Erick Hawkins

(1909 - 1994)

Erick Hawkins grew up in a small town in Colorado and studied classics at Harvard. During his school years he became interested in dance, and in 1934 he became the first student to enroll in George Balanchine's School of American Ballet. Balanchine considered Hawkins his most promising young choreographer. In 1938, still with Balanchine, he studied at the American Dance Festival, then in Bennington, Vermont. Martha Graham used him in American Document, and six months later he became the first male dancer to join her company. He remained with Graham until 1950, and his influence on her work - in particular the dances with themes from the classics - is legendary.

In 1951, Hawkins opened his own school. He became interested in the emerging new field of kinesiology, and began learning as much as possible about how the body moves and how to avoid injuring it. This technique is the source of the unparalleled grace and fluid beauty one sees in the movements of Hawkins's dancers.

Erick Hawkins led his company with enormous spirit and vitality. At the core of his style is his unprecedented collaboration with contemporary composers, artists, sculptors, and designers. He worked with artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Isamu Noguchi, Stanley Boxer, Ralph Lee, and Ralph Dorazio. And he probably commissioned more American composers to create music for him than any other choreographer. Among them are Virgil Thomson, Alan Hovhaness, Wallingford Riegger, Ross Lee Finney, Bohuslav Martinu, Dorrance Stalvey, Lou Harrison, Michio Mamiya, Ge Gan-ru, and Lucia Dlugoszewski. Mr. Hawkins profoundly believed in the beauty and power of live music in the theater and never once performed to a record, tape, or other electronic device.