NS: [00:00] OK, today is May 5th, 2015, and this is Natasha Simon, and I am sitting in a Hyatt Hotel in New York City with Gladys Bailin, who is the narrator of this event. I have several questions and I hope that those provoke other questions. But I thought also that I did not want to go over the ground that Barbara Hayley had scoured with you in a previous oral history.[1] [New York Public Library Performing Arts Research Collections, Gladys Bailin interview, Dec. 2, 1996]
GB: That was quite a while ago. Do you remember when she did that?
NS: I believe that it probably is about --
GB: I think it’s 12, 15 years ago.
NS: -- 15 years ago or so.
GB: Yeah, that’s right.
NS: But she did cover a lot of your biography.
GB: Yes.
NS: And one of the things that comes through in that biography in the early part of your life is of course Henry Street and the Lower East Side. And what I’m particularly interested in at the moment -- because it’s not the nuts and bolts of Henry Street per se -- but what I’m interested in is the relationship of you and your family and your neighbors to Henry Street Playhouse and the Playhouse’s relationship to the neighborhood. I think one of the strengths of this particular institution and of this particular city has to do with neighborhoods. So, did your neighbors know about Henry Street? I know you did.
GB: Yeah, I don’t remember this being important to my neighbors.
NS: Uh-huh.
GB: Uh, I -- I -- that’s such an interesting question because I hadn’t thought about neighbors in a very long time. I mean growing up when you’re a young kid you think about school.
NS: Yes.
GB: And after-school activities. That’s what -- my concern. Uh, there were neighborhood kids. I don’t remember going to any of my activities with a neighborhood kid.
NS: Aha.
GB: It was something that my parents fostered. That’s such an interesting question now that you bring it up. It was not like a group activity of a group of kids. It was all initiated by my family. Interesting, isn’t it?
NS: Interesting. Yes. Yes. Now let’s pursue that. And say now your father and mother were both interested in the arts.
GB: My father -- yes, they were. They never had time to do it. I think my mother would have been a wonderful dancer but she never had training. My mother came over. My mother was an immigrant. But she came over as a very young child. So she was essentially brought up in America. I think she was three. So essentially she --
NS: Do you remember the date? Approximate?
GB: I think she came in that big wave around 1910. There was a huge wave of Eastern Europeans and they were from what is probably now Belarus. That area which there was so many --
NS: Pogroms.
GB: Tremendous number. And they had to get away. There was always a great, an enormous respect for education and for the arts. My father played the piano but he had no training. My father could pick a tune out, played everything in the key of C because you didn’t have to deal with accidentals, and (laughs), and he could -- he did a lot of what I call oompah piano. And he had a cousin who played the mandolin and another one who played the fiddle -- not the violin, it was the fiddle -- and I think they got a fourth person together. Now this is the Depression, OK? I was born in 1930. (laughs)
NS: How timely. (laughs)
GB: [05:00] So those years following were probably very difficult. And in order to make another couple of bucks my father and this little group would play weddings, bar mitzvahs, and stuff. And they were cheap. Because, you know, how much can you charge for that? And they played Yiddish music, and so, these were like little enclaves of ethnic groups.
NS: Those were your neighbor-- the -- the enclaves was the neighborhood.
GB: Well, I lived with my grandmother.
NS: Aha.
GB: We lived in a house in Canarsie. My mother was the oldest of four children and I lived with them -- with the other three siblings, my uncles and my aunt. I would say in addition to my -- they all went to work. So basically my grandmother took care of me, which is where I learned Yiddish. Because she hardly spoke English. She spoke Yiddish to me. And when you’re a child you pick up language. You absorb it like a sponge. I didn’t even know I was learning a language. I just could do it. She sang to me. She sang Russian songs to me. She sang Yiddish songs to me. And I understood it perfectly.
NS: Mm –hmm.
GB: I’m sorry that I’ve lost so much of it now. But you lose it if you don’t practice. In any case, she would take me to school and pick me up from school and I lived there and I didn’t see my parents until the evening when they came home from work. And we lived in Canarsie, which was far away from Lower Manhattan. They had to take a bus to a train and it was the elevated train at the time into the city. So it would take them well over an hour, maybe more, an hour and a half of travel. They left early in the morning, they got home late. Uh, I can’t complain. It was a fantastic childhood. (laughs) I -- I never felt deprived in any way.
And there was another family who lived two blocks away that was related to my grandmother. It was my grandmother’s sister. She had seven children. (laughs) And there was always -- we used to go there on Sunday ‘cause it was all that family together. One of them played an instrument. And there was always food to -- you know, everybody shared in the food. Everybody shared in the stories and in the songs. And I must say it was wonderful to belong to that. And all I can remember was encouragement.
NS: Uh-huh.
GB: Never a word of criticism.
NS: Uh-huh.
GB: Just if you could do a little Kazatsky, that was the best thing they ever saw. (laughs)
NS: (laughs).
GB: Weddings were so wonderful, ‘cause there was always a lot of singing and dancing. I just grew up with that. My father playing oompah on the piano. I mean. (laughs) My father actually had a portable piano.
NS: Oh, sweet.
GB: It looked like a small coffin actually. (laughs) But it unfolded and it worked on air. You had to pump the pedals and it had a limited keyboard. It weighed -- it was heavy. He used to carry that around. But, you know, if you’re going to be part of a band --
NS: Well, that’s -- that’s latter-day aerobics, -- you know, it’s early aerobics.
GB: Fantastic. So anyhow it became very important. Everybody in the family had to do something -- either learn an instrument, or sing, or -- or do something. So piano lessons was right in there.
NS: Uh-huh.
GB: I had to take piano lessons. We moved to the Lower East Side. This was all in Brooklyn. We moved from there to Williamsburg initially. Got an apartment in one of the Projects there. Uh, I didn’t live there very long ‘cause the next move was to Lower East Side. My father opened a shop, a store, with his brother. My father had four brothers. They were prolific (laughs) families in those days. It was an appliance store.
NS: Mm-hmm.
GB: The appliances were mostly radios. There were no TV then. Irons. Toasters. Things of that nature. Things that had to be plugged in. And so we moved down near where the store was so he didn’t have to travel to that. And that was [10:00] close to Henry Street. And Henry Street just seemed like a natural place. They had a music school around the corner on Pitt Street. And I could go take lessons. And they probably charged peanuts. I mean I don’t remember that, I didn’t pay for it. I wasn’t aware of money particularly. But I had piano lessons. And I had --
NS: And I suspect that there was a flyer out front that said piano lessons four o’clock. Or that your mother or father on some --
GB: They -- they just knew where to look. They probably knew where to look and then found that it was available there. Now the settlement house also was very key to that neighborhood because it was -- it was to serve the local people. Most of them were immigrants.
NS: Sure.
GB: On the Lower East Side. A lot of the immigrants who came from Ellis Island on that first wave moved to that area. So there was a very heavily Jewish population. But then there were Italians.
NS: Mm-hmm.
GB: And Irish.
NS: Mm-hmm.
GB: Those were I believe the three ethnic groups who actually lived quite well in harmony for a very -- there were little kid gangs here and there, I remember the Irish and the Italians were always -- beating each other.
NS: At each other’s throats. (laughs)
GB: With some bottles, uh, no -- no weapons. I mean nothing like guns. Bottles. You know. You know, thugs. People with -- who would just hit you, stuff like that. And you kind of began to realize where the hangout streets were. So you could avoid those streets. So I went to -- let’s see. When I moved there I think I was in fifth grade. So I was about 10. And did that. And then on the corner was PS 12, which was a junior high. And I did junior high right there. And then from junior high you go to high school and I went to Washington Irving, which I took the bus to. Because it was supposed to be a better school than Seward Park High School, which was down the street. But all during that period there were after-school activities at Henry Street --
NS: That your parents really and relatives all plugged you into.
GB: Well --
NS: Essentially.
GB: Most of the other relatives stayed in Brooklyn, so we’re the ones who moved.
NS: Yeah.
GB: To Lower Manhattan because of the store.
NS: Yeah. Yeah.
GB: Uh, it just seemed like the thing to do. You don’t come home and hang around, you just never do that, I mean that was unheard of. So it was a natural thing to come home. You do your homework or you then go right to your class. You come home and do your homework or whatever. There was always a period where you had to do your homework. But there was the music lesson once a week and then there was the -- the dance class. And then there was the theater class. There was that too for kids.
NS: And this is pre Nik. This is pre Nikolais.
GB: Oh, way before. Way before. I remember as a young teen probably in high school -- my mother loved folk dancing. And they used to have folk and square dancing.
NS: At?
GB: Not at the Playhouse but at the settlement house on --
NS: On Henry Street.
GB: -- Henry Street. They had a large gathering room. And there was a gentleman whose name I never forgot, it was Mr. Teffer Teller. And he used to call the square dances and he also taught -- or somebody. I don’t know if he did the folk dances. But we did folk dance. And I used to go with my mother. I didn’t go with other kids. I’d meet people there, and most of these people were all immigrants as I recall. I don’t even remember seeing too many youngsters. But it just seemed like the normal thing to do in my household. I loved it. I loved it. My mother was good at it too.
NS: Well, what you’re describing too is really the essence of – of neighborhood settlement houses in that era.
GB: Oh, they provided for the neighborhood. They also -- my brother was born in ’43. My brother is quite a bit younger than I. And they even had classes for young -- for mothers. You know, and [15:00] they had daycare center. My brother went to that when he was like two or three. So the settlement house, Henry Street was so much a part of our lives in every way.
NS: And from that then Henry Street Playhouse becomes also an extension of the settlement house so the arts are part of the --
GB: It was part of the neighborhood. If you wanted to take part of it. If that was your interest. I went to the Playhouse. The Playhouse dance classes were at the Playhouse. And the theater classes were there too. I even remember Joan Woodruff who was my first dancing teacher. She was a knockout.[2]
NS: What makes you say that?
GB: I think back. I was what, 10? I think back to the things we did. They were creative classes. It wasn’t formal. I remember we used to make up our own stories. She would encourage us making up the stories and making up the movement for the stories. I mean that was way ahead of its time. (laughs)
NS: You weren’t doing steps. (laughs)
GB: No. It must have been -- I don’t remember technique but there were -- there were some things. I don’t remember that at all. I remember the creative work. That stuck with me. Uh, yeah, I don’t remember the formality -- of -- of the training with her. I do remember it was more fun than anything else I’d ever done in my life. (laughs)
NS: (laughs).
GB: And I think she worked with the acting teacher[3] so that we could learn to speak and -- and I remember being in -- in Our Town.
NS: Oh wow.
GB: In that play. I was one of the little kids. In Our Town in a little production. (laughs)
NS: I want to sort of jump from there. You know, I don’t want to necessarily be too arbitrary. But, do you happen to know whether Nik -- Nikolais ends up in ’46, ’47 being hired to come into the Playhouse.
GB: He came in ’48.
NS: Forty-eight. Forty-eight. And so it seems like it’s a perfect fit given the description of your dance teacher at Henry Street.
GB: It had gone through -- the Playhouse went through several incarnations. There was a period where it was sort of fallow. It really became much more of a theater. The original Neighborhood Playhouse -- which has moved uptown -- was there. In the ’20s it was known as the Neighborhood Playhouse. And they used to do programs called the Living Theater.[4] And it was basically news. But in theatricalized form. They were plays but they were on issues. Issue plays. And the neighborhood people would come to it. I mean they kept it inexpensive enough to do that. But it also was a training ground for many actors who later became well known.
NS: Who moved uptown.
GB: Exactly. So the Neighborhood Playhouse moved out and there was this period where there wasn’t a lot of clarity about what was happening with the Playhouse. When Nik came in -- there was a theater group before that, because I remember -- I mean Phyllis [Phyllis Lamhut, 1933- ] came. We were taking ballet classes with some lady. Because it was a habit. This is what you do, you know, you take your classes. And she was not the greatest ballet teacher and all, but Phyllis came from Brooklyn to do that. That’s where we met. We met in these classes. And there was a theater group in residence at that time. And they did a play. I can’t remember the name of it. And we were in it. We were some kind of Egyptian girls or something. I don’t know. ‘Cause I think -- somewhere in my house I may even have a photograph with the two of us in this play. We -- we were not -- we didn’t have speaking roles. We -- we just had -- we were decoration. (laughs) I think in harem pants. (laughs)
NS: (laughs) I love it. Ah.
GB: And then there were some people who would come by who would do experimental plays. And I remember [20:00] even at one point they asked me if I would choreograph something for one of the plays and I thought oh my God, I don’t know anything about that. But I figured it’s movement and you just tell the actors what to do and you have -- make a -- I -- I did that. I mean these were incredible experiences without knowing that they were important.
NS: They were incredible,
GB: Right.
NS: And to ground it, it’s probably 1943, 4, 5.
GB: It had to be mid ’40s. But the important -- there was another very important person in my life. In I would say ’45, ’46. I -- I’m trying to remember when I graduated high school. I think I graduated in ’46 or ’47. I had a high school dance teacher. She was a phys ed teacher. She was very important. Because I knew nothing about all this modern stuff. I mean I knew you moved but I didn’t know there was a -- there was a plan. (laughs)
NS: (laughs).
GB: I didn’t know about that. I just knew you liked to move, you moved, right? And you do what the teacher tells you to do and you play and you do this. She was a phys ed lady who got interested in modern dance and was going to the New Dance Group, which was run -- I remember Nona Schurman [1909-2016] and Sophie Maslow [1911-2006], Bill Bales [1910-1990]. They were all teaching in this uptown place. She got the powers at the high school, at Washington Irving High School to replace gym. ‘Cause you had to do phys ed. It was required -- phys ed requirement to graduate, right? You had to have -- She got them to substitute a dance class which would fulfill the requirement of phys ed. I thought that was very forward-thinking of her. Her class was jam-packed. Kids loved it because who the hell wanted to go climb ropes and (laughs) do those other things?
NS: And duckwalks and things.
GB: Yes. I mean all that other stuff to prepare you for the army basically. So I thought that was great and I used to stay up front. And she and I got along incredibly well, and she said to me one day, “I think you got a real feel for this stuff. Why don’t you study additionally -- outside my classes -- and go up to the New Dance Group?” She told me about this. So I went home and I said, “I have no idea what these classes cost but I would like to go up
--” I think it was on 48th Street or something -- the studios. [254 W. 47thStreet] And I don’t remember. I had to scrape together a couple [of] bucks. And I went up and I signed up.
And I used to go up one afternoon a week. And I had class with Nona Schurman. And I just adored her. She had such vitality. And the class was so wonderfully organized. It was open and free and it was -- it was just incred -- it was very ordered in a way that I had not seen before. But it had a lot of spirit and it had a lot of kinetic energy. And I knew I loved this. And then I realized my teacher in high school was just one step ahead of us. Because she would take notes from her classes and bring them to us. And I didn’t know that at the time but I figured it out after a while -- when I went up there and had class with Nona Schurman I get “ahhh, that’s what
she –-“
NS: That’s what relates to there.
GB: That’s right. That’s right. So that was a wonderful opportunity to sort of really begin to understand that there’s really a technique now. There’s really a -- a -- a plan. You can become a dancer now if you have this sequence. Right? You just don’t go in and do anything you please and call it dance. So that was my --
NS: But it involves a certain discipline.
GB: Exactly. And I was fortunate because it happened just maybe a year or two before Nik came. So when Nik came to the Playhouse and we were -- it was part of the habit of going after school. You had your classes. It was -- happened to be this ballet class which Phyllis and I were not thrilled with. But it was interesting. I learned a little bit about what some of -- I learned some of the language of it and -- I never felt suited to it. It just didn’t suit my body. It didn’t feel good on my body.
And then when Nik came and he sets up a whole plan of study. I mean now it’s serious. [25:00] And you either buy into it. Because it’s not like this once a week thing. It’s now going to be daily. And how do you fit that into your life? That’s a whole other bag. Right? But I’d had a little bit. Well, no, I -- that came first. That was -- when was that, 1948? Yeah. He came in 1948. That’s right. I think I’d just started college.
NS: So you were going. You were commuting to Hunter. [Hunter College of the City of New York] And then coming back to Henry Street.
GB: Right.
NS: On those days. I wanted to get to the -- the sense that comes through in the other interview that you gave with Barbara about those days at Henry Street. Not necessarily the -- the -- well, what strikes me about the histories that I’ve heard is that Nik was as fresh and as young as everyone else there in the sense that he was finding his way. And so it became a real back-and-forth dialogue between those people in your class -- in his class -- and him.
GB: No.
NS: OK.
GB: I think that’s what we say now.
NS: Aha. Interesting. OK.
GB: At the time he was a guru to me. He could have been -- he was probably 36 years old or something like that. He was probably in his thirties. As far as I was concerned he was a grown-up older man. (laughs) There was nothing. There was no dialogue. I couldn’t dialogue with this person. He was brilliant. And he brought so much.
NS: Now -- now why was he brilliant? What do you -- what makes him for you --
GB: OK. I had never been in the -- in the presence of a person who had a theory. I mean to me it was all formed. What little did I know he was still forming it. (laughs) That came later. Now maybe the folks that you’ve talked to were folks who came at a later time.
NS: Well, let me interrupt you because I think one of the things -- you’ve hit on something that’s very very key in doing oral histories, which is my mantra, which is a quote: “to understand the past we need to examine what questions the past asked of itself.” So if you fit that into what you’re talking about -- the frame that – what you’re framing -- Nik is asking himself a lot of questions at that time.
GB: Yes, I think Nik was probably just feeling his own oats at that time. Because he was still teaching with Hanya. [Hanya Holm, 1893-1992] And he was probably still extremely influenced by that German tradition. I mean Hanya obviously was bringing stuff from Wigman. [Mary Wigman, 1886-1973] Which in a way she Americanized. To fit this country. And then Nik gets it from her. And I think the whole teaching plan really comes back to that German plan. That -- I believe the school that Wigman had was also built on technique, theory, composition, percussion, pedagogy, all of that: to sort of build an entire artist.
And -- but I think Nik saw something additional. He came to this place that had a theater. And I think his eyes bugged out because it was in horrible shape. But it was a theater. And coming from the theater with his puppets and stuff like that -- I mean and -- and musical, -- he saw potential. He saw enormous potential. He also probably recognized that he needed to develop movers, dancers to somehow -- whatever this vision was going to [30:00] turn into. And he -- he had a way about him where we felt included without -- I mean I c-- I didn’t know what I could contribute, I didn’t know anything. How could Phyllis or -- or I? We were kids. And what did I -- what could I bring? You know. I couldn’t contribute to the thinking because I didn’t have any thinking going on at that point. I just was in the taking stage. And I think that’s -- it’s like we took unconditionally in a way.
NS: Mm.
GB: And maybe that was also very fulfilling for him. It wasn’t questioning at that point. Questioning came, oh, tons of years later. Tons of years. At that point we need to absorb as much as he could give. And he gave very freely. Which was, you know, unusual.
NS: The generosity of that man --
GB: Unbelievable, unbelievable. Those early things. I mean he also knew you just don’t have a school. He had the theater. You have to have productions. And he included us right away and we did the children’s things. We were sort of brought up on performing. And -- because I remember his saying at some point -- or I recall it from somewhere. You don’t develop to be a performer unless you get a chance to perform. You don’t learn to dance just in the studio. You need somehow to get out there on the stage. You need to put it out. And that was the opportunity through the children’s pieces. The children’s pieces were incredible things to do. You danced. You spoke. You sang. You did whatever was necessary. Acted.
And I never saw anyone who could just take a piece of cardboard and make it a set. (laughs) He was so inventive. Inventive with lighting. Inventive with stuff when he had no technology. He could do it. And I must say that’s very -- it’s very stimulating to be around a person like that. I remember how I was awestruck actually when I saw -- we’d get together, and we had to build those costumes for The Lobster Quadrille, [1949] and he knew exactly how to do papier-mâché. You get a framework of chicken wire, and then you start this wet paper.
NS: Flour and water glop.
GB: And you just put it on there and you build it. And he would help shape it and then you paint it. And you got a costume and it doesn’t weigh too much. I mean can you imagine being in the -- to me he was a genius. He was a guru and a genius that was friendly. (laughs) He was accessible. And to think that you know somebody like that that you can actually talk to.
He also -- this is another little tidbit. I lived on Henry Street at that time in a type of brownstone. We lived on the first floor and there was a basement apartment. Nik moved in -- to the basement apartment. So we used to see him a lot. It had sort of a little backyard. Not that -- we didn’t grow anything. Uh, but there was a little space if you could do that. They [Nikolais and Murray Louis, 1926-2016] lived there for a little while before they found a loft. That was sort of the next step. But those early days they were s-- it was just so lovely. You know, my mother would bring them food. He would bring food. I mean it was -- they were neighbors.
NS: That -- that’s your neighbor. That’s the neighborhood.
GB: And it was wonderful for him to be living in that neighborhood during those early times too because then he moved to the loft which was still in the neighborhood --
NS: East Broadway.
GB: East Broadway. So as much as there was this admiration, it was -- he was still -- you could still touch him.
NS: He’s not at a remove.
GB: No. He was always present. He was there. You could reach him. He was a real person. And then of course he was so unbelievably generous once the small group of people became sort of a unit. I mean he would throw parties. I mean they were just like, “come on over after the rehearsal…”
Because we worked like seven days a week. Uh, and, you know, he’d feed us. And he could somehow throw a bunch of greens together and they had a gorgeous salad, you know. I mean it was just -- it was a wonderful time. It was -- it’s a time of my life that I treasure. It’s so unusual to have had that kind of relationship and that kind of training [35:00] and that friendship all at the same time.
NS: It sounds like what you’re describing is an extraordinarily creative crucible in which you were very fortunate to be a part of that time. And it’s tied to being a young person. Certainly I think a lot of people feel they have that that period in their life becomes one of discovery for them. What you’re describing is even more special because, because it involved the Playhouse and Nikolais and his artistry.
GB: Yeah. I just feel so fortunate that I was in the right place at the right time. It just was like the stars were aligned. And to have been a part of it, it was a privilege. It’s enriched my life unbelievably.
NS: I -- I often wonder. You know, when you look at -- I -- that comes through in the other interview as well. And -- and certainly it comes through in talking with others about this particular time in the late ’40s and early ’50s.
GB: Yeah, it was an extraordinary time.
NS: You read about travelogues that certain people have. For instance this French traveler de Crevecoeur [John Hector St. John de Crevecoeur] who comes to this country in the 1770s and ’80s and he writes and he says, “I have met the new man.”
GB: Mm-hmm.
NS: And I think of that because we’d just been through, as a country, a revolution and the colonies had evolved into this nation and so you get the flavor from him that there’s that --
GB: Yes.
NS: -- crucible that’s happening then.
GB: Yes.
NS: You find it in other art forms too where there’s a particular moment in time.
GB: Yeah.
NS: And I think you’re describing it.
GB: Yeah. For me it was a revolutionary moment. (laughs)In a way.
NS: Well, and I think for the arts it is.
GB: And then that period of discovery. It was. It was a unique time. It was j-- the war was over. That makes a very big difference because now we’re in a very good economy. The ’50s were pretty good. Everyone had a place to live. You could afford it. It wasn’t outrageous. And you could still do things. I mean I went to school at Hunter College and it was free. I mean I don’t think anybody would ever believe that today -- that a college education was --
NS: College education would be free.
GB: I mean it was -- I didn’t even buy books. You went to the library. And -- and the school library. And you rented the books that you needed for that semester. And you returned them at the end of the semester. I mean that’s unheard of today. Now I mean the debt that these kids are in.
NS: And I think that when you look at that era too, that there’s this pent-up kind of explosion and energy that comes out of postwar --
GB: Yeah, there was a whole lot, -- I think the war made a -- a big difference. Suddenly there were men available who could go to dance school. There was the GI Bill. That changed a lot. A lot of those young men who came to study with Nik came on the GI Bill. I don’t think they would have -- able to -- they wouldn’t have been able to do it without that. I mean it probably didn’t cost all that much but they didn’t have anything. But it was also the nature of the war. It was a war where you had very defined enemies. And it was a -- I call it the patriotic war. And everybody was, you know, we all knew what we had to do. You had to get rid of the dictator. Of Hitler. And then you had to get rid of Tojo.
NS: And -- and you had a -- a national purpose.
GB: Absolutely. A united purpose.
NS: And I think that that kind of energy unleashed after the war made, for Nik to be in the right place at the right time too.
GB: He was also in the war.
NS: And then his creative energies come --
GB: Right.
NS: -- to – fruition being at Henry Street. And -- and working at that point. When you took class from Nik, what was a class like? I mean you hinted at it when you were talking about the Wigman school.
GB: You mean early on? [40:00] Those early classes? Well, he had a pretty set warm-up which I now think that the warm-up was probably based on Joe Pilates’ work. [Joseph Pilates, German physical trainer, 1883-1967] So that was pretty well set. You kind of knew the routine.
The other thing that was really a wonderful way – which, when I was teaching technique, I sort of adopted because -- you take a subject and you work that subject for the day. And that becomes what you do with your technique. So if you’re working on circles or whatever or, you know, action of your pelvis or action of your shoulder or whatever, you make up your pattern according to that and you kind of work it for the day. And then you have your improv class, following that, where the students can make up stuff based on -- so it was sort of based on very particular subject matter. It wasn’t just general dancing steps. You had a point of view in the class. And, you know, if you have daily class, you get through a lot of material. You -- and you get to practice it a lot. Uh, yeah, it was pretty remarkable, it was pretty remarkable. And of course he would play the piano aside from playing the drums. It was great energy in those classes, very high energy.
NS: At Henry Street. You’re talking about at Henry Street.
GB: When I think about that size of that room --
NS: It was small. It’s very small.
GB: I looked at it again and I said, “How did we ever?” Three leaps and you’re finished. (laughs) You know, you can’t do a lot of leaps. I think when the school got bigger he would move classes onto the stage so you could do a few more leaps. I mean it’s not even a big stage. It seemed big at the time. It -- seemed very small when we went back there today.
NS: Back to it. It’s -- it’s smaller than I remember it being too.
GB: He made magic on that, didn’t he?
NS: He did. He did. He did indeed. You’ve described a class and -- and it certainly is very true. That -- that -- I went and looked at my old class notes of technique, theory, composition, you know, and it’s, it’s followed through.
GB: Yeah.
NS: You know, if you were doing undercurves.
GB: That’s right.
NS: Or, uh, it was undercurves in combination. It was --
GB: Right.
NS: Undercurves and overcurves in theory class.
GB: Yeah.
NS: It was -- composition was undercurve overcurves.
GB: Right. I found notebooks of mine that I kept when I was teaching early on. Where I -- and then I did a lot of summer workshops. I used to go out and do a lot of those things. And I had notebooks. And it was all by subject. Daily what I was going to do on a daily basis. It was just so wonderful.
And I never used the same material because I would -- that’s the other thing I got from Nik. You -- you just have the subject and you make up the phrase. So it was very creative as a teacher. It wasn’t -- you never got tired of it. The only part I began to dislike was the warm-up. Because that was the thing that was sort of the same. But the other part, I couldn’t wait for the cross the floor.
NS: Yeah. Yeah. That comes through in the notes -- the notebooks that I’ve looked at. And what I didn’t realize is that there’s also -- to use the cliché -- the method to the madness. Because you could see actual building from day to day to day.
GB: Yes. Yes. There were building blocks there. And it all led to -- well, it taught you -- first of all there was an organizational aspect to it which was very useful. It also became a marvelous tool to learn how to teach.
NS: So -- so he sort of slipped the pedagogy in there that way --
GB: But, uh, but you never felt it was like a pedagogy class. The pedagogy classes that I do recall -- were mostly how do you, how do you teach 5-year-olds, how do you teach 12-year-olds, how do you teach teenagers? Because he had -- that was the vision. I -- I sort of skipped around. Because the -- that to me was -- when I said he came to the Playhouse, he had a vision. It’s not only to build a company. It was also to build a school. And he needed teachers. And those of us who were with him were being trained eventually to become the teachers [45:00] of the school. He couldn’t teach all those classes. That’s what was going to sustain it. It’s those Saturday morning classes when all those children came in. And all the after-school ones which was part of the mission of the settlement house. He had to do that. That was not a choice. In order for him to be -- still be connected to the neighborhood he had to offer classes. But again he needed teachers.
So it turned out that we all had to teach different levels. And then at some point after we did that we could somehow find our place where we were most comfortable. And it turned out Murray was just fabulous with the little children. He had a way of just sort of -- I don’t know. He could be a five-year-old. And he could stimulate them and they understood him. And of course, uh, wonderful humor. Others found somewhere else. I ended up teaching teenagers and I don’t know why I liked them. But -- because they’re hard. (laughs) I feel as though I’m still doing that. Because these college kids are like teenagers. They’re still adolescents. It’s terrible. Terrible. Uh, uh, they’re not getting older, they’re getting younger in their --
NS: Younger.
GB: -- way of, you know, thinking about life. Uh, so that’s something I’m grateful for -- That was an incredible opportunity.
NS: How about his choreographic process now -- you’ve described the teaching. You know, and -- and what he -- what he gave to you to give to kids and to teenagers. When he started to choreograph, what was that like for you? Or what -- what is the process now? And -- and the question is, -- how different is it for you? When you -- when you choreograph a piece. As opposed to when Nik choreographs a piece. What’s the difference in the process?
GB: I think we all found our own way. I -- oh God, I don’t know where to start with that one.
NS: It’s a big one to chew.
GB: It’s huge. It’s a huge subject. Let me see if I can organize it in some way for you. Let me first -- saying that his problems were always rather provocative, I thought. But they were very freeing. I don’t remember being boxed in. I think -- when I say boxed in I don’t really mean confined. I do mean focused.
The improv classes were very focused. They always had a very specific subject. I think doing that opened up a world of movement possibility so that when you came to choreography it was -- it was more organizational, making better selections of what was possible, how do you get closer to your subject, what are you trying to do? And you could feel free to invent. But there was a focus in it. It wasn’t like I do anything. And I think it was probably through all that improvisation, all that experience with motion, that made it possible to do that.
The very early thing when Nik first came that first year, he brought some of his pals from Hartford who came down. They were dancers who he knew. And that first piece was a “modern dance.” It did have a prop. I don’t remember much about it but I remember the movement at the beginning. And will never forget it. We were holding some kind of like olive branches or something like that. And it was the subject of modern dance the way we think of old-fashioned modern dance.
NS: “Of modern dance.”
GB: Modren. Mod– ren.”
NS: Yes.
GB: (laughs) Uh, even the music. It was written for it. Albert (sic) Brooks wrote the music. [Alfred Brooks, also Alfred Brooks Pew, 1916-2005] He was one of the dancers. And it just, I mean it was interesting to be in a -- in a real dance. But I must say I think children’s dances were more fun. (laughs) To do. And then he was obviously ready to give that up. That period. I think it’s what he knew. And it was sort of what Hanya was doing or what -- [50:00] What was in -- that was the currency of the day. That was not really his thing. And it took him a while to figure that out. And a lot of the stuff came out of improvisation. Because some of the earlier things -- we did programs of improvisations.
I can remember one program where he had a box of put-together pieces of fabric and clothing and props and stuff. And you go and you pick it out and you had an improv. And you were costumed. Or you picked up a prop and that was the subject. And we performed it. They charge admission for this. And we were damn good at it. (laughs) Uh, Masks, Props, Mobiles [1953] maybe. I think it might have been that. That was earlier. And I think those were seeds for him.
I think those were seeds he was planting in a way where even -- we were sort of the vehicles for that process that came later. I think he began to see all these other possibilities through improvisation that could become that. Because even later as he choreographed he was dependent upon your improvisation. He would throw something out. He always had tremendous visual acuity. He kind of had an idea of what he wanted to see. Although it was never all that formed. He may have had an idea of what it would look like. And you’d experiment for a long time with it. He’d give you a prop or he’d give you a stage set. What can you do with it, you know, what -- what’s possibility here? A lot of it grew out of that. And then of course he would form it. But I think we were very important to the process. And I think he -- because he had developed us, he trusted us in a way too.
NS: He trusted you as a group to realize the vision that he --
GB: We didn’t always know what he was going to do. We didn’t know that.
NS: Do you think he did?
GB: No. I don’t think he knew either. But when he saw something, it would strike it. I mean it was like I mean you could do this for days on end. Weeks maybe. Or he would be fascinated with something he’d bought in Canal Street. He bought plastic tubing. Or he bought whatever that stuff is called. Clear plastic things that hang. I don’t, uh, whatever. He would buy these things and he’d say, “See what you can do with it.” But when he saw some possibility, it was formed. It was like, “Aachh, now I know what I want to do with it.” And so then it was focused. But it was not already focused on those early stages. I think later as he had to produce more and more he had to plan more and more. I think the demands became very difficult after a while. Especially as he gained more and more popularity he had to produce more.
NS: And every year he had to come up with a premiere and a this and so the crucible became a little bit diluted maybe,
GB: Well, I mean he came up. And of course technology became more available to him. And he knew how to use that very well. ‘Cause he didn’t have to build it from scratch. He could, you know, he had the technology available to -- because I remember early on before he had slides, you know, that could be moved, you know, by remote control. (laughs) They had to be put in by hand. (laughs)
NS: (laughs) From the balcony, right?
GB: Whatever. Or wherever it was. He had something called a lobsterscope or something, which was an early, projection thing. But I can remember early on there was something he had which projected on the cyc and he would put colored gel on it and it made a kind of abstract pattern projected on the back. And it was beautiful to look at. So I mean even little hoods that he would build onto the lights so that the light could be focused in a very particular way. When he did Prism [1956] for instance. [55:00] The light, he didn’t want the light to disperse. So he built something so that the light would just come in just like a streak. I mean he was as good in that kind of technology side or engineering thing. He could figure it out.
NS: You know, I -- it reminds me of when I was taking a dance history reading and discussion program with Bessie Schonberg [1906-1997].
GB: Aha.
NS: And she would introduce various -- you know, it was a history. So you had to know. It’s like Isadora Duncan and --
GB: Right. Yeah.
NS: Ruth St. Denis and -- and she says, about Nik, she said, “And Nik, Nik was a polygamist.”
GB: (laughs) Funny.
NS: (laughs) Or -- or Nik -- Nik had, uh, it was -- it was polygamy in dance.
GB: ‘Cause he could do so many things.
NS: ‘Cause he could do so many things. That -- that you were not -- you were not looking at a dancer. You were looking at a dancer in an environment with the prismatic light or with the aural sound stimulant.
GB: That’s right.
NS: That it was an experience beyond simply the -- the dancer.
GB: She was right. She was absolutely right. Because he also -- I mean he was musically trained. He had a musically trained ear. He had a theatrical brain. He had good taste. He had a sense of design. And he would even, you know, work with -- with an artist once in a while. You know, I remember that one time he was designing these costumes. He brought George Constant in. [1892-1978] He was a painter. To be sort of a colorist. And, uh, they were painted on us and the colors were decided by George. And, you know, we just stood there like mannequins. (laughs)
NS: While you were painted upon.
GB: I mean it was -- total theater is probably a very good description. And I think what bothered me a lot later is that people couldn’t see that the dancers were trained because the external properties were so dazzling that the stuff -- the internal stuff to make it happen I think was minimalized.
NS: It’s interesting. That’s, uh, a good segue actually.
GB: Yeah, let’s stop and get a drink.
END OF AUDIO FILE
[1] New York Public Library, Performing Arts Research Collections, Gladys Bailin interview, December 2, 1996.
[2] Woodruff, dancing with Martha Graham from 1930 to 1933, was an original member of the Martha Graham Dance Group, the forerunner of the Martha Graham Dance Company. Beginning in 1921 Graham and members of the company taught modern dance at the Neighborhood Playhouse School as part of the Henry Street Settlement House.
[3] Sanford Meisner, one of the founding members of The Group Theatre, joined the faculty in 1935.
[4] Not to be confused with The Living Theatre founded in 1947 by Julian Beck and Judith Malina. Here Bailin is referring to performances developed by the Works Progress Administration’s (WPA) Federal Theater Project called “Living Newspapers.”
