Decentralization Theory

Nikolais’s theory of decentralization, first conceived during his tenure at the Henry Street Playhouse, was essential to his ideas about choreography and performance. Blossoming from his mantra of dance as the art of motion not emotion, “decentralization releases the central ego’s hold and allows the body and mind to freely shift the focus and movement center to any point in the body or surrounding space” and it “allows space, 29 time, and shape to relate their contribution to the totality of a movement”. In other words, decentralization dictated that the choreographer and dancer release their egocentric impulses and explore space and movement beyond their usual boundaries. Movement did not need an emotional motivation or meaning and, therefore, one was encouraged to move simply for the sake of the motion, with the impulse for that motion stemming from the center of the body, one of the extremities, or even the forehead. In seeking ways to extend the boundaries of the human body, Nikolais began using props and costumes that extended the natural shape and line of the human form. Therefore, decentralization provides the explanation for many of Nikolais’s choreographic and costuming choices. It is also the source of many cries of “dehumanization” that have come from Nikolais’s critics throughout his career. By not using emotional intention to motivate his movement, he was making works that, in his opinion, were more about honest motion and less about contrived, melodramatic storylines.

Decentralization was the idea upon which all of Nikolais’s productions were based beginning in 1953 with his work Masks, Props, and Mobiles. Decentralization was built around the ability to change what was the center of the body through the use of “…improvisation and a technical approach to movement that included fluidity of mind, imagery, and response”. According to Nikolais’s beliefs, movement does not come from one internal emotional place, but it can emanate from many different ideas and spaces inside the human psyche. “For a decentralized dancer there is no single point of initiation. She/he attends to articulating joints; peripheral designs of body parts, points, lines, and volumes in space; dynamic textures; and qualifiers of motion identified by physics. Centered motivation tends towards the emotional; decentralized execution is intellectually commanded”. Decentralization was utilized as both a tool for the choreographic process and to train the dancers who came through Nikolais’s various classes. Nikolais wrote that with decentralization “one could now place the origin of force in or on any surface of the body, even a pinpoint of flesh. The concept quickly developed a new potential for nuance in motional expression”. Movement no longer came, for example, exclusively from the solar plexus as had been proposed by concert dance pioneer Isadora Duncan; it could be initiated by the 30 hip, foot, elbow, or right thumb. Nikolais believed that this expanded the possibilities of motion in addition to allowing a greater freedom in how movement was executed by the dancer. The dancer was permitted to shine through the movement, rather than assume another identity through acting. Decentralization epitomized the abstract nature of Nikolais’s productions. By removing the character, the meaning had to come from the movement alone. There was not a story for the audience to focus upon—instead they had to analyze the action on stage and come to their own conclusions.