who is “they said”?
PL: My sister and her -- their friends that used to sit around. And my mother and father. Yes. And so I supplied the dancing. And one of my sister’s friends was a tailor, and he made me a very full pleated skirt. And I had toe shoes -- which I never had a lesson. And I put ‘em on and I would dance all the time.
NS: Did your sisters dance?
PL: Oh, well -- oh, it’s a musical family. My father played accordion and violin. And I remember my sister, she could do the Kazotsky, which is the Russian dance. One of my sisters. My middle sister, I don’t recall, because she wasn’t particularly well, so she was quieter. And, so, we all -- my father played, and the house had music. Oh, I think probably the most important thing is that I’m first-generation American. Which at the time of this interview, considering the political situation -- I’m a phenomenon. (laughs)
NS: Yeah, yeah.
PL: When people talk to me about, “How did you grow up?” Or they make assumptions. I said, “Wait a minute, I come from a Polish European persecuted family who came here in 1907 or ’10 or whatever.” And so, it’s that kind of background.
NS: Were your parents married in Poland?
PL: No.
NS: They met here?
PL: Yes. My mother and her two brothers came here -- came here through, oh I have a picture of the three of them. But it’s Belgium -- I think Belgium -- Belgium is a port city.
NS: Antwerp?
PL: Antwerp, that’s it. Yeah, yeah. They came through Antwerp, because my mother told me a story about she and her brothers going out and they got lost. But they got back again.
NS: They made it onto the ship?
PL: They made it onto the ship. But anyway, so, as I got older --
NS: Wait, wait, wait don’t skip over.
PL: No, I’m not skipping over how I started the dance.
NS: No, I’m skipping over -- so, your mother and her brothers came on a line -- ship liner from Antwerp.
PL: And they landed in Ellis Island, which I recently visited -- recently a number of years ago in contemporary times -- with my husband’s father – Stoddard Small -- Robert Small’s my husband [1949- ], and his father. We went to Ellis Island; it was indeed an experience how they came through. And my mother’s name and my father’s name was on the sculptured wall. My sister contributed toward the wall, and their names were on. And I went to look -- I said, “Oh” --
NS: What is your mother’s -- what was your mother’s name?
PL: Pauline Goldring. And my father was Samuel Lamhut. Right. So I found their names. It was really a very touching experience.
NS: It’s really a tangible experience.
PL: Oh yes. Well, I only saw the wall after I was in the museum of Ellis Island, to see all the people -- how they came and what they had to do and what those that were put in quarantine that were not well, and people didn’t meet them at the boat, they had to go back or something. So, it was really an eye-opener.
NS: And sobering because you’ve realized what a journey it was for them.
PL: I did realize it was a journey, and I couldn’t believe they did it. When I looked at them, I said, “Oh really, that takes a lot of spunk, especially, they were children.” She and her two brothers. And my father was one of five children.
NS: Your father was a child when he emigrated?
PL: My mother was maybe 12. And my father, I don’t know. These are not baby children.
NS: And they came with their parents?
PL: With their parents. They came and settled here on the Lower East Side, and that’s how they knew about the Henry Street Settlement Playhouse.
NS: Did they meet [00:10:00] and fall in love on the Lower East Side, and get married, and then have children?
PL: Actually, believe it or not, I never asked that question, and I have no clue. I have no clue about -- they met -- I only knew that my mother’s brothers, who were very ambitious and they made a good living, asked my mother why is she marrying this man? He doesn’t make a living.
NS: Oh no.
PL: Yeah, but he was very calm, quiet, and very nice.
NS: And then he obviously -- he made a living.
PL: Barely, but he did. He had a business and he made a living, yes. And then he gave up the business and went to work.
NS: Doing?
PL: Well, he had a Venetian blind business, and he knew about painting a Venetian blind. He knew how to spray, because he used to spray the paint on the Venetian blinds -- which years ago used to come -- uncolored?
NS: Unpainted.
PL: Unpainted. And then he got a job, uh, spraying gold on frames -- picture frames. So we had a lot of gold picture frames in our house.
NS: So your family was rich in more ways than one. One, you’re telling me that you had gold frames on your picture frames, and you had a radio and you listened to the Saturday afternoon opera and danced.
PL: Oh yes, definitely, definitely. But that links into my father, because when you asked me the question about, “How did I start to dance?” My mother had a friend. My mother was a vegetarian, and this friend – she [my mother] was very fat -- but this friend of hers said, “You’re too fat and you have to go see a doctor. And I’ve got this wonderful doctor, he’s an M.D. psychiatrist. And he will test you.” And the doctor told my mother that there was nothing the matter with her except her diet. And so she became a vegetarian. And, Isadora -- Raymond Duncan [1874- 1966], Isadora Duncan’s [1877-1927] brother – was a devotee of his -- vegetarianism -- I don’t think she knew many vegetarians, she was a real meat eater, you know. But anyway, to get to that point, I was driving my mother crazy. And she said, “I don’t know what to do with you.” So, she took me to Dr. Lieber and she said, “My daughter” -- that’s the same doctor.
NS: That’s the same doctor.
PL: “My daughter she doesn’t stop moving.” I figured I must have been a -- a -- what is -- some numerical or some alphabetical number that was not invented then, like AGG or something. And he said, “Well, Mrs. Lamhut” -- I remember this -- “why don’t you give your daughter dancing lessons?” And there was like shock.
NS: On your part or on her part?
PL: On her part, because I wanted the lessons, but I didn’t have access to them. And I -- nobody gave the word, and this is the doctor that made her thin.
NS: The doctor talks.
PL: And so, there were no -- I lived in Bed-Stuy during the period when it was very rough. I was born in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and then I spent most of my childhood, very young, in Bed-Stuy -- sorry, Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York. (laughter) My mother told my sisters, “Try to find a place where there’s a dancing school.” They couldn’t find one. They took me up in Brooklyn toward Eastern Parkway and Prospect Park. But then they took me down -- went the other way. I remember on the subway. And they remembered -- my mother used to go across the bridge to shop at the Essex Street Market and she used to go to cooking classes that New York City Department of Health gave to the public. And I still have those recipes in this house. So, she saw a studio in Williamsburg that was Miss Bea’s Dancing School. And she took me there. And of course, Miss Bea was a tall, attractive woman -- young woman. [00:15:00] Her name -- real name was Beatrice Kaminsky, and she was traditional because she changed her name --
NS: To Miss Bea.
PL: Yeah, and we always wondered like what some of the -- we know that some of the -- Alicia Markova [1910-2004] was Alice Marks, and just the reverse. So, I studied ballet there once a week, with a ballerina who had a job to teach -- like we all had jobs in our career.
NS: So, this was on like -- on Saturdays?
PL: No, it was --
NS: Or Sundays?
PL: -- no, that’s the point of my story. It was during the week. And so, I was very good. It cost 50 cents a class -- so, they asked my father and mother, can they get two classes? And that was like a dollar. And then, what they -- my father said -- I had to go to Hebrew school at the same time. So, Hebrew school occurred in the afternoon after school, like these ballet classes did, and it took away from my ballet class. So, I would cut and not go to Hebrew school, until he found out, and he made me go to Hebrew school until I graduated. This is not -- not religious school, this is -- it’s a school that you learn about, uh, Hebrew -- you learn Hebrew, you learn the Bible --
NS: You learn the language, the alphabet.
PL: Yeah, it’s not like -- yeah. You’re not praying or doing anything like that. So, it was very important for him that I do that. And so, I used to cut it until he laid the law down.
NS: Did he go to Temple or Schul or Hebrew -- Synagogue every --
PL: My father was -- no, no. My father was a working man. A working man -- he’s Orthodox Jewish, but not Orthodox -- there are different kinds of Judaism. Well, now there are. Before it was just Orthodox or -- or Reform was later. Those were the two words that I knew about. But Orthodox meant -- well, he worked, he couldn’t keep the Sabbath, you know, things like that. So -- but we learned Hebrew in the Orthodox manner, we didn’t learn Hebrew in the later way, like ah -- I think atoh became atah -- you know -- and things shifted around. But he was basically Orthodox. No beard, no nothing. He was a handsome man. Orthodox was only a style -- was it a style or way of learning? Yeah. But when you’re really a Hasid, or religious, in another way it’s a whole other ballgame.
NS: So, when he wanted you to attend Hebrew school, it was because you didn’t go to an Orthodox school during the day, you went to Public School during the day? And then you went to Hebrew School after school?
PL: All the girls graduated from Hebrew school. It’s like another school.
NS: So you didn’t go to Public School --?
PL: I went to Public School from eight in the morning until three in the afternoon.
NS: And then you went to Hebrew School.
PL: Then I went to dancing lessons at four o’clock, and then I had to go to -- 4:30, whatever it was. Probably 4:30 to 6:00 or 4:30 to 5:30. And then that interfered, because I had to go from school to -- four o’clock. Four to six.
NS: So, who won out in the -- well, obviously, you won out in the end, because you became a dancer. And not a Talmudic scholar.
PL: Well, I did. Well, we’re nowhere near that in our religion. Like Talmudic -- no, in my upbringing nothing is like that at all. When you have a family that survives and the income is from one man, and it’s not easy. So, I think that religion was not a factor in my upbringing at all. I mean, we celebrated the Jewish holidays, my mother cooked the food that she never ate. (laughs) But basically, it was different.
NS: But you had to juggle Miss Bea with Hebrew school.
PL: Yeah, I had to be also bad and lie that --
NS: That you were in Hebrew school, when in fact you were in Miss Bea’s.
PL: That’s right. So therefore, when I was finished and I graduated, I carried on again -- like I was four years old -- and they said, “We don’t have money.” [00:20:00] Because they wanted me to come three times a week when I went back. So, my father said, “I remember the Lower East Side, we lived there -- the Henry Street Settlement Playhouse, they have scholarships for talented children. They’re very generous for talented children.” So, one day -- I don’t remember what year it was -- yes, it was 1945, ’46? -- ’45-and-a-half (laughter) 1945-and-a-half. She took me on the trolley car from --
NS: Your mother?
PL: Bedford-Stuyvesant -- yeah, my mother -- all the way over the Williamsburg Bridge, and we walked under the Williamsburg Bridge -- the walk is exactly the same -- exactly -- to the Henry Street Playhouse. The same eight blocks that are very, very long. And all I could say is, “Momma, where is this place?” I remember saying that because my mother didn’t take the Grand Street route. She took the street below Grand. Broome Street, which is always a dismal street.
NS: Then.
PL: Grand Street had the shops.
NS: You should see it now.
PL: I know. So there was a ballet teacher named Anna Naila there, and, uh, she suggested I take class. And I took a class with another young girl named Gladys Bailin [1930- ] -- there were just two of us. And Miss Naila took one look at my arches, and she took me -- now, Gladys was four years older than I was, so there was an age difference -- I was continuing my vision of being the greatest ballerina in the world. And I was shocked when one day, they said, “No more ballet.” And that was in 1948. Actually, the moment I was told that was when I came back to register for the school -- you have to register to dance for the school. And they gave me a scholarship for the ballet class because they loved my feet. (laughter) You never know what can get you a scholarship. Gladys came running down the steps and she said, “Phyllis don’t get excited, they have no more ballet.” I said, “What?!” I got excited, I said, “What do you mean no more ballet?” She said, “No, no, it’s modern dance.” Modern dance, like that was the dregs to me.
NS: Oh, my goodness.
PL: Oh God, yes. So, you know, here I was a young kid, I was 15 -- 15-and-a-half. And she said, “There’s a nice man up there, you should go up there to talk to him to register.” And that was the moment when I went up to meet Alwin Nikolais. He was sitting there with a red shirt open at the collar, and he was just out of the service, for a couple -- few years -- Army or Navy trousers that the guys used to wear, the fatigues. And a very handsome man with a big head and a lot of blond hair. And he said to me, “Well, we’re changing everything around now, and we’re having a school. We’re going to have dance technique, dance improvisation, dance pedagogy, dance theory” -- all these subjects. And I looked at him wide-eyed and wooly -- I didn’t understand a thing. Which sort of segues into when I told you about the technique class. Like, when you’re fixed -- and --you know, in my teaching today, in 2016, -- and I tell my class, “When you’re fixed it takes something to shake you out of it.” You know?
NS: And there are the echoes of being 15 years old in your case.
PL: And in my case. Yes, but in my case, what shook me out of it was passion, not thought. And so, I’ll go back. And so, he [Nikolais] told me all of this, and I looked at him, and he said, “But I see that you are underage, and this is like a school and it goes from six o’clock until ten o’clock at night.” [00:25:00] It was at that time and I looked at him -- he said, “You’re too young.” I said, “But I want to dance.” And he said, “I’ll take you.” And I tell this story a lot, because years later I asked him, “Why did you take me?” He said, “In the eye, you had a light in the eye.” And that’s what I even relate that to my students. If you buy a fish, you don’t want a fish that has a dead eye. (laughter) You want a sparkle in the fish that’s laying there. (laughs)
NS: So -- so, Nik sees this sparkle in your eye -- it’s the passion that says, “No, I want to dance.”
PL: That’s it, he did see that, and I’m forever grateful to that. And that’s where it began. And then, eight men under the G.I. Bill of Rights, and Gladys, and myself -- who became my life-long best friend --
NS: Do you remember the men at all?
PL: Oh, I loved those men. Sure. Jack Spencer, Gino Mortenghi, Sheldon Ossosky [1932-2023]– oh what was it? Another wonderful tall guy -- I can’t remember his name. [Alfred “Al” Henry Srnka, 1928-2017.] I can see him, tall, wonderful, he’s a friend of Nik. Student of Russian. He was -- beautiful long legs, great guy. I’ll probably remember it after this interview. So let me see, Luke Bragg [1922-1994] -- Jack, Sheldon, Gino -- Murray came a year later. So, he’s not included in that list. Murray Louis [1926-2016] came a year later.
NS: 1940…
PL: Eight.
NS: So, there are all these G.I. -- ex-G.I. -- from the war.
PL: Yes, because -- the history of that is that the American Theatre Wing that facilitated the government funds to study arts for veterans gave accreditation to dance people to study dance.
NS: And then Nik set the school up with Henry Street in order for --
PL: Nik and -- Hanya [Hanya Holm, 1893-1992] was the original director for the first year. But she said, “Nik, here, it’s all yours.” She was busy doing Camelot or something like that. Or one of her shows -- Kiss Me Kate, My Fair Lady -- she did all these shows. And so, the second year she said, “It’s all yours.” The head of the Henry Street Playhouse was Grace Spofford [1888-1974], who was the head of the Music School. But the whole system setup of what the teaching and everything was, was done between Nik and Hanya, because that continued over the years. The only thing that changed is it became a day school.
NS: Instead of six to nine, it became a day school.
PL: Yes – six to ten. Which every boyfriend that I had had to have a car, so that he could take me home (laughs) to Brooklyn late at night. Because going on a trolley was not easy.
NS: When you went that September when you’re registering, and Nik says, “You’re underage,” and then he says, “Oh, okay, I see the sparkle.” Okay, so this is --
PL: No, he said, “I’ll take you.”
NS: “I’ll take you.” So Monday --
PL: Oh, he saw the passion, the eye. Yeah, he saw the sparkle.
NS: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday?
PL: Yes, it was the same thing. And then it was a schedule --
NS: And that’s when you learned what a technique class was, and what a theory class was, and what a --
PL: Improvisation --
NS: -- composition --
PL: -- I loved it because I was young -- well, theory/improv, that’s the same. But oh, I loved it, because when you’re young, you have all this spirit. And it was, I realized compressed within the structure of the ballet. So, when it was just opened up, there I was, you know.
NS: And Miss Bea was history for you.
PL: Oh yes. Yeah. I think I may have continued one or two classes with her, but it was done, because it was boring.
NS: Do you remember some of the improvisation problems that Nik would introduce you to at that point?
PL: Well, it was interesting, -- [00:30:00] improvisation followed immediately after technique class. And sometimes he would take something we did in technique class and develop it in improvisation. And that’s how you could understand things more, which is such a good idea, because if you feel that you’re not getting something in technique class, you could explore it in another way. So, I think that that kind of structure was really interesting. I would take out that word “structure,” and say that kind of process was really interesting. Because once you start with an improvisation, he may say, you know, “Walk around the room.” And then, when we walk around the room, with a lot of people, and someone like Sheldon Ossosky climbs up the walls, we’re all laying down. That’s walking around the room. You know, you never know --
NS: What’s going to happen.
PL: -- because we walked around a lot. We walked a lot in technique class. For years, all the time walking. So, what could I say? If he had a subject, he carried it through, but it always went beyond.
NS: It went beyond? Question mark.
PL: The subject. Because the exploration gives you dimension, and dimension gives you more of an artistic freedom. Hopefully.
NS: So, there you are, you’re a student, and you’re going to --
PL: High school. I hadn’t graduated yet.
NS: High school. You’re going -- you’re now -- uh, you’ve graduated from high school yet?
PL: No.
NS: You’re still in high school.
PL: I graduated that January -- no, I graduated -- 15? No, I’m still in high school. The whole year went by -- 15. I graduated in January -- I was 17 when we graduated in January. So, from 15 to 17, I came at night -- until I did the day -- was after that. So, that year -- I don’t know what year that was...I graduated -- yes, I had one more year, because the ’48 year was September to May, and we were off in the summer. Nik went to Colorado. [Colorado College Summer School of Dance] Gladys went with him. And that’s where they met Murray Louis. Yeah, first year. Because she was older and they couldn’t afford to send me. I was a camp counselor. That’s where I met Dorothy Vislocky [1927-2013]. She was the head dance counselor, and she interviewed me, and I was the assistant in Camp Bridgeton in [Bridgeton], Maine.
NS: Had Dorothy studied with Nikolais?
PL: No, I brought her two years [later] -- she was the head of the department -- Hunter. She made that department. She was Phys. Ed. And she’s the one that’s responsible -- Hunter College.
NS: So, how did you hook up with Dorothy then?
PL: I answered an ad to be a dance counselor, and she was the head dance counselor. I lied about my age, I said I was 18, but I was 17-and-a-half. And we hit it off. I told her where I was and everything, and she realized --
NS: I see a theme here, which is you’re always too young. And so, you lie -- or there’s the sparkle all the time.
PL: Well, yeah. Well, I was very pushy with what I loved. I mean, you’re really dumb if you don’t do that. If you have talent. So, if you don’t have talent it’s a problem, but evidently, I did have talent. I didn’t look at myself and say, “Oh, Phyllis, you have talent.” No, no, it’s a feeling. And I still have that feeling. So, it’s very different.
NS: So Nik and Hanya go off to Colorado that summer, and you go up to camp in Maine, and then you meet Dorothy there. Or -- then you come back in the fall -- everyone reassembles in the fall, and then begins a whole --
PL: A nighttime schedule. Which meant -- the nighttime schedule -- 1952 -- uh, ’48, ’49, ’50 -- um, I don’t know when it switched. I was out of school. I was not in school for daytime. I was not in public school. So, it switched -- um, ’50 -- maybe 1950-something. [00:35:00] Yeah, yeah.
NS: And then you -- so, there’s this core group of people that include Phyllis, and Murray Louis, and Gladys Bailin --
PL: The second year -- second year, yeah. And I think, um, another lovely young woman came, Anita Lynn -- a young girl, very sweet. I don’t know when Coral [Coral Martindale Aubert, 1935-] came. She came in ’50 -- she was also a high school student. And when Nik did Extrados [1950] -- because they were in it -- Luke and Gino Mortenghi -- Sheldon was the first Extrado -- Murray Louis -- five men -- Gino, Murray, Luke, Jack Spencer, Sheldon Ossosky -- they were the guys, yeah.
NS: You’ll get it. We won’t worry about that. But you mentioned Extrados.
PL: E-X-T-R-A-D-O-S.
NS: Okay, so tell me about that.
PL: Extrados was the first -- I think -- in the first year we just did a lecture demonstration, and Nik did…
NS: When you say a lecture demonstration, you’re now presenting what’s going on at Henry Street to the public?
PL: Yeah, first time a lecture demonstration. Thank God Gladys Bailin has a large family. And it was wonderful. And Nik invited some guests. Invited Rose Lischner [1906-1990], who was teaching there. And Maxine Munt [1912-2000] who -- Al Brooks [Alfred Brooks, Alfred Brooks Pew, 1916-2005] wrote the music for Extrados. And Nik later re-scored it.
NS: What was Extrados about? Or do I need to act --?
PL: It was a ritual. Well, I’ll have to think. I mean, good God, first of all here I am and they tell me the name of the dance is Extrados, and it’s not Swan Lake. So, that was not very clear. Is -- Extrados must be some ecstasis moment. I don’t know, I’m just assuming that. Because we had props and there were offerings.
NS: Props.
PL: It was props, like beautiful offerings. I have a picture of it somewhere.
NS: What kind of props?
PL: We got the props because -- maybe we did the opening dance for Christmas over at the Henry Street Settlement Gym. And I think Nik had us hold something Christmas-y. So, I’m mixing that up with the premiere. But we did have pylons. We had a set, we stood up on boxes -- big pylons -- and I think there was some kind of natural, nature something. And it was in three parts.
NS: Did he choreograph it?
PL: Yes, yes, yes.
NS: Do you remember how he choreographed?
PL: Yes.
NS: That particular piece or in those early years?
PL: He moved. He moved. He moved a lot.
NS: Did he give you steps?
PL: He gave us steps.
NS: Did he give you phrases?
PL: I have no idea. I just did what I was told. And if they wanted me to do something else, I would do that, too. I don’t have the relationship of -- you see, freedom has to be analyzed in order to be an intellectual. So I was not in the state of mind where I was considering anything that was given me. I thought it was all wonderfully spontaneous and structured, because you had a composer. So, I remember the rhythmic structure -- one and two and three and one, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, one, two, three. I remember getting a five rhythm was really hard. So I remember the process, but it was sheer joy, because wow.
NS: And it’s very different from the ballet waltz in the center of the floor, correct?
PL: No relationship whatsoever, at all. None. None. Of course, contemporary, or modern dance, or new dance, or contemporary -- whatever it was, was not involved with emulating the ballet. The ballet in the contemporary dance or modern dance became -- in the ‘50s -- became more prevalent that the modern dancers were criticized because they couldn’t point their feet very well. I think it was also discriminatory about diversity. So, [00:40:00] everybody had to take ballet so they could straighten out, or something dumb like that. So that’s my analysis.
NS: So, are these Saturday afternoon performances? Or are these evening performances?
PL: I have to look at a program. It’s hard to go back. They were evening, and afternoon.
NS: And the neighborhood would come and see a performance?
PL: No, not for the regular ones. You pay money, or you come for the original choreography. But when Christmas came, he would have us hold Christmas trees. We would do the first class -- we went to the gym -- and the Henry Street Settlement constituency was invited for their Christmas/Hanukkah event. And we were part of their event. There were singers and things like that.
NS: So, it became --
PL: It was a community.
NS: -- as an institutional -- community institution.
PL: What became?
NS: Henry Street was that.
PL: Was famous. Very famous.
NS: Can you talk -- because I sort of know a little of the history, but can you then talk about -- I assume that the Children’s Theater started at that point. Or very soon thereafter? Right?
PL: Oh God. I wish --
NS: There’s a photograph of you as Alice.
PL: Oh, you mean Nik’s Children’s Theater.
NS: Yes!
PL: Oh, I thought you meant the Children’s Theater -- the Saturdays at three.
NS: No. I mean, you are now working with Nik.
PL: No, no, Nik started the Children’s Theater early. Because it was a way for us to get a fee -- get paid. We would get up at six o’clock in the morning, load up the truck with the children’s things, go out to Long Island, New Jersey, Connecticut, gettin’ lost. We’d go from one high school Saturday morning or to a movie [house] at 10 o’clock, because 12 o’clock the movie started and we would be painted up in our Indian paint -- because there was an Indian ballet there -- and we’d get lost and ask a question. And a cop would look at us, “What is that?” (chuckling)
NS: Who is this merry band of --?
PL: Yeah. Fable of the Donkey [1946] was the first one. But I think Hanya had done it, or he had had the Fable of the Donkey – Al Srnka was one of the guys, because he was the donkey.
NS: Ah, he had come back.
PL: Yeah, he’d come back. And so, he started with the Fable of the Donkey, and then he -- I don’t know what the order -- the order is. I would be more accurate --
NS: Accuracy is not a -- we can always look at that, but what I’m curious about is -- it was a way, too, for you to perform.
PL: It was a way to perform and it was enabling us to have the experience of working with children. Of working with children and projecting to children, and developing how to capture the imagination of the children. How to understand that what you were doing was original. You know, the scripts -- some scripts were written by Murray and Nik, and some came from fairy tales. And somebody always wrote a script. Also, we were able to talk in some things. It was wonderful. It was wonderful to play a princess, or to play Alice in Wonderland, or Miss Nicely Prissycurl, or one of the girls in the Fable of the Donkey, or an American Indian Squaw -- or Squawess -- we used to call to ourselves Squawesses.
NS: Squawesses. (laughs)
PL: Gladys was a shepherdess and a chimney sweep -- she and Murray. It was wonderful. We made all the costumes. And it was just great. We had a wonderful costume person earlier -- [Helen Lapchuk] She was very helpful. It was great. And, uh, we made -- they gave us some money. When I would get on the bus in Bed-Stuy, to -- at 5:30 in the morning, the bus driver said, “What are you doing here?” I said, “I’m going to work.” He said, “What?” I said, “Yes.” And the bus would go, and I changed the bus to go over the bridge, take that walk -- still living at home -- Brooklyn -- because I was still a teenager -- Brooklyn. And we’d load up and everything. We played in the Philadelphia Academy of Music. We drove to Philadelphia [00:45:00] and, um – and then they wouldn’t take our -- the union -- it was our first encounter with the union house. They’d unload the truck, but they wouldn’t take it inside.
NS: These are the workmen at the theater?
PL: At the Philadelphia Academy -- I’ll never forget that. I think they took -- or that we had to take it down, and they would take it inside. One or the other.
NS: Everyone had their own job to do.
PL: That’s right.
NS: But you were used to doing everything,
PL: But not carrying a heavy -- that distance. You could park up against the garage, up against an entrance to the school. It’s not like that.
NS: So, beyond the Children’s Theater that you toured in the area, Nik was also choreographing and working on his unique vision.
PL: No.
NS: No.
PL: I had no idea, I had no clue. But I did -- in the Children’s thing. Because the Children’s things were theatrical. And Nik made everything, and we did stagecraft and stage design. Nik had a vision for the mounting. It all began somewhere, very early, where his visions can be manifested in a way that would change time and space. Because all these Children’s things had different times and different spaces that they occurred. But the costumes were wonderful. And his artistry and being able to design them was wonderful. And we made them -- we helped make them. And he made them, too. So, from the Children’s things -- and Nik’s -- my modern work really was Extrados, which -- then it was Malcolm Waldren [1925-2002] did the music -- a wonderful black composer did the music for -- I don’t remember what the name was. [Opening Suite, 1950] And then he did a number of things that were sort of dancing things? And then, one day, around 1953 -- ’48, ’49, ’50 -- somewhere in that area, he does a show that was like Masks, Props and Mobiles [1953]. A little bit before ’53, he did Noumenon. [1951] Because I got him the fabric for that.
NS: You -- you went and bought fabric for him?
PL: No, I didn’t buy fabric. We always begged the neighborhood for fabric.
NS: So, we went to the fabric store --
PL: Fabric store -- which were numerous on the Lower East Side -- and gave extra fabric. But this one was different. I went down to Broadway in the Garment District -- Broadway in the 30s -- and I was looking. I went up the elevator and I walked into a place that [sells] jersey -- jersey -- and a big tall handsome guy came out and said, “Hm, what do you want?” Well, I said, “I want a donation for the Henry Street Settlement Playhouse.” And he gave me all this wonderful jersey. And he asked me for a date. (laughter) So, I went back to Henry Street and Nik picked --
NS: You went back to Henry Street with 36 yards of jersey and a man. (laughs)
PL: I don’t know the yardage -- because Noumenon was two people -- Beverly [Beverly Schmidt Blossom, 1926-2014] and Dorothy, they were tall and wonderful proportions to do that dance originally. And that dance grew and had many lives, and many jerseys, and stretch jerseys, and shiny jersey, and glitzy, and wonderful. Sometimes you wonder how does dance progress? Take a look at that fabric. See how the dance fabric progressed over the -- I never thought of that. But that’s a very interesting thing. From jersey that the moths can eat, to something that is impenetrable. (laughs) And stretch, you know. So, it’s interesting. But Masks, Props and Mobiles -- [00:50:00] somewhere around -- it didn’t take Nik long -- somewhere in those early ’50s it all began to germinate.
NS: And it didn’t take Nik long to realize those visions he had at that point?
PL: Uh, no. Once he started, I think he got -- he -- you see, you have to understand that you’re talking about a person who’s worked with his hands for many years, he was puppeteer, a theatrician, a musician. So, to make costumes to work in many ways, and to pattern space, and to listen to things. It’s part of his whole being. And so, he -- it went. Just grew. It went from props and costumes, into light, into different aspects of motion. Costumes -- he got rid of costumes. And once the light became more dominant, we were always in a nude neutral. So that the figure could be lit. As a matter of fact, I was just reading some things about multimedia, and from what I’ve seen -- and I see multimedia in space, but I very rarely ever see multimedia on the figure -- where the figure is included.
NS: But with Nik, absolutely.
PL: That was the major integration of getting that figure lit and everything.
NS: When you’re at Henry Street in the -- now we’re ’54, ’55 -- and Nik is sitting -- I have this vision of Nik sitting in the -- in the house, in a seat, and three or four of his dancers are on stage at Henry Street -- and he’s saying to you, “Uh, try this.” Or --
PL: Well, yeah. We’d be happy to try it. It’s like, “Can you top this with this?” I mean, he had a group of people that were really good. And then he’d pick what he’d liked, and you’d get miffed if he didn’t pick what you were doing. But it was interesting. In the early years Nik would get up and do the movement for us. I just want to point that out to you. Nik danced. As a matter of fact, Gladys and I saw him in a production at the YMHA -- the 92nd Street YMHA -- probably in Spring of 1949. He danced in one of Hanya’s pieces.
NS: Just parenthetically, when I was at the Performing Arts Library [New York Public Library for the Performing Arts], and I was looking at some early film that they have preserved now of Bennington. And I forget who’s teaching the class, but the last row of that class, on the floor, is Nik taking the class. And I think it’s ’30 --
PL: It was Hanya. Was it Hanya?
NS: It might have been Hanya.
PL: It was Hanya.
NS: But it was in the late-30s, ’38 or ’39. We forget that he comes out of motion, too.
PL: Oh yeah. You know, he was wonderful -- he danced, he had his own company, he was creative. I mean, really creative. A musician. It’s a renaissance man right away. You know that.
NS: You knew that when you went there.
PL: Well, I didn’t know it at 15-and-a-half, but I know it now at 82. (laughter) Very well.
NS: But to know, also, at 82 that at age 15, you were in the presence of someone who was --
PL: I didn’t know it. I just went along. I didn’t know this man, I had no idea. I was totally shaped by his vision. And lucky him, I was able to respond in a way that was helpful to all -- both of our careers. We all helped each other. We were in a very unusual group of [00:55:00] people -- tenacious, talented, bright. And he learned from us, and we learned from him. It’s even.
NS: Here’s a question, I’ll throw it out as just -- and -- because I was thinking about it. I’ve known you for many, many years. But I didn’t know you when you were at Henry Street in 1954, or ’55, or ’48. I’ve known you as a student throughout. I’ve known you as a performer. I’ve known you as a choreographer --
PL: Teacher.
NS: -- and as a teacher. Not to mention as a friend. But -- in each one of those iterations, okay? Student, performer, choreographer, and teacher -- what attracted you to Nik and changed over the years? When you were a student what attracted you? It transformed or did not as a performer? As a choreographer? As a teacher?
PL: I was not attracted by Nik. Because I don’t think that word works with me.
NS: Okay, what would?
PL: I was -- I had good friends -- Gladys Bailin was a very good friend. I was going to leave, she encouraged me to stay. But what attracted me --
NS: Maybe influenced.
PL: Well, let me -- let me just say is that I felt I was there to do -- I happened to be there. You see, that’s different. I didn’t like -- I didn’t have to -- “Oh, I saw this, so I’m -- I want to be part of it.” I didn’t see anything. I just saw a man with a red shirt and he saw a light in my eye. So, that was it. That’s the way I see it. And why didn’t I leave? I don’t know. I mean, it began to feel good. (laughs) You know? And it was interesting. And Gladys encouraged me. She had taken modern dance, because she was a Henry Street neighborhood girl. And so, she was able to --as a child -- she was able to take classes there over the years. And things do change.
But what attract -- his vision was to make us all teachers, dancers -- a totally round thing. So, we never had to get a job anywhere else but in our profession. As teachers it was primary. I was an apprentice, I taught, I got a certificate from the Henry Street Playhouse -- Henry Street Settlement. [From] Henry Street Settlement that I got the certificate that I was qualified to do that. So, what I’m saying is that what attracted me was excitement, was I could see what was happening. I could see what other people were doing. The challenge of it, the competition of it. And as a teacher, I was trained. And Ruth was very -- Ruth Grauert [1919-2020] was wonderful. She was my trainer. She would come in and watch class. And learning Choroscript -- how to write dance. Can I clean my throat? (clears throat) Okay. Sorry, I’m getting hoarse. So (clears throat) I was watched. And I assisted Murray Louis in composition class. And Murray was wonderful. He had these creatures like Sara Shelton [Sara Shelton Mann 1943- ], Carolyn Carlson [1943- ], Emery Hermans [1931-2004]. He had a class made up of really creature people. And imagine when he -- and I assisted that class in composition. And it was wonderful. I assisted him in teaching children. It was just like one big meal.
But the major thing is that it tapped into my creativity, which I never thought I would ever have. I didn’t know anything about creativity. So, when you have to make a dance -- improvisation, making something -- that tapped into my sensibilities. And I liked making things. [01:00:00] I loved being in the studio. I loved choreographing. And those years at Henry Street, in order to get that certificate, you have to do a trio concert. So, Dorothy Vislocky, Beverly, then, Schmidt, and myself did a trio concert. Then you had a duo concert you had to do the next year -- Dottie [Vislocky] and I did a duo concert. And then, you had a solo concert. And prior to that we were all doing our shared concerts. So, we were turning -- Nik wasn’t doing much. One dance at the end like a finale. Until he burst forth with all of this. So, he was not doing that much. So, really, everything sort of evolved that way.
NS: I guess -- let me ask you to jump forward to 1979, or ’78. You have your own company, you’re touring, you are choreographing pieces --
PL: Yeah, I’ve been choreographing pieces all my life.
NS: All your life. Did you --
PL: I mean, all -- since I met Nik.
NS: And you’re stuck.
PL: Stuck what?
NS: You’re in the studio and it’s like a pounding in your head --
PL: And you don’t know what to do?
NS: And you’re stuck. You’re frustrated. It’s like what do I do?
PL: I never got frustrated.
NS: Yes, you did.
PL: Well, with the group or myself?
NS: With the group?
PL: I used to go the bathroom. I used to go to pee. And then I had the idea, and then when I got stuck, my company would tell me, “Go pee.” (laughs) That’s a funny story, but very true. I see, but I thought you were talking about my solo work.
NS: No, no, no.
PL: Yeah.
NS: No, I’m talking as a choreographer -- when you’re now developed as a choreographer -- and I’d say world-renowned choreographer. Where’s Nik in that picture?
PL: Nowhere. I’m me -- and he’s proud of that. He’s everywhere, but I am me. And Murray’s Murray, and Gladys’ is Gladys, Beverly’s Beverly, Dottie was Dottie. The individual -- this is a major point. The concentration on noticing and bringing out -- or trying to bring out individuality was a major asset in Nik’s teaching. Major. So, when this worked creatively and being inspired by a creative person, very helpful. And everybody around you is creative, in their own way, which was competition in a way. “Wow, look at that,” you know? So...
NS: We talk a lot about inheritance, and usually it has to do with a painting or a piece of jewelry. But in the arts, it’s a little different.
PL: In this art -- in dance -- with Nik, I inherited a philosophy. A -- philosophy, theories, applying what you do to everything around you, and then being able to have the sensitivity and judgment to pick and choose -- in an individual way -- how to never let go of the impulses within you when you make a decision. Never let go of the impulses when you’re upset. I feel that I learned everything from Nik, and it’s my way. And his philosophy, his teaching, the broadness of it, the interest of it, the musicality of it. Everything was a gift to me personally. Intellectually, I’m going to shy away from articulating that. I like to still keep going, I don’t want it to be a fait accompli. So, I’m not going to say what he gave me, he’s still giving me, because I’m still teaching. I’ve moved on in the analysis.
But when you’re working with philosophy and theory, or theory, better than philosophy in a way -- you can shift and shape. And time, space, energy, everything -- it’s just one -- but you see things. You understand the world is made of space. (laughter) And not what’s in it. You know, you know that time [01:05:00] I watched a deer that’s been getting into our house in the country -- into the land even with the deer fence, and she has a baby, so she’s -- the baby’s there and I’ve watched her nursing, before we ran out and they disappeared. And they disappear. And then, I got so close to the deer to tell Robert how to track it, to see where she’s coming in and out of -- and in a flash she was gone. I was really upset, because I couldn’t get the speed. And I thought of time. I thought of duration. How long does it take? What is the difference between a deer and a human that, as fast as I am -- and I am -- I cannot catch the speed of the decision-making to jump. And the little baby jumped, and she fell, got up and left. And I finished.
NS: I had that same experience two weeks -- three weeks ago. I was up in the country, in my cabin, and I’m clamoring -- I’m pounding on something on the deck. And I go into the house, I look out the window, and right in front of the window is a deer. And it’s like, we’re stock still looking at each other. Absolutely still.
PL: Correct.
NS: And I think, “Okay” -- now, of course me, I’m the documentarian, I’m going to go get my camera.
PL: Oh yeah, forget it.
NS: Forget it, right? Because Phyllis, I tiptoe to get my camera. I come back --
PL: He still there?
NS: Gone.
PL: Yeah, yeah.
NS: I don’t know where.
PL: But in relation to space and time and motion, just the main thing I learned from Nik is always sensing your movement. I mean, it’s so much -- it’s such a gift. It’s all in me, and that I learned -- I don’t know if that -- what was your question? I think I lost it a little bit there.
NS: Your inheritance, that inheritance is something I’m keyed into for some reason.
PL: Inheritance -- you inherit -- what I like to know that I inherit, again, is philosophy or theories that are a little -- they’re intangible, but they’re present. That the feeling of motion -- being able to feel the feeling of time, that’s why I used the deer. I’m so fast and I’m so smart, but I’m not that smart. There’s something in the real world -- some impulse that is so smart, so innate. And I teach, so the mere fact that I’m really in the moment is very different than other people at my age, because I look at the students who like to be fixed, and like to know what they’re doing before they do it. And the excitement of not knowing anything and then trying to shape it is very important in working with Nik, and that’s the culmination of everything.
NS: I think it bears repeating: the excitement of not knowing what you’re doing.
PL: Yes, yes, oh yeah. And not knowing what the result is going to be. And having to edit the result if it doesn’t work so well. And to determine that negative thing. But also, it depends. So, I learned to be very broad, not specific. I learned his theories of motion, space, time, shape, energy -- and that these are world subjects, and that the world works not just in one way, with one dynamic. That the excitement, the visibility is the transition of these theories to various creative aspects of a choreographer, a teacher, a student. And being able to say, “Don’t be one-faceted. Look who you are, where’s the humanism? Move on.” You know, “Do you really weigh 150 pounds?” “No, I don’t,” they say. I know that. (laughter) You know?
NS: Because you’ve taught now for many, many, many years -- do you find students to be different -- how are they different today than they were when, say, twenty --
PL: Well, over the evolution of my teaching career -- started to teach at 17, really.
NS: Yeah. How are students different? How are you different?
PL: I’m the same.
NS: Because it’s a two-parter.
PL: [01:10:00] Because I keep looking and trying to grow, you see. They want from me what I, most times, give them, but not the way they want it. Which means, they need to associate -- it depends upon what level. I teach master’s students. So the body is very deceptive, because the body -- I teach -- I’m around beautiful people all the time, who spend a lot of money to learn -- for an education. And a lot of time looking at themselves in a mirror. And a lot of time in not understanding that growth is more aspects of their sensibility than the visual action of what somebody is seeing. That growth comes from your realizing that you’re moving on into something different. But in most cases, the structural arrangement of things -- phrases, everything that is -- repetition.
You know, repetition is like the latest thing. So gave me a break, I looked at all these things that -- repetition is like -- nobody is there being innovatively crazy. Not enough people there -- our people are wonderful -- innovatively crazy, you know. It’s harder now, because there are more people, and this competition is harder. So, you have to sort of be in a corner to be an innovative crazy. But I don’t know, I just feel like I like to shake my students up. I like to say, “Look, you don’t know everything. Give up what you know, but no, don’t throw it away. Just re-shift the story. Mess it up a little bit, put it back inside: like you’re making a cake, and before you put the egg in to bind it -- don’t bind it, let it sift and fall and season it. You’re not going to fall out of the bowl, but you’re not ready for the oven yet.” You know, it’s just not ready.
So, what I try really to do, and what is very difficult, is make them see things that they would never see. To use their eyes instead of their brains. It doesn’t negate the brain, but as I say to my class, “The close proximity between the ear and the eye is amazing.” It would be great if they could realize that, when they hear music and see dance. Or when they hear language and see. So, they don’t bring together the imagination of the body to the ideas that they would like to --
NS: Is that different now --
PL: Yes, very different.
NS: -- from -- I’m thinking back to when you taught class at Dance Theater Workshop.
PL: Our company -- yeah, but -- yeah, but --
NS: When you have classes at DTW on 19th Street --
PL: It’s very wonderful. Yeah, we had wonder….
NS: -- and now you’re at Second Avenue Tisch. [New York University Tisch School of the Arts]
PL: Very different.
NS: Very different because --?
PL: I taught really professionals. People who had already graduated college, or maybe -- I believe. I taught dancers that were dancing. I was spoiled. Our classes had great people in them. They were wonderful. They were small, they were nice. And it was always interesting. And I did all kinds of things with them -- all kinds of different -- I did standing warm-up, instead of Pilates. And I love Pilates -- I do Pilates every other day. I did different things. And I worked on the professional dancer’s body. There were no mirrors.
NS: Yes, important.
PL: Yeah, and it was different. Very different.
NS: Would you say that as a student, whether you were a professional dancer at DTW, or you were a student at NYU, -- is there a mindset that’s different, too?
PL: There’s a mindset.
NS: Or has it changed over time?
PL: Well, mindset -- yes, I’m not sure mindset is the right word. I do deal with the mind a lot. Yes, their minds are set. And I have to open it up a little bit, in one year -- in nine months. [01:15:00] And their bodies are set. So, in other words, the flesh has not been renewed. And if you don’t renew the flesh, all your life, you become muscularly rigid. And as the older you get, the information stays, -- it’s harder to get through you. Is it too obscure what I’m saying?
NS: No, it’s absolutely, it’s spot on.
PL: I mean, we understand each other. So, you know.
NS: What you’re saying, too, I think, is that there’s so much emphasis on product. And what you’ve described over the course of your career at Henry Street -- I mean, even as a child, too -- is process.
PL: And there was a product, but the pro -- but it was included in --
NS: But it grew -- but it grew from the process.
PL: Yes, it did. And at New York University, we’re trying to be very creative, because a lot of our students are really out there doing work, and getting grants, and have companies, and everything. But it’s very difficult to make everyone creative. And that’s the point. Because when you are at different levels -- let’s say -- of creativity, and you’ve had one year of creative work, or you have had, [or] you haven’t had a dance company, when you’re coming back to school to get a master’s so you can get a job to teach -- it’s a terminal degree. You have to reorient everything and free it up, but that’s the best way. And get new information in and stimulate the brain. And the students who do that are fantastic. And the students that don’t really, go through a hell of a time, because they would like to have the process clearer. And I am unclear on purpose. We’ll get there, but I’m not going to let you go and work it out just so easily, that you have to understand that process is exploration. Not a written skillset.
NS: Yeah yeah.
PL: And, you know, they’re -- they try very hard, and they’re really quite wonderful. And those that are not quite wonderful, they are not destined. They’re enriched, but they’re not destined. And that’s important. And there are those that are, “I’m going to have this, I want to do this,” you know, hungry, hungry to -- yeah, oh yeah.
NS: Can we talk a little bit -- not the teaching part, but can we talk a little bit about the pieces that you created?
PL: Yeah.
NS: Would you like to? I would like to.
PL: I love the pieces that I created.
NS: Would you talk a little about Field of View [1971]
PL: Oh, I loved that. That’s a site-specific piece done in 1970. I opened the Merce Cunningham Studio when he moved to Westbeth. I came in there with 25 people. Poor Merce [Merce Cunningham, 1919-2009], he liked me. You know, I studied with him for 10 years. And he liked me a lot, always. And so, I said, “Merce, I want to do this,” and he let me do it. So, you remember that? Oh yeah, Field of View -- Field of View came about -- you know, I never know. I always say I’m not an intellectual, but I do look at things. I really see. Herding instinct of cattle. I still watch it. In the country, there’s a farm, and I say, “How are these cattle, Robert? What are they doing now? Are they all there?” I’m so obsessed. And then I see when I go down the freeway and I see the farms and the cattle are in different formations, I’m impressed. When I’m standing on the corner of 72nd Street and the light says, “Don’t go,” and people go, and don’t go, and go. You have like a deconstructed formalism. And I look at this and if I were not trained to look at all these things and get excited by all of these things, I would be --
NS: You would be one of the crowd. Just herded around.
PL: Right. So, it was the herding instinct of the human being, and I’m still watching it. It amazes -- thirty-six -- one day I stood with my stopwatch here -- this is a [01:20:00] great neighborhood up on the West Side -- and I said, “How many seconds can they not wait before the light goes?” They can’t wait two seconds -- it’s like an hour for them. Like the deer, you know what I mean? So that was the herding instinct, which I loved. It was wonderful. And then we did it at Barnard, and wherever else we did it.
NS: How about, is it Conjuries [1973]? Conclave [1975]! How about Conclave?
PL: Conclave, yeah. Well, that I was involved -- I must have been reading something about mysteries and mystical folk. And I’d done a lot of travelling with Nik and I had a lot of notes about people in disguise and who they really are. We had a lot of costumes. And I had images of people as other. Like you [Natasha Simon [1949- ] and Diane Elliot with the dolly -- the Dolly Girls with the dolls. And the men -- societal images through time. The men – Donald Blumenfeld and Kent [Baker 1947-1994], and Vic [Stornant, 1947-1990] were like prissy Puritans, or conservatives or something -- however you want to go from the Puritans then to a conservative now. (laughs) And I liked the idea of collaborating with Dennis Cady and Joan Gedney, who was in the company. They were husband and wife. And they made the costumes -- they made wonderful costumes.
NS: And we had the masks.
PL: And the masks, right. I liked the idea of masks. I still have those masks. And you made sounds with instruments (Simon claps). These were challenges that I wanted to do. So, I had my imagination and I made that.
NS: How about Hearts of Palm [1976]?
PL: Well, Hearts of Palm was very interesting. I’d gotten a Guggenheim, and I had $400 left over from the Guggenheim. Murray Louis told me, “Don’t put it in your company, buy a mink coat, play music, and drag it across the floor.” But I didn’t do that.
NS: You went to the vintage store and got a ball gown.
PL: So, I did. I didn’t do that. Actually, so I was in the office and, I don’t know what I did. I was having a conversation with somebody, I said, “I gotta go buy a palm tree or something.” And then, I did. I ordered the palm trees. And that started it. $400 they cost. They got delivered, and then I had to have things painted. It all started with the palm trees and the ballroom, and the idea of the romanticism -- music was music during the whole thing. Yeah. See, sometimes it starts from an idea. And sometimes it’s the palm trees. That’s like Nik. You know, like, “Hm, let me see what these palm trees -- what can we do with the palm trees?” You remember that, with the guys and everything. What can we do with them? So, the whole structure of the work had to do with the palm trees.
NS: What about Passing [1980]?
PL: Passing was part of my interesting collaboration with Robert Moran -- composer Robert Moran [1936- ]. I loved making Passing. It was like in -- people thought -- my husband [Albert Sutton] died in ’79. I did Passing in ’80. Everybody thought Passing -- but I had started Passing, and I was working on it on the road. And I said, “Don’t give me this story.” We were touring. I needed to work. So, I did. And so I made it. It was mainly to music and certain ideas in my head. I really don’t know why I do it.
Passing had the whole first group part, which was sheer motion through space, yes. And the second one was a duet with Robert and myself. And the third one, uh -- which was very funny, and witty, and quick -- and then there was a quartet that was interesting -- or a… I don’t know. And then second half slowed down, it got more, uh, introspective. It was not all over the space. And I started with a solo Passing, and it went into the thing. So, maybe, subconsciously something did come out by the second half of that. But I did start Passing before my husband died.
NS: Oh, I know you did.
PL: Yeah, because he died suddenly. So, there’s no reason for me -- so, it may -- some things may have influenced -- influenced that. [01:25:00] What was the one (sings)? Is that something --
NS: That’s --
PL: The finale of Passing?
NS: That’s the finale of Passing.
PL: And then the duet with Patrice [Patrice Evans, 1950- ] and myself. Yeah, they were very good works. Yeah.
NS: Passing -- as you described the motional sense in the first --
PL: I was always --
NS: There’s a universality almost -- I mean, in the sense -- not of being, but of being of the universe. I have this memory of just constant motion.
PL: It was in a constant passing.
NS: And that we would be passing each other constantly. That the second half, as you say, becomes more introspective --
PL: Introspective, right.
NS: -- and very much -- but introspective and then concretized at the end.
PL: With repetition and ritual.
NS: Yes. And -- and solidified so that the transition from --
PL: Everything’s solidified, as well.
NS: How about Utopia [1988]?
PL: With Ben Hazard. Did I do Klein Kunst [1985] before?
NS: You did, yeah. Klein Kunst first and then Utopia.
PL: Yeah, well Klein Kunst was --
NS: What I called your German phase.
PL: I’m influenced by that still. I love it. I would say I was influenced by -- I do a lot of reading about the late-1800s in Germany, and all the way up through the war. And the Klein Kunst was about the war. It was very specifically in my mind about nightclub people, in a nightclub. You go down, and you go into the nightclub around seven o’clock, so it’s still daylight. And you don’t come out of the nightclub -- these are the performers and the people that work there. They don’t come out of the nightclub until three in the morning. They never see daylight. So, they don’t know what goes on when the bombs drop. And so, that was very specific. Yeah, then I began to do -- then I began to do more social concepts. Yeah. I think I woke up --
NS: Klein Kunst was very social. Utopia --
PL: Yeah, social. And then before there was, um -- I did, -- then I did my abstract work -- Solo with Company [1975], and -- and then with the one pulling the, uh -- Dis --
NS: Disclinations [1978].
PL: Disclinations, which I always liked that one.
NS: Distortion. It was a very -- a sense of --
PL: Distortion, right. And it starts with distort --
NS: -- of rending amuck.
PL: Yeah, yeah.
NS: Do you remember why – you know I remember a little of that process, which is that it’s almost like -- it’s similar in the sense of fabric that you -- with Noumenon, you go to get the fabric and come back and then Nik does Noumenon. But I remember tee -- having, um --
PL: It’s a t-shirt.
NS: -- t-shirts, and you saying, “Pull! Pull!”
PL: By the time -- by that time, they had the puckered, which they still do. Like winter underwear.
NS: Thermal underwear.
PL: Yeah, yeah, so it was not a problem. I just cut the sleeves out and whatever.
NS: Right. And then, certainly, it became more pronounced through that period when you got to Utopia, because that was --
PL: Well, Utopia also was very, uh -- after the atomic bomb dropped, and what was left over, the distortions of people. And the society trying to pull itself together. And with the chorus.
NS: Now, what I find interesting about what you and I have just discussed however, is that you were never specific in the choreographic process with us, about those ideas. You never articulated those with us. You were onlyinterested in how movement and motion realized those ideas that you had, that you didn’t tell us about.
PL: Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. See, nowadays what’s very interesting -- choreographers give people movement and they have a dramaturge. And a dramaturge gives them ideas that they’re to think about what they’re going to do with the movement. So, that’s like an overlay. That does nothing. Only rarely does it -- it would have to go with a person who has a good acting base. And you have to remember that my company all had good acting bases. So, I gave them a movement, I got something back. I could say I like it or I don’t like it. [01:30:00] You know, I didn’t get nothing back, and no one waited. Everybody was hot to trot, as they say. You know, I was like, “Okay, okay.” And everybody was interested in everybody else -- what they would come up with. And I would give you movement, and then I would see the way you would do it, and then it would go back and forth. It was not like me only, and then you. But it was a back and forth thing, which was wonderful.
NS: And then it was being stuck, and then it was “Go pee.”
PL: “Go pee.” Yeah. And then I got it. That’s why I’ll always recommend -- we rehearsed three times a week. We had three hours or three-and-a-half hours. I said, “That’s all people can rehearse.” They have these companies going all day. You know, these poor babies, it’s so hard. Because -- but sometimes you struggle when you’re not on salary. But I was lucky I had grants. At least I was able to give a stipend. But basically, when you’re on salary, it’s very difficult. Because I think a dancer only has just so much in them -- the best in them.
NS: When you’re not teaching, or when you’re not in your mind choreographing, what do you like to do?
PL: Garden. You know why? I’m totally out of my mind, it’s very Zen. Also, lately I’m reading The Wall Street Journal. I’ve been reading that for a year -- practically a year. I want to know how other things tick. In my books -- I read -- I have books that I read. But it’s a project that I have given myself.
NS: Talk about a different language. You know, if you read The Wall Street Journal, that’s a different language.
PL: Well, it’s not about the language. It’s about the dynamic of the world -- of the business world, you see. And it’s about the shifting of, -- every week, there’s a different take on the same subjects that I’ve been reading. So, when you look at it, you wonder sometimes, “I thought they went bankrupt last week. Oh, now they’re negotiating this week. Aha, they sold the company next week. Hmm, they -- now it’s going to Europe. Hmm, now they fired everybody. Interesting.”
NS: But -- but can I bring it back to Nik?
PL: Yeah. (laughter)
NS: And talk about it in terms of space, time, shape, motion, and energy in The Wall Street Journal?
PL: Well, no, no, no, no, not at all. But, you know, I wanted to -- no, I read Robert Irwin’s book -- I’m reading a book that Robert Irwin wrote.[1] I have it in the country. And I like to read in the country. I like to garden. I like -- I’m a -- to my detriment, I am a, -- what do they call it when you do more tasks at once?
NS: A multitasker?
PL: Multitask brain. I have a multitask brain and a multitask body, which at my age I have to get rid of. Not the brain part, but the body part. I multitask, so I’m like all over the place all the time. So, I don’t know -- everything in my life is influenced by my education, which I could say was not college.
NS: Yeah, yeah. That’s not... you want to stop?
END OF AUDIO FILE
[1] She may be referring to Lawrence Weschler’s book about Robert Irwin: Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees (University of California Press, 1982).
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