Today, special guest Liz Rosenfeld discusses the choreographer Jerome Robbins. Born in New York to Jewish immigrants, Robbins pursued dance and radical politics––until, under the threat of being blacklisted and exposed for his sexuality, reporting on his former comrades to the House Committee on Unamerican Activities. As one of Broadway's star choreographers, he helped define Broadway's Golden Age with striking dance theatre that integrated ballet technique into storytelling. His charisma, abuses of power, and boundary-obliterating working methods helped define an idea of choreographer-as-genius that still disfigures dance today.
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SOURCES:
https://www.npr.org/2011/02/24/97274711/the-real-life-drama-behind-west-side-story
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/19/happy-hundredth-jerome-robbins Jerome Robbins: By Himself: Selections from his letters, journals, drawings, photographs, and an Unfinished Memoir (ed. Amanda Vaill) Wendy Lesser: Jerome Robbins: A Life in Dance Jerome Robbins - Something to Dance About, dir. Judy Kinberg