Alwin Nikolais - Noumenon (1953) from Thomas Patteson on Vimeo.
Found an LP of this modernist choreographer Alwin Nikolais's electronic music at the annual yard sale of the apartment block over the road from us in New York several years ago. Going for $1! This is its amazing sleeve.
You can see one of his pieces recreated for the opening credit sequence of The Company, that disappointing very late period (last one before he croaked? Robert Altman movie on ballet.
A recent retrospective on Nikolais's work.
There is a thread running through avant-classical electronic/concrete music that involves the partnership of composers with radical ballet choreographers -- Pierre Henry et le chorégraphe Maurice Béjart, Warner Jepson and the San Francisco ballet company, some others I'm blanking on...
1 comment:
Thanks for posting this! As a former Nikolais dancer I am pleased to see your acknowledgment of his accomplishments as one of the great American artists of the 20th Century. I hope the LP was fun. There is a CD of his music also available thru the Nikolais/Louis Foundation for Dance website, www.nikolaislouis.org.
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