Jerome Robbins Reading Guide

READING GUIDE

By Marina Harss

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CONTENTS

Timeline

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Discussion Guide

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Further Reading

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About Jewish Lives

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TIMELINE 1904 Harry Rabinowitz, father of Jerome Robbins, emigrates from Poland to New York, where he opens a delicatessen on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

Feb. 9 1911 Harry Rabinowitz marries Lena Rips.

1913 Sonia Rabinowitz, elder sister to Jerome Robbins, is born.

Oct. 11 1918 Jerome Robbins, birth name Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz, is born at the Jewish Maternity Hospital at 270 East Broadway.

1921 The family moves to Weehawken, New Jersey, where Harry opens a corset factory. Jerome grows up taking piano lessons and dance classes, does well at school, and enjoys creative writing. He also has perfect pitch and an excellent sense of rhythm.

Summer 1924 Lena takes Jerome and his sister Sonia to the family’s native village of Rozhanka, a shtetl that was once in Russia but, after the First World War, became part of Poland.

Mid 1930’s In the summers, the Rabinowitz family spends time at Camp Kittatinny, where Jerry performs in Gilbert & Sullivan operettas and vaudeville routines.

1936 Sonia introduces her brother Jerry to The Dance Center, a small dance company on West 56th Street in New York City. The company is run by the dancer, choreographer, and director Gluck Sandor and his wife, Felicia Sorel. Sandor, whose birth name was Sammy Gluck, encourages Jerry to acquire a stage name.

Feb. 1937 The Dance Center presents a concert at the Federal Music Project’s theater on West 55th Street, in which Jerry Rabinowitz is credited as “Gerald Robbins,” the first iteration of his stage name.

Late 1930’s Robbins, who has already shown an interest in choreography, enrolls in Bessie Schönberg’s composition class in New York City. He also begins studying ballet. After unsuccessfully applying to the School of American Ballet, he studies with Ella Daganova, former member of Anna Pavlova’s touring company. To pay for classes, he does janitorial work around Daganova’s studio. He also begins taking small roles at the Yiddish Art Theatre and auditioning for Broadway musicals.

1938 Robbins attends Camp Tamiment, in the Poconos, a resort with a summer performance season. While there, he and the other performers stage weekly Broadway-style revues. He creates his first choreographies.

Robbins returns to Tamiment every summer through 1941. He describes Tamiment as “my first contact with other professional theater people.”

1938 Lands his first role in a Broadway show, The Great Lady, choreographed by George Balanchine. Later in the same year, he dances in The Straw Hat Revue, for which he also does some uncredited choreography.

Jan. 1940 Ballet Theater, later American Ballet Theater, holds its début season in New York. By the summer, Jerome Robbins is a member of the company, with a salary of $32.50 per week. He works with prominent choreographers including Antony Tudor, Agnes de Mille, and Michel Fokine, and dances with such colleagues as Nora Kaye, Muriel Bentley, and John Kriza.

Early 1940’s Briefly joins the American Communist Party, along with his sister Sonia.

Spring 1942 Jerome Robbins is drafted, but is released after he tells the draft board, in an interview, that he has had homosexual experiences. He remains with Ballet Theatre.

Apr. 1943 Performs the role of Benvolio in Antony Tudor’s Romeo and Juliet with Ballet Theatre.

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TIMELINE Sep. 1943 Meets the composer Leonard Bernstein, who will become a longtime collaborator and friend.

Apr. 18 1944 Premiere of Fancy Free, the first collaboration between Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein, at Ballet Theatre. The cast consists of: Harold Lang, John Kriza, Jerome Robbins, Muriel Bentley, Janet Reed, Shirley Eckl, and Rex Cooper. It is a huge hit, performed continually to this day.

Dec. 28 1944 On the Town, a musical comedy based on Fancy Free, opens on Broadway, to great success.

1944-1948 Robbins choreographs five more ballets: Interplay, Facsimile, Pas de Trois, Summer Day, and Afterthought. As well as four musicals: Billion Dollar Baby, High Button Shoes, Miss Liberty, and Look, Ma, I’m Dancin’!

1946 Lincoln Kirstein and George Balanchine establish Ballet Society, the precursor to New York City Ballet.

1948 Founding of New York City Ballet.

1948 Robbins joins New York City Ballet, on the invitation of George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein.

Jan. 1949 Tells Bernstein he is thinking of creating a modern version of Romeo and Juliet set in the urban slums, in which the warring clans would be Jewish and Catholic youth gangs.

1949 Performs in Balanchine’s new Bourrée Fantasque (with Tanaquil Le Clercq) and 1929 Prodigal Son, the latter of which Balanchine revives for him.

Feb. 26 1950 Age of Anxiety, based on W. H. Auden’s book-length poem of the same name and set to Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra, premieres at New York City Ballet.

1950 Ed Sullivan threatens to expose Robbins as a Communist and a homosexual. Robbins meets with him privately and defuses the threat, albeit temporarily.

1951 First trip to Israel, underwritten by a grant from the American Fund for Israel Institutions. While there, he visits several dance companies and festivals.

Mid 1950’s The films The Wild One (1953) and Rebel Without a Cause (1955) introduce stories of disaffected youth and gang-related violence, drawn from the headlines, to the general public.

Mar. 1951 Ed Sullivan publishes his column “Tip to Red Probers, Subpoena Jerome Robbins” in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Mar. 29 1951 The King and I, a musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, choreographed by Jerome Robbins, premieres on Broadway. It contains such memorable dances as “Shall We Dance?” and “The Small House of Uncle Thomas.”

June 10 1951 The Cage premieres at New York City Ballet.

1952 Polio epidemic explodes.

Dec. 31 1952 Tanaquil Le Clercq, Robbins’s close friend and confidant, marries George Balanchine, to Robbins’s disappointment.

May 1953 Testifies before the House Un-American Activities Committee, at which he willingly offers up the names of several theater people from his circle.

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TIMELINE May 14 1953 Premiere of Afternoon of a Faun, inspired by Vaslav Nijinsky’s L’Après-midi d’un faune, at New York City Ballet. The original dancers are Tanaquil Le Clercq and Francisco Moncion.

1954 Creates, choreographs, and directs Peter Pan, starring Mary Martin, on Broadway. Music by Moose Charlap and Jule Styne, lyrics by Carolyn Leigh and Comden & Green.

Apr. 1955 Robbins’s mother Lena dies of breast cancer.

Aug. 1955 Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents sketch out their ideas for West Side Story.

Winter 1955-1956 Stephen Sondheim joins the West Side Story team as lyricist. (The show will be his Broadway début.)

1956 Le Clercq develops polio in Copenhagen during a New York City Ballet European Tour. She will eventually be paralyzed from the waist down. She and Robbins will remain close friends for the rest of their lives.

Mar. 6 1956 The Concert, a comic ballet set to Chopin piano pieces, premieres at New York City Ballet.

1957 Robbins takes a series of photographs of Le Clercq during her long stay at Lenox Hill Hospital. He does so again during a joyous picnic in Georgia that summer.

Sep. 26 1957 West Side Story opens on Broadway and becomes an instant hit.

June 8 1958 NY Export: Opus Jazz, created for a small touring company Robbins has founded, Ballets: USA, premieres at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy.

1957-1969 Hiatus from producing ballets for New York City Ballet. During this period, he works mainly on Broadway.

May 29 1959 Gypsy, a musical directed and choreographed by Robbins, premieres on Broadway.

1959 Takes his company, Ballets: USA, on tour to Israel, where he witnesses a Sabbath celebration at a Hasidic synagogue that includes dancing, which will provide inspiration for the Bottle Dance in Fiddler on the Roof.

July 3 1959 Robbins’s ballet Moves, performed in silence, premieres in Spoleto with Ballets: USA. Oct. 18 1961 Premiere of the film version of West Side Story, co-directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins. Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer star. The film receives 10 Oscars, including one for direction.

Robbins also receives an Honorary Oscar for his choreography.

1962 Rents vacation home, “Ding Dong House,” in Snedens Landing, Rockland County, where he will spend many summers.

Mar. 28 1963 Directs Bertold Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children on Broadway, one of his forays into non-musical theater.

Summer 1963 Reads script based on the stories of the Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem (which will become Fiddler on the Roof). Begins interviewing his father about shtetl life.

Nov. 22 1963 Assassination of John F Kennedy. Work on Fiddler is interrupted.

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TIMELINE Sept 22 1964 Fiddler on the Roof, directed and choreographed by Robbins, opens on Broadway. After the premiere, Robbins’s father weeps with recognition.

1965 Establishes American Theatre Lab, an incubator for new, experimental theater works, with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Mar. 30 1965 Premiere of Robbins’s version of the ballet Les Noces at American Ballet Theatre.

1967 Buys townhouse at 117 East 81st Street in New York City, where he will live for the rest of his life. He builds a ballet studio on the top floor.

1969 Suzanne Farrell, object of Balanchine’s infatuation and muse for several of his ballets, leaves New York City Ballet. For a period, Balanchine’s artistic output flags.

1969 Robbins is hospitalized for a torn Achilles tendon.

May 8 1969 Creates Dances at a Gathering, an hour-long ballet set to Chopin piano pieces, for New York City Ballet.

1970 Hospitalized for hepatitis.

Jan 29 1970 Creates In the Night, an intimate piece for three couples set to Chopin Nocturnes, for New York City Ballet.

1971 Release of film version of Fiddler on the Roof, directed by Norman Jewison. It retains some of Robbins’s dances, including the “Bottle Dance”.

May 27 1971 Premiere of Goldberg Variations, set to Bach’s eponymous keyboard work, at New York City Ballet.

Feb 3 1972 Watermill, a ballet inspired by Japanese esthetics and philosophy starring Edward Villella, premieres at New York City Ballet.

May 16 1974 Premiere of Dybbuk, based on S. Ansky’s play The Dybbuk, at New York City Ballet.

May 15 1975 Robbins produces In G Major and 4 additional ballets for New York City Ballet’s Ravel Festival.

Summer 1975 After various setbacks, including the discovery that his lover is involved with someone else and the loss of his summer house in Snedens Landing, Robbins briefly commits himself to Mclean mental hospital.

Nov. 26 1976 Creates Other Dances, a pas de deux for Natalia Makarova and Mikhail Baryshnikov, set to Chopin mazurkas.

Dec. 1977 Father Harry Robbins dies.

Spring 1978 Balanchine suffers his first heart attack, which is followed by bypass operation and a lengthy absence from the company the following year.

Oct. 1979 Buys summer house in Bridgehampton.

Apr. 30 1983 Balanchine dies. The cause is Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

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TIMELINE 1983 Discussions and negotiations over the future of New York City Ballet’s leadership lead to a split decision: Jerome Robbins and dancer Peter Martins will share the artistic leadership. In practice, Martins takes over the day-to-day management of the company while Robbins stays on as resident choreographer May 12 1983 Premiere of Glass Pieces at New York City Ballet.

June 16 1983 Premiere of I’m Old-Fashioned at New York City Ballet Feb. 2 1984 Premiere of Antique Epigraphs, inspired by the bronze Danaids at the Architectural Museum in Naples, at New York City Ballet.

June 13 1985 Premiere of In Memory Of… at New York City Ballet Feb. 4 1988 Premiere of Ives, Songs at New York City Ballet.

1990 Death of Leonard Bernstein.

1991 Death of Robbins’ friend and ex-partner, Jesse Gerstein, of AIDS. Robbins cares for him during his final months.

1992-1994 Robbins and Baryshnikov intermittently work on a series of solos to Bach that will one day become A Suite of Dances.

June 4 1994 2 & 3 Part Inventions, set to Bach, premieres at the School of American Ballet.

Mar. 3 1994 Robbins creates A Suite of Dances, set to sections of three Bach cello suites, for Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Jan. 22 1997 Brandenburg, also set to Bach, premieres at New York City Ballet.

July 29 1998 Death of Jerome Robbins, at home, after a massive stroke a few nights earlier.

1999 The New York Public Library’s Dance Division is renamed the Jerome Robbins Dance Division in recognition of his bequest of $500,000 plus a fixed percentage of future royalties from Fiddler on the Roof to the library.

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS TO OPEN THE CONVERSATION, BEGIN BY ASKING: 1. Jerome Robbins was once a household name; is it still so today? Which of his works have survived in the popular imagination, and why? How does the fact that his name has faded somewhat from popular memory reflect the ephemerality of dance itself?

2. Jerome Robbins is the author of both the ballet The Goldberg Variations and the musical Peter Pan. Was he a popular or a highbrow artist, or a bit of both? And if the latter, how did he combine these sensibilities?

3. When a choreographer begins a new dance, he or she is faced with a studio, a few dancers, and little else except the music. How does the music help guide the choreography? How do the two support and enlarge each other?

4. How do Robbins’s dances reflect his desire to see real people, not just performers, onstage, and how did Robbins go about producing this effect?

5. Robbins was not an abstract artist—he was drawn to stories and narrative. How did this differentiate him from other choreographers of his era, and how is this reflected in his works?

6. How did Robbins’s anxieties and complexes about being gay and about being Jewish affect the trajectory of his life and of his art?

OVERTURE 1. Wendy Lesser describes Jerome Robbins as “the most hated man on Broadway.” How and why did he acquire this reputation, and what were some of the causes behind this tendency to mistreat and manipulate his collaborators?

2. Robbins was a dancer, a choreographer, a director of musicals and prose theater, and co-director of films.

He also drew, wrote, and made collages. How did all these facets of his identity and talent coalesce into the artist that he would become?

3. In what way does Jerome Robbins’s upbringing and education reflect the cultural and social aspirations of his Jewish, immigrant parents in early twentieth-century New York?

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FANCY FREE 1. Robbins and Bernstein met in 1943. The two had much in common—both were children of immigrants, Jewish, and conflicted about their sexuality— and the two would produce several works together. Lesser describes them as “speaking the same language,” artistically. What were the characteristics of this common language?

2. Fancy Free, Bernstein and Robbins’s first collaboration, was a ballet about three sailors on shore leave in New York City, which premiered during the Second World War. What elements combined to make this ballet such an instant, and lasting, success?

3. In this chapter, Lesser describes a memorable lift that Robbins used in Fancy Free, in which the male dancer slowly lowers his partner to the ground, stealing a kiss along the way. What was special about this particular lift, and more generally, about Robbins’s partnering?

4. Fancy Free, like many of Robbins’s ballets and musical-theater choreographies, combines everyday gesture with codified dance language. How did Robbins use this particular combination to inject intimacy and humanity into his ballets?

AGE OF ANXIETY 1. How did Age of Anxiety, created in 1950 and inspired by Auden’s poem of the same name, reflect the preoccupations of the post-war period in America? How did it reflect Robbins’s own state of mind, including the struggle he felt between success and authenticity?

2. The fifties in America were a time of red-baiting and conformism, best embodied by Joseph McCarthy and his work on the House Un-American Activities Committee. In May of 1953 Robbins, who had once been a member of the Communist Party, testified voluntarily before the HUAC, where he supplied the names of several people in his circle, as fellow former Communists. How did Robbins’s fear of being outed as gay, and other insecurities, lead to this outcome, which would haunt him for decades?

3. What role did feelings of guilt play in Robbins’s life?

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS THE KING AND I 1. In preparation for The King and I, which is set in the Kingdom of Siam during the nineteenth century, Robbins researched dances from Cambodia, Laos, India, and Japan. He then created an East-Asian-style ballet based on Uncle Tom’s Cabin, one of the highlights of the musical. How did Robbins combine EastAsian dance and ballet, and in what ways does this fusion escape or fall prey to the pitfalls of Orientalism, cultural appropriation, and cliché?

2. In the musical, which is based on real events, Robbins depicts the King of Siam as a benevolent despot surrounded by a harem of women. How does Robbins’s portrait suggest possible parallels to the leadership of the choreographer George Balanchine at New York City Ballet? Was this conscious or unconscious?

3. Robbins worked at New York City Ballet at a time when Balanchine was generally considered the incomparable genius of ballet, particularly in America. Robbins himself considered Balanchine to be the great choreographer of his era. In 1971, Robbins wrote in his journal: “When I watch Balanchine work, it’s so extraordinary I want to give up.” To what extent did Balanchine’s reputation overshadow Robbins’s and affect his sense of self-worth, creating an unhealthy competition between the two? To what extent was Balanchine aware of this dynamic?

4. In 1945, Balanchine told Robbins that ballet “doesn’t have to be so theatrical,” elaborating: “there’s a stage; it’s empty. Four girls come on and dance with one boy. They go off and leave him alone. It’s theatrical.”

What did Balanchine mean by this, and what did this idea reveal to Robbins about the movement of bodies onstage and its ability to convey meaning without a plot?

5. The dancer Tanaquil Le Clercq was a muse and collaborator to both Balanchine and Robbins. Both men loved her, each in his own way, but she became Balanchine’s wife. What made Le Clercq such a compelling theatrical presence, and what role did she play in the life and art of both men?

THE CAGE 1. Robbins made several ballets that dramatize the relations between the sexes. In The Cage, he depicts a tribe or hive of female insects who mate and kill. In In the Night, he depicts three aspects of romantic love between heterosexual couples. How is Robbins’s view of relations between men and women, including his own with his mother, reflected in his different works?

2. Robbins maintained romantic relationships with both men and women, sometimes simultaneously. Was this a source of conflict for him, and how was this conflict reflected in his work?

3. The movement language in The Cage is extreme, and in some ways, highly stylized. In what ways is this a ballet about the extreme, hyper-stylized qualities of ballet itself?

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS AFTERNOON OF A FAUN 1. In 1912, Vaslav Nijinsky created a ballet for himself, set to music by Debussy, about a faun who encounters a group of nymphs and becomes aroused, eventually expressing this arousal in a gesture of onanistic pleasure with one of the nymph’s scarves. How does Robbins’s 1953 Afternoon of a Faun echo or make reference to the original, and in what ways does it diverge from it?

2. Robbins’s ballet is set in an imaginary ballet studio, in which two dancers stretch and do exercises before engaging in a pas de deux. In what ways does it illustrate Robbins’s love for and keen observation of dancers at work?

3. In Afternoon of a Faun, Robbins famously creates the illusion of two dancers staring at themselves in the mirror. The audience is the mirror. How is this illusion created and what role does the audience play in this illusion?

4. In 1956, Tanaquil Le Clercq, one of the most exciting dancers of her generation, developed polio while on tour with New York City Ballet and was paralyzed from the waist down. What role did Balanchine and Robbins play in her recovery and life after this tragic event, and how did their reactions to her situation differ?

WESTSIDE STORY 1. Robbins began thinking about an updated version of Romeo and Juliet set among urban gangs in 1949, something he confided to Leonard Bernstein. Originally, he imagined that the gangs would be Catholic and Jewish. How and why did the idea evolve into what it would one day become in 1957, when West Side Story opened on Broadway?

2. How did pop culture and events in the news in the 1950’s shape West Side Story?

3. As he had when he was making The King and I, Robbins researched different dance forms during the creation period for West Side Story. To what extent were these dance styles represented in the Broadway musical and subsequent film? Were they authentically portrayed, and was that authenticity or lack thereof important?

4. Robbins was imperious and difficult to work with during the creation of West Side Story. He snapped at Bernstein and intentionally created tensions among the performers. Why did he do this? What was he hoping to obtain? Is this approach possible or even desirable today?

5. The opening sequence of the 1961 film of West Side Story is legendary for its cinematography and for the way it brings the viewer into the story. What makes this sequence so special?

6. What is unique about the way West Side Story tells the story through dance?

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FIDDLER ON THE ROOF 1. Robbins’s father was born in a shtetl in Poland, and Robbins visited his paternal home of Rozhanka as a child. How did Robbins mine his own life and background when imagining and crafting Fiddler on the Roof?

2. In what ways did the focus on the theme of tradition in Fiddler—a central motif—reflect Robbins’s own conflicted relationship with his father?

3. Robbins shied away from Jewish subjects until later in life, when he created Fiddler on the Roof and Dybbuk. What was Jerome Robbins’s relationship to Judaism and how did it evolve throughout his life?

How was it reflected in these works?

4. During a tour to Israel with his company Ballets: USA, Robbins attended Sabbath celebrations at a Hasidic synagogue, and saw Hasidic dances begin performed. How did this experience inform the “Bottle Dance” in Fiddler on the Roof? And what is the significance of the “Bottle Dance”? How is it similar to the “Dance at the Gym” in West Side Story, or “The Small House of Uncle Tom” in The King and I? 5. More generally, how did Robbins integrate “ethnic” dance into his personal dance idiom in both his ballets and his Broadway work?

DANCES AT A GATHERING 1. In 1965, Robbins, a successful Broadway choreographer and director, created the not-for-profit American Theatre Lab, an experimental incubator for new work. What was the purpose and scope of the project?

2. After over a decade away from New York City Ballet, during which he worked mainly on Broadway, what induced Robbins to return to the company to create Dances at a Gathering in 1969?

3. How are the circumstances of its creation, piece by piece, with only a handful of dancers in the room at a time, reflected in the structure and feel of Dances at a Gathering?

4. How does Dances exemplify the idea that a ballet can project meaning without having a narrative or plot?

How does casting, and the number and arrangement of dancers onstage create dramatic tension, stories, and moods?

5. In what ways does Robbins play with conventions of femininity and masculinity in Dances at a Gathering and other works?

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS THE GOLDBERG VARIATIONS 1. In 1971, Jerome Robbins created a ballet set to Bach’s Goldberg Variations. What is it about Bach’s music that presents such a challenge to choreographers?

2. How is the structure of the Variations reflected in the ballet, and more generally, what role does the structure of a musical piece play in the creation of a ballet?

3. The New Yorker’s dance critic Arlene Crice consistently gave Robbins bad reviews; even her good reviews were begrudging. How can the disapproval of a particularly influential critic affect an artist’s sense of selfworth as well as the way an artist’s entire oeuvre is perceived?

4. As he had with the music of Chopin, Robbins continued to make ballets set to Bach’s music. Why do artists often stick with a subject, like Monet with his haystacks, for example, for years? How did Robbins’s Chopin and Bach ballets evolve?

5. How does an aging choreographer get across his choreographic ideas when he is no longer able to show them himself, as exemplified by Robbins’s collaboration with Mikhail Baryshnikov when creating A Suite of Dances?

IN MEMORY OF...

1. Robbins created his ballet In Memory Of… in 1985, after experiencing the death of several people close to him, and during the AIDS crisis. Alban Berg had written the violin concerto to which it is set after the death of a friend’s daughter. How did Robbins’s increasing concern with death manifest itself in this ballet, and how does he express this angst and sadness through movement?

2. Balanchine, Robbins’s lodestar and friend, died in 1983, of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. What did the death of this giant of twentieth-century ballet mean to Robbins?

3. After Balanchine’s death, the New York City Ballet board and Lincoln Kirstein were divided over who should lead the company into the future. Why didn’t Robbins take over the reins at New York City Ballet after Balanchine’s death?

4. What is Robbins’s legacy at New York City Ballet? And on Broadway? West Side Story was just released in a new film version by Steven Spielberg. What does this mega-production say about the lasting effect of Robbins’s work?

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FURTHER READING Conrad, Christine. Jerome Robbins: that Broadway Man, that Ballet Man. Booth-Clibborn, 2000.

Jowitt, Deborah. Jerome Robbins: his life, his theater, his dance. NY: Simon & Schuster, 2005.

Vaill, Amanda. Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins. Broadway Books, 2006.

Vaill, Amanda. Jerome Robbins, by Himself: Selections from his Letters, Journals, Drawings, Photogreaphs, and an Unfinished Memoir. Knopf, 2019.

Documentaries Something to Dance About. Directed by Judy Kinberg. Kultur, 2009.

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