Gus Solomons Jr. (born 27 April 1940) is an accomplished dancer, choreographer, dance critic, and actor. He is a leading figure in postmodern and experimental dance.
Dancer
Gus Solomons Jr., born and raised in
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...
, began his serious dance training in modern dance and ballet while an undergraduate architecture student at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
(MIT). He was a member of a local dance company called Dance Makers, and it was there where he began his experimental solo choreography. A year after graduating from MIT with a
Bachelor of Architecture
The Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch.) is a bachelor's degree designed to satisfy the academic requirement of practising architecture around the world.
Australia
Architectural education in Australia varies depending on the university offering th ...
degree, Solomons moved to New York City with a "burning itch to perform and make dances". In 1962, he worked alongside other dance experimentalists at a studio in New York City. According to Solomons, quoted in Banes, they wanted to "find new forms, ways of making dances that were different from those of our mentors". Although he was interested in deconstructing forms and structures, he was also passionate about technical dancing. He performed with the companies of
Pearl Lang
Pearl Lang (May 29, 1921 – February 24, 2009) was an American dancer, choreographer and teacher renowned as an interpreter and propagator of the choreography style of Martha Graham, and also for her own longtime dance company, the Pearl Lang ...
,
Donald McKayle
Donald McKayle (July 6, 1930 – April 6, 2018) was an American modern dancer, choreographer, teacher, director and writer best known for creating socially conscious concert works during the 1950s and '60s that focus on expressing the human con ...
,
Joyce Trisler,
Paul Sanasardo
Paul Sanasardo (born 15 September 1928) is an American dancer, choreographer and dance teacher of Italian descent.
Life and career
Paul Sanasardo was born in Chicago, Illinois to a Sicilian family from Palermo, Italy. He attended the School of th ...
, and
Martha Graham
Martha Graham (May 11, 1894 – April 1, 1991) was an American modern dancer and choreographer. Her style, the Graham technique, reshaped American dance and is still taught worldwide.
Graham danced and taught for over seventy years. She wa ...
, although his most significant association during this period was with
Merce Cunningham
Mercier Philip "Merce" Cunningham (April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009) was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of American modern dance for more than 50 years. He frequently collaborated with artists of other discipl ...
and Company from 1965 to 1968.
Choreographer
In 1972, Solomons founded the Gus Solomons Company/Dance, whose repertoire consisted of detailed and analytical compositions that were conceived as "melted architecture", drawing from his experience as an architecture student at MIT.
He undertook a clinical, postmodern approach to dance making that linked a fascination with puzzles and architectural design to the process of "kinetic autobiography".
During an interview with ''Open Door'', the MIT newspaper, Solomons compared movement design to building design in principle, with the exception that dance was not fixed in time.
Solomons' choreographies, of which there are more than 165, were created to suit the dancers, not vice versa, because he was concerned with how the dancers felt while executing the movement.
From the outset, Solomons saw the potential of integrating dance and video. According to Solomons, one of his most exciting projects was the dual-screen video-dance City/Motion/Space/Game produced in 1968 by Rick Hauser at
WGBH-TV
WGBH-TV (channel 2), branded on-air as GBH or GBH 2 since 2020, is the primary PBS member television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship property of the WGBH Educational Foundation, which also owns Boston's sec ...
in Boston. This double-channel work was a collaborative work of Solomons, writer Mary Feldhaus-Weber, and composer John Morris. City/Motion/Space/Game, in its half-hour duration, was an "investigation of the unique properties of the video medium that are unlike live performance: reduced scale, flattening of spatial dimensions, and accelerated visual space".
[Sally Banes, ''Reinventing dance in the 1960s: Everything was possible'', p. 112.]
Dance critic
Forty years later, Solomons continues to make a living from dancing, choreographing, experimenting, and critiquing dance. Since 1980, he has devoted some of his time to dance criticism, and his reviews have appeared in ''
The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...
,
Ballet News
Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...
, Attitude,
Dance Magazine
''Dance Magazine'' is an American trade publication for dance published by the Macfadden Communications Group. It was first published in June 1927 as ''The American Dancer''. ''Dance Magazine'' has multiple sister publications, including ''Pointe' ...
'', and ''
The Chronicle of Higher Education
''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty and student affairs professionals (staff members and administrators). A subscription is required to rea ...
'', among others. A few of his articles include:
*"Good guys" ''The Village Voice'' 45:43. 31 October 2000.
*"Dance:King Rex" ''The Village Voice'' 43:20. 19 May 1998.
*"Teach-Learn Connection: Technique: Move your Feet! Merce Cunningham Technique" ''Dance Magazine'' 81:11. November 2007.
*"Merce Among the Children" ''Dance Magazine'' 77:4. April 2003.
Collective
Gus Solomons Jr. is currently in a collective known as PARADIGM,
which he founded in 1996, whose goal is to "promote and celebrate the talents of mature artists on stage".
Paradigm has toured in numerous parts of the United States, including New York, Massachusetts, Texas, California, among others, and has won audience acclaim.
Collaborators
Solomons has collaborated with Mio Morales on several works, including:
* ''Differences of Need,'' choreography by Gus Solomons Jr.; music and sound collage by Mio Morales
* ''Melba,'' presented by the Suitcase Fund of
Dance Theater Workshop
Dance Theater Workshop, colloquially known as DTW, was a New York City performance space and service organization for dance companies that operated from 1965 to 2011. After a merger it became known as New York Live Arts
Located as 219 19th Street ...
in association with
Pepatian; conceived by Tony Gillotte, Eva Gasteazoro and Yolanda Blanco; choreography by Eva Gasteazoro; directed by Tony Gillotte; music and sound design by Mio Morales
* ''Unplay Dances,'' presented by the
Solomons Dance Company; choreography by Gus Solomons Jr.; music by Mio Morales
* ''Steps,'' environmental dance structure for 12 dancers; choreography by Gus Solomons Jr.; music by Mio Morales and Carl Riley
* ''Bone Jam,'' presented by the
Solomons Dance Company; choreography by Gus Solomons Jr.; music by Mio Morales
* ''Nōz,'' presented by the
Solomons Dance Company; choreography by Gus Solomons Jr.; music by Mio Morales
* 'PsychoMotorWorks,'' presented by the
Solomons Dance Company; choreography by Gus Solomons Jr.; music by Mio Morales
* ''Steps #8,'' pedal-rock rebus; presented by
Solomons Dance Company; choreography by Gus Solomons Jr.; music by Joe Jackson, Police, Steely Dan, arranged by Mio Morales
* ''Foot/Tongue/Web,'' conceived, choreographed and performed by Judith Ren-Lay; music by Mio Morales
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Solomons, Gus Jr.
American choreographers
Modern dancers
American male dancers
Male actors from Boston
MIT School of Architecture and Planning alumni
1940 births
Living people
20th-century American dancers
21st-century American dancers