Draft:Phyllis Lamhut

Phyllis Lamhut
Born	(1933-11-14)November 14, 1933 New York
Occupation(s)	Choreographer, Artistic Director, Instructor

Phyllis Lamhut, choreographer, Artistic Director of the Phyllis Lamhut Dance Company, Inc. and Instructor at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University.

Dance and Teaching Career

"She began her dance studies in 1946 at the Henry Street Settlement Playhouse in New York, with Zena Rommett and Peter Paul as classical dance teachers, and Alwin Nikolais and Merce Cunningham in modern dance. She debuted in 1948 with the theater's company, and in 1956, when the Playhouse Dance Company became the Alwin Nikolais Dance Company, Lamhut was already one of its experienced soloists. She participated in the premiere of the ballets Interims (1963), Junk Dances (1964), A Gothic Tale (1964), Go 6 (1967) and Proximities (1969), all of them by Murray Louis . In 1969 she founded the Phyllis Lamhut Dance Company, for which she choreographed: Extended Voices (1970), Field of View (Werren, 1971), Congeries (Edlun, 1972), Two Planes (Stockhausen, 1972), Off Track Dancing (Edlun, 1973), Z Twiddle (Orff, 1973), Terra Angelica (Gaburo, 1973), Medium Coeli (Edlun, 1974), Hearts of Palm (1975) and Solo with Company (Czajkowski, 1975), among others." - https://www.mcnbiografias.com/app-bio/do/show?key=lamhut-phyllis

"Lamhut trained in modern dance primarily with Alwin Nikolais at the Henry Street Playhouse, beginning in 1948 at the age of fifteen; she also studied modern dance with Merce Cunningham (1961–1971), ballet and body placement with Zena Rommett, ballet with Peter Saul (both in the 1960s), and circus arts with Hovey Burgess (1969–1970).

Lamhut was a featured dancer with the Nikolais Company from its inception in 1948 until 1969, creating roles in more than twenty-five works, including Imago, Kaleidoscope, Sanctum, Tower, Tent, Prism, and Vaudeville of the Elements. Concurrently, she was the leading female dancer with the Murray Louis Company from 1963 to 1969, appearing most prominently in Junk Dances, A Gothic Tale, Proximities, Interims, Go 6, Landscapes, and Suite for Diverse Performers.

Lamhut began choreographing in 1949 and founded the Phyllis Lamhut Dance Company in 1970. She has choreographed more than one hundred works, from solos to full-evening group pieces, in a wide range of styles, working since 1980 with commissioned scores, often with composers Robert Moran, Andy Teirstein, and Ben Hazard. Lamhut is known for her comedic sense as a performer, but much of her choreography is dramatic. She has said, “I consider myself an individual artist. I listen to my inner voice, and I structure my imagination. I am committed to the art of motion and its expressiveness and to the process of choreography.” Her dances have been shown in a variety of spaces from theaters to gymnasiums and city plazas. Among her eclectic works are House (1971), Hearts of Palm (1975), Brain Waves (1976), Dyad (1977), Mirage Blanc, Disclinations, and Essence (all 1978), Musical Suite (1979), Passing (1980), Stones, Bones and Skin (1982), For Spirits and Kings (1983), Collapsing Spaces and Tilting Times (1984), Klein Kunst (Small Art) (1985), Die Bewegung (The Movement) (1986), Utopia (1988), Man (a response to the AIDS crisis; 1989), Dislocations (1993), Deadly Sins (1995), and Adjustments (1996). Lamhut has also made three pieces for the Limón Dance Company: Cleave (1990), Fantômes (1994), and Sacred Conversations (1993), a solo for Carla Maxwell.

Lamhut has received fellowships from the Guggenheim and CAPS foundations, and from the New York Foundation for the Arts, as well as several grants from the New York State Council on the Arts and from Meet the Composer. She was the first woman in modern dance to receive a three-year choreographer's fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She has taught at the Henry Street Playhouse, the Nikolais-Louis Laboratory, and Dance Theater Workshop in New York City. She has been on the faculty of the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University since 1986 and has taught in universities throughout the United States and around the world. She has also directed several national and international seminars, including the National Association of Regional Ballet Craft of Choreography Conference (1984), the Canadian National Choreographic Seminar (1985), the Carlisle Project's “New Impulses” choreography workshop (1995), and a workshop on dance and music at Hebrew University in Jerusalem (1996), funded by the Israeli government. Lamhut's publications include several articles on Alwin Nikolais." - https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780195173697.001.0001/acref-9780195173697-e-0996

Taught at Peridance Contemporary Dance Company in New York.

Awards

Guggenheim Fellowship (1974)

American Dance Festival's Balasarawati/Jay Ann Dewey Beinecke Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching (2013)

American Dance Guild’s Lifetime Achievement Award (2022)

External Sources

The Phyllis Lamhut Video Archive at the New York Public Library