Jerome Robbins was known as one of the great choreographers of all time, as a genius, as a friend to the rich and famous (and, indeed, “one of them”: He danced with Lauren Bacall at Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball), as one of the four closeted gay Jewish men who made West Side Story , as a person who enjoyed humiliating young male ballet dancers during rehearsals and referring to some of the female ones with the four-letter word that begins with a “c,” as an informer, and as co-founding choreographer, with George Balanchine, of the New York City Ballet. Any man known for so much must have been a great man or a great scoundrel, or both.
When I came to New York in 1988, Balanchine was already dead five years, but Jerry Robbins and City …show more content…
He asked me if I was a dancer. No, I said, I was a very bad ballet student–I was too nervous and uncoordinated. I could never remember what came next. “I could have made you a dancer,” Jerry said, without ever having seen me doing my own version of a glissade or jeté in some poor teacher’s classroom. What makes you so sure? I asked him. “I could make almost anybody into a dancer. You have to learn how to focus,” he said, “and dance for yourself, not for the audience. You have to forget about the audience and just dance. If you know what you’re doing, there’s nothing to be nervous about.” I suppose you’re right–if you know what you’re doing, I said. But not all of us do. “Well,” Jerry said, “you spend your whole life finding out.” That was my first meeting with him. I did not feel at all sure that we had a great future together as friends, and in fact we never did become close, though I saw him many times over the course of several years. Two of his closest friends, Aidan Mooney and Bill Earle, included me in some dinners with Jerry, some of them at Jerry’s house.
Jerry was not a forthcoming person, and I found it rewarding but difficult to be with him. He was not inclined to initiate conversations, and I didn’t have any idea what he would care to talk about. He was reticent, though he smiled and laughed often and he was always friendly and civilized at dinner. He read good books, and he had intelligent opinions and some admirable loyalties. I liked him. I’d heard all kinds of awful things about him, but as far as I could tell he was a serious person and a great
When I came to New York in 1988, Balanchine was already dead five years, but Jerry Robbins and City …show more content…
He asked me if I was a dancer. No, I said, I was a very bad ballet student–I was too nervous and uncoordinated. I could never remember what came next. “I could have made you a dancer,” Jerry said, without ever having seen me doing my own version of a glissade or jeté in some poor teacher’s classroom. What makes you so sure? I asked him. “I could make almost anybody into a dancer. You have to learn how to focus,” he said, “and dance for yourself, not for the audience. You have to forget about the audience and just dance. If you know what you’re doing, there’s nothing to be nervous about.” I suppose you’re right–if you know what you’re doing, I said. But not all of us do. “Well,” Jerry said, “you spend your whole life finding out.” That was my first meeting with him. I did not feel at all sure that we had a great future together as friends, and in fact we never did become close, though I saw him many times over the course of several years. Two of his closest friends, Aidan Mooney and Bill Earle, included me in some dinners with Jerry, some of them at Jerry’s house.
Jerry was not a forthcoming person, and I found it rewarding but difficult to be with him. He was not inclined to initiate conversations, and I didn’t have any idea what he would care to talk about. He was reticent, though he smiled and laughed often and he was always friendly and civilized at dinner. He read good books, and he had intelligent opinions and some admirable loyalties. I liked him. I’d heard all kinds of awful things about him, but as far as I could tell he was a serious person and a great