He grew up in a small town in Colorado and later graduated from Northeat High School in Kansas City, Missouri. He then studied classics at Harvard University.

 

He was the first student to enroll in the School of American Ballet started by George Balanchine, where he was considered to be George's most promising choreographer. While still with the school in 1938, ERICK studied at the American Dance Festival, which was then located in Bennington, Vermont. He met MARTHA GRAHAM who put him in "American Document" and he became the first male dancer in her company 6 months later. He was with MARTHA until 1950 and his influence on her work was renown. He was married to MARTHA from 1948-1954. She said, "Erick danced with my company and gradually we had a very deep love affair. After eight years of living together, Erik decided we should get married. I didn't want to, but I did. During that ninth year it all fell apart. It shows. Never try to hold on to anything."

 

He opened his own school in 1951 and became interested in a new field known as Kinesiology and learned all that he could about how the body moves and to keep from injuring it. He developed a "free flow technique" using fluidity while in dance training.

 

ERICK worked with famous artists such as STANLEY BOXER, RALPH DORAZIO, HELEN FRANKENTHALER, RALPH LEE and ISAMU NOGUCHI. He commissioned American composers to create music for him such as LUCIA DLUGOSZEWSKI, ROSS LEE FINNEY, GE GAN-RU, LOU HARRISON, ALAN HOVHANESS, BOHUSLAV MRTINU, WALLINGFORD RIEGGER and DORRANCE STALVEY. He believed avidly in live music and never used records, tapes or any other electronic recording devices.