The following is a guest post from the Music Division’s Dance Curator Libby Smigel.
As a graduate student in dance and theater, I was captivated by the emergence of three different dance practices from the modern dance technique and choreography of Martha Graham. Erick Hawkins, Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor each developed a distinct artistic voice and style for the company they founded, becoming celebrations of originality in American concert dance. But when I began teaching dance history after Hawkins died in 1994, the kinds of rich material needed to document his legacy were maddeningly elusive. How did a Harvard graduate find his way first to Ballet Caravan, and then to Graham’s all-woman dance company? How did his fascination with the heritages of Native Americans, ancient Greece, and Japan influence his choreography and music choices? Where was the evidence of the forty-year creative collaboration between Hawkins and experimental music composer Lucia Dlugoszewski?
What I hadn’t realized then, but what became apparent when I joined the staff of the Library of Congress in 2015, was that Hawkins, Dlugoszewski (pronounced dwoo-goh-SHEF-skee), and the Erick Hawkins Dance Company had indeed been hard at work documenting his impact on dance. The Library of Congress received a significant gift of their personal papers and company records in the early 2000s.
Amongst the 220-box trove are Hawkins’s early journals dating from his Harvard years, choreographic notebooks in which he developed a unique system for recording his dances, photographs of his family and of the company’s performances, and correspondence with international figures in literature and philosophy. His company’s touring across the country is documented by booking records, production materials, and performance programs. A small cache of personal notes and poems from Dlugoszewski to Hawkins hints at their deeper relationship; they were secretly married in 1962. Music scores are plentiful: Hawkins and Dlugoszewski were both committed to live music accompaniment using newly created scores commissioned for his dances. The scores for Hawkins’s choreography often contain movement notation and production cues as well as conductors’ annotations. Hawkins had persuaded Dlugoszewski not to publish her scores so as to avoid additional performance fees levied by the music publishers, but as a result many of the Dlugoszewski scores have never been accessible to devotees of experimental music.
This enticing material has been titled the Erick Hawkins and Lucia Dlugoszewski Papers to reflect their interlinked personal and professional lives, and is described in an online finding aid.
But wait! This batch of materials tells only half of the Hawkins-Dlugoszewski story! Following Hawkins’s death, Dlugoszewski succeeded him as artistic director of the Erick Hawkins Dance Company and began to choreograph as well as compose music for the dances. She died suddenly during preparations for the Hawkins Dance Company’s April performances in 2000, but left no will and no succession plan for the company. As New York state law prescribes when a person dies intestate, her apartment’s contents were impounded and inventoried by the Public Administrator’s office of New York City. Thanks to the dedicated perseverance and intervention of one of the Hawkins company dancers, in 2019 the Dlugoszewski legacy materials were reunited with those of Hawkins and the company. This additional material is now undergoing archival organization and processing. Within it we are finding previously-unknown details of her personal life and career, wedding photos of Hawkins and Dlugoszewski at her parents’ Michigan home, charts and photographs of the percussion instruments that sculptor Ralph Dorazio created to her specifications, and many, many creative notes and music scores. Look for our announcement on In the Muse when this second half of the Hawkins-Dlugoszeski Papers becomes available!
Did you miss our earlier Music Division talk on Lucia Dlugoszewski’s collaboration with Erick Hawkins? You can still view the 2017 presentation titled “Discovering Creative Connections: The Collaboration of Erick Hawkins & Lucia Dlugoszewski.”
Do you want to learn more about Lucia Dlugoszewski’s music? Read this In the Muse blog post by Kate Doyle, a 2016 Music Division intern.
Comments (7)
I am actually doing research on the music performed by the Dance Company to perform with my Chamber Winds Group at the University of Charleston (WV). It’s such a unique relationship between Dance and 20th Century Avante Garde Music. Morgen Steven-Garmon please reach out to me.
Hello, John. Thank you for your comment. I’ve forwarded your inquiry to Libby Smigel, the Library’s Dance Curator and the blog’s author. She will be in touch with you directly.
Thank you to everyone who helped with this incredible find! How exciting. Please include in your notes that this amazing recovery of materials could not have happened if not for the determination of Laura Pettibone, Hawkins dancer and dance historian. She is to be credited for her ten-year perseverance in the saving these artifacts. I look forward to exploring this archive after Covid19 restrictions are lifted. Kudos to all and as Anna Kisselgoff has previously stated, “Hawkins’s time has come.”
Thank you to everyone who helped with this incredible find! How exciting. Please include in your notes that this amazing recovery of materials could not have happened if not for the determination of Laura Pettibone, Hawkins dancer and dance historian. She is to be credited for her ten-year perseverance in the saving of these artifacts. I look forward to exploring this archive after Covid19 restrictions are lifted. Kudos to all and as Anna Kisselgoff has previously stated, “Hawkins’s time has come.”
I bought from the public administrator in NY about 10 years ago the remnants of Lucia estate, i have a box or two of her musical manuscripts and books given to here as well as Hawskins harvard books..
I bought from the public administrator two large boxes of l.d. Musical manuscripts
As a young double bassist in NYC I was privileged to perform many times with Erick and Lucy in the 70’s and 80’s. The wonderful “Cantilever” was my first experience with these great artists. I recall premiering “Dawn, Dazzled, Door” with music by Takemitsu and “Classic Kite Tails” with music by David Diamond. Exquisitely wonderful works but the works inspired by their combined imaginations shine in my memory: “Angel’s of the Inmost Heaven”, “Lords of Persia’, “Black Lake” , “Geography of Noon”, etc. and left indelible impressions.