A native of Trinidad, Colorado, Erick Hawkins (1909-1994) forged an unusual career that began with George Balanchine’s American Ballet in 1935 and continued with Lincoln Kirstein’s Ballet Caravan. In 1938, he became the first male dancer to perform in the Martha Graham Dance Company, continuing with the troupe for more than a decade and entering into a tempestuous marriage with Graham. Establishing his own company and school in 1951, Hawkins developed a free flow style that was completely different than the techniques he had mastered under Balanchine and Graham. His company was an incubator for visual artists and contemporary music, and it only performed with live accompaniment. Hawkins himself performed at the Pillow in 1964, and his dancers planted a tree in his memory behind Blake’s Barn on the closing day of this 1996 engagement.
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