Erick Hawkins

Erick Hawkins
Hawkins in El Penitente, 1930s
Born	Frederick Hawkins (1909-04-23)April 23, 1909 Trinidad, Colorado
Died	November 23, 1994(1994-11-23) (aged 85) New York City
Nationality	American
Education	Harvard University School of American Ballet
Known for	Dance and choreography
Movement	Modern dance
Spouse(s)	Martha Graham (m. 1948–1954; divorced) Lucia Dlugoszewski (m. ?-1994)
Awards	National Medal of Arts (1994)

Frederick Hawkins known as Erick Hawkins (April 23, 1909 – November 23, 1994) was an American modern-dance choreographer and dancer.^[1][2]

Early life

Born in Trinidad, Colorado, on April 23, 1909, he majored in Greek civilization at Harvard University, graduating in 1930. A performance by the German dancers Harald Kreutzberg and Yvonne Georgi so impressed him that he went to Austria to study dance with the former. Later, he studied at the School of American Ballet.^[3]

Career

Soon he was dancing with George Balanchine's American Ballet. In 1937, he choreographed his first dance, Show Piece, which was performed by Ballet Caravan. The next year, Hawkins was the first man to dance with the company of the famous modern dancer and choreographer Martha Graham. The following year, he officially joined her troupe, dancing male lead in a number of her works, including Appalachian Spring in 1944. They married in 1948. He left her troupe in 1951 to found his own, and they divorced in 1954.

Not long afterwards, he met and began collaborating with the experimental composer Lucia Dlugoszewski. They married and remained together for the rest of his life.^[4]

After leaving the Graham Company, Hawkins' work developed in a unique and different direction. Hawkins moved towards an aesthetic vision detached from realistic psychology, plot, social or political agenda, or simple musical analogue. Important influences were the dances of the American Indians, Japanese aesthetics, Zen thinking, as well as the Greek classics. In some ways, he took dance in a similar direction that abstract painters were taking art, though he disliked the word "abstract." This was coupled with a redefinition of dance technique according to newly understood principles of kinesiology, creating a bridge to later somatic studies. Hawkins' famous statement was “The body is a clear place.”

Hawkins championed contemporary composers, and insisted on performing to live music. The Erick Hawkins Dance Company toured with the Hawkins Theatre Orchestra, an ensemble of seven or more instrumentalists plus conductor. In addition to Lucia Dlugoszewski, his collaborators included composers Virgil Thomson, Alan Hovhaness, Lou Harrison, Henry Cowell, Dorrance Stalvey, Toru Takemitsu; visual artists Isamu Noguchi, Ralph Dorazio, Barbara Morgan,^[5] Helen Frankenthaler, and Robert Motherwell.

Works

Works choreographed by Erick Hawkins ^[6][7]

Award and death

In 1988, Hawkins received the Scripps award at the American Dance Festival. On October 14, 1994, one month before he died, he was presented with the National Medal of Arts by President Bill Clinton.^[9] Hawkins died at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan in November 1994. At the time of his death, he was survived by his wife and by a sister, Murial Wright Davis.^[3]

References

Sources

• Erick Hawkins, The Body is A Clear Place and Other Statements on Dance, Princeton Book Company Dance Horizons, Princeton, New Jersey, 1992

External links

• Archival footage of Erick Hawkins Dance Company performing Heyoka in 1996 at Jacob's Pillow Dance center