From Alden Library to Lincoln Center
By Lauren Bee
This year commemorates the 100th anniversary of American choreographer Alwin Nikolais' birth, and Ohio University will celebrate this renowned artist and his legacy with an exhibit at the New York City Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts this fall.
 The exhibit pieces are part of the Alwin Nikolais and Murray Louis Dance Collection, an archive of multimedia sources housed exclusively at the university since 1999.
The exhibit, A Centenary Celebration of Alwin Nikolais and his Dance Theater (1910 – 2010), will be on display from October through January. It includes photographs, posters, storyboards and various other items portraying the stunning multimedia aspects of the performances Nikolais created.
Judith Connick, special collections librarian, coordinated the centenary exhibit. She has served as the dance collection’s curator since Murray Louis, a former colleague of Nikolais (1910–1993) and a member of his company,bequeathed to the university. "What the exhibit allows viewers to see is a sample of the extent of materials in a special collection. You get to see a man through his life, and how his legacy has continued," Connick says. "I hope viewers walk away with an idea of his creative method."
Nikolais was an innovator in modern dance, and created a "total theatre" experience in his pieces using costumes, lighting, sound and stage sets to abstract dancers, and to create a more evocative experience for the audience. While some modern dance focuses on a narrative or psychodrama, Nikolais' work plays on the abstraction of the human form with the use of multimedia techniques, says Connick.
As further celebration of the centenary of his birth, Ohio University dance students performed Nikolais' "Noumenon" in the Winter Dance Concert.
"It's wonderful that there will be a public exhibit and that it’s coordinating with our concert and the reconstruction that we've done," said Tresa Randall, assistant professor in the School of Dance. "Because of the presence of the collection here and the connection we have to the Nikolais legacy, we wanted to make sure to mark the centennial."
The complete Alwin Nikolais and Murray Louis Dance Collection includes 400 cubic feet of materials kept in the archives in Alden Library, including film, photographs, manuscripts, story boards, posters and music. Claudia Gitelman, choreographer, teacher and Nikolais scholar, visited the collection in December to coordinate the exhibit for the Lincoln Center and returned in May to complete the project.
Both Randall and Connick said that Louis wanted the collection to be housed at a university with an active dance program, where students could have access to and utilize the materials in their studies. Students in Viewing 20th Century Dance and History of Modern Dance courses have collaborated with Connick while conducting research for their courses, using various media from the collection for their final papers.
The dance collection is not the only part of Nikolais' legacy at Ohio. Gladys Bailin-Stern, professor emeriti of dance, first worked with Nikolais as a student at the Henry Street Playhouse in New York City, and later became a member of both the Nikolais and Louis Dance Companies.
Regarding the collection, Bailin-Stern said, "Since the Nikolais and Louis companies no longer exist, the library archive makes these wonderful works available to those interested in some of the most influential dance-makers of the 20th century."
Materials are also available on the Nikolais and Louis Dance Collection's Web site, including 16 different performances on video.
A Centenary Celebration of Alwin Nikolais and his Dance Theatre (1910-2010) will be on display at the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts. Specific dates — as well as an alumni-only event in New York City to commemorate the exhibit — will be announced in the future. For more information, look for the fall issue of Ohio Today magazine or contact Doug Partusch, University Libraries director of development, at partusch@ohio.edu or 740-593-2683.
Lauren Bee, BSJ '10, was a student writer for Ohio University's communications and marketing office this year.
Posted 06-15-10
|
