Erick Hawkins
Erick Hawkins ( born April 23, 1909 in Trinidad, Colorado, † November 23, 1994 in New York) was an American modern dance dancer and choreographer.
Biography
Erick Hawkins, born Frederick Hawkins, studied philosophy and literature at Harvard University. At the same time, he studied dance at the School of George Balanchine. With Hawkins came in 1938, the first dancer at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. Martha Graham fell in love with the much younger dancers and they lived together for eight years before they married in 1948. The marriage failed shortly afterwards to Graham's alcohol consumption and hysterical breakdowns. In 1951 he opened his own dance school ( Erick Hawkins School of Dance) in New York and developed a new dance technique ( Erick Hawkins technique). This was to avoid the goal dance injuries and to emphasize the natural beauty of the body and movement.