Costume, Lighting, and Sound

“Nik, as he was often called, was famous in particular for his multimedia presentations. He was frequently his own designer and composer, and his use of lighting and kaleidoscopic changes of imagery made his work seem perfectly emblematic of the psychedelia and hallucinations that became fashionable in the 1960s.”

Costume

The costumes for "Noumenon" were large bags made of white Lycra Stretch fabric that fit the dancers perfectly when they are standing in a X position.

This costume forces the viewers' and dancers' focus to be on the movement created and shapes made. It conceals the dancers' faces, gender, and the shapes of their bodies. Nikolais didn't think that it was necessary for the audience to relate to the dancers. This shocked audiences who were used to narratives and emotions. "Dance is motion, not emotion," is a quote from Nikolais.

Another interesting quality of this costume is that it completely obscured the dancers vision. It must have been extremely disorienting to dance a duet that is in complete unison without being about to see your partner or even whether you were facing the audience.

Lighting

Even though the costumes were white, Nikolais used lighting to manipulate what the audience saw. He used elaborate lighting scores way before any of his peers. 

He was also the first person to illuminate his dancers from the side. Before, overheard lighting was used to replicate natural lighting. Nikolais found that this type of lighting showed more of the dirty floor than the dancers. Now side lighting, or shin-busters as some performers call them, are standard stage lighting.

Sound

Nikolais often created his own music and "Noumenon" is a good example of that. He liked to combine an assortment of untraditional sounds and arrange them outside of a standard metered rhythm.

It was harder for him to accomplish this before recording devices became more accessible. As soon as he could, he got his own synthesizer. Again, he was way head of his peer when it cam to technology.

In "Noumenon", the dancers were completely depended on the music when it came to staying together since they couldn't see each other. This meant that they needed to know it the sound sequence especially well since there wasn't a consistent rhythm to the music.