The Mason Gazette
March 2000
Dance Features Nikolais Work in Spring Concert

Dance Features Nikolais Work in Spring Concert



The George Mason University Dance Company's spring concert on April 14 and 15 will feature Alwin Nikolais's "Tensile Involvement," a mesmerizing piece of multimedia dance theater first staged in 1953. "Tensile Involvement" uses costumes, light, color, and, most strikingly, enormous ribbons of elastic to create a constantly changing geometrical framework within which ten dancers perform. The piece exemplifies Nikolais's goal of using every available artistic resource to portray man as part of a total environment.

Alwin Nikolais (1910-1993) blended his talents as choreographer, composer, and scenic and costume designer into a single aesthetic force. He has been called the "father of multimedia" and the "most original exponent of American contemporary dance," and he won the National Medal of Arts and the Kennedy Center Honors, both in 1987, as well as many international awards. Nikolais redefined dance as the "art of motion which, left on its own merits, becomes the message as well as the medium."

Every fall and spring semester, the Division of Dance's guest artist residency contracts with a professional choreographer to set either a new or a selected restaged work on George Mason dancers. The choreographer is in residence for 10 to 14 days around the beginning of the semester, working with the cast, teaching master classes, and giving lectures, and then returns to set lighting cues and conduct final rehearsals before performance time. This semester the guest artist is Alberto del Saz, the rehearsal director and co-artistic director for the Murray Louis and Nikolais Dance Company. Del Saz has been with the company for 16 years and has performed and taught master classes all over the world.

Nikolais's work is being studied throughout the Dance Division this semester, in dance appreciation and history courses as well as in the studio. The licensing and performance of "Tensile Involvement" were contracted for with the Nikolais/Louis Foundation for Dance; the piece was chosen because it is challenging, innovative, and exciting. For more information about the performance, call the Dance Division at x31114.