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TV Exclusive: Dance Through 100 Years of Jerome Robbins' Legacy at the NYPL for the Performing Arts!
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Nov 1, 2022
Jerome Robbins, world renowned for his work as a choreographer and director of ballet and theater, film and television, would have been 100 years old on October 11, 2018. In honor of his life and legacy, The Jerome Robbins Foundation, partnering with other institutions across the country and around the world, celebrates his centennial year through Spring 2019.
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Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World. This year marks the centennial of legendary director-choreographer Jerome Robbins
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And we're here at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, where historian and curator Julia Folks has put together a glorious exhibit of his life and career
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seen through the eyes of New York City, called Voice of My City. Let's have a look
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I'm here with Julia Folks, who's the exhibit curator of this incredible exhibit. Good morning
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Thank you so much for inviting me to talk to you. I'm delighted. So we cannot wait to get started in here. Tell us where we are today
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Well, we're at the gallery in the Library of Performing Arts at Lincoln Center
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And this is an open, free gallery space at Lincoln Center. But above us is this library that has these treasure troves of materials
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including most of the material in the exhibition, actually, about Jerome Robbins
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because it's the home of all of his archive. So with such a vast career and life and all this stuff at your disposal, how were you able to say, where am I going to begin
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Yeah, he saved everything. So it is quite a daunting task. But I was asked and was eager to accept the challenge of his relationship to New York
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That's what the exhibit really is about. And so that narrowed it down
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There were certain obvious things to talk about in terms of the artworks. But then as I began exploring, it became very clear, too, that there was a way in which the kind of researcher that he was, the observer that he was
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that he was sort of a New Yorker first, and from that, an artist
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And that's sort of what I wanted to show. So we're at the start of the exhibit, and I'm fascinated by this piece of film
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Tell us what this is. This is footage that is shot by some member of Robin's family
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But what's incredible about it is that it's him dancing with his parents on a rooftop in Weehawken, New Jersey, which is where he grew up
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But what you see behind him is the Manhattan skyline. So I like to say he may have had his feet in New Jersey, but his aspirations and his dreams and where he was going to land was just behind him
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See right behind him. There you see. But it's an incredibly sweet footage, you know, because he's obviously having this fun time
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His parents are having this fun time with him. We see him young when I think we most often imagine him old
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It's how we know him as the gray-haired, bearded man. And here he's smiling with his parents
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And we know, too, that he had a sort of tortured relationship with his family. So, you know, I think it kind of sets us off on a different kind of journey, a new way in which to see Robbins
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Because I love this. Like you said, you very rarely ever saw Jerome Robbins smiling
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You didn't. You know, he was somebody, an incredibly contemplative, incredibly difficult man in some ways
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and clearly also kind and generous, all of those things as well
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But he was somebody who spent a lot of time in introspection. And so you don't often see this carefree moment, really, is what it is
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So I'm fascinated by this room, because this seems to be the fancy free on the town room, right
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Yes, it is. And it's when he burst onto the scene sort of incredibly fast
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He was age 25 and then with a collaboration with Leonard Bernstein that would in fact last throughout his lifetime and create some of the most enduring artworks of the 20th century I would say And Fancy Free comes from you know
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from looking around him in the midst of World War II and looking for themes for possible ballets
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And he sort of begins to see these sailors. He's recommended to go see paintings by Paul Cadmus
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which we have one of those also in the exhibition. And he creates a story, a story about three sailors
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on the town in New York City. And the ballet then debuts in April of 1944
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and eight months later, it becomes on the town. Such a quick turnaround
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So in December of 1944, he's already gone between Broadway and ballet
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setting up this bounce between these two genres for the next 20 years of his life
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I love that you have his sailor's hat from Fancy Free. It must be so great to have something
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I mean, just the DNA in that hat of what he did to create that, and it's sitting here in the library
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What's this on the wall? Just like the original script or the outline for On the Town
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This is actually the original script for On the Town, exactly. And what I like about, there's just the initial scene with New York, New York
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setting up the lyrics and the song New York, New York at the beginning
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But what Robbins has written, idea from my ballet, fancy free on the first page
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So he's claiming credit already, as he should, but as he did throughout his life
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So we're in the West Side Story room for all you West Side Story fans
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And it's broken into two different sections, the stage and the screen. So we're in front of a stage version here
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And I see behind us, it looks like all hand-notated character development
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What is all of this? Behind us is actually a photograph that Robbins took of the home that he lived in in the early 1950s that is about to be demolished
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And then what we have in front of it is basically just brainstorming around what are these characters really concerned about
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Why is there tension? What are they fighting over? And one of his friends writes him to say the entire story can be understood by understanding the relationship that it's a war over one block
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And so then you see him. What is Bernardo's relationship to that block, to that city area, as he called it
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And he was particularly fascinated with Bernardo, I think. And maybe because he saw some of himself in that character
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but also because injustice was really fueling Bernardo's anger, discrimination and prejudice
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And that was certainly something that I think that Robbins understood in a different context for himself
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but was trying to understand and get at and knew that was central to what they were trying to accomplish in West Side Story
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So we're on the film side of West Side Story. the prologue is probably one of the greatest cinematic pieces ever put on film
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And there's all these notes here on the wall. He was very specific of how he was going to shoot that, right
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So famously, you know, Robbins is fired. And he's fired for his perfectionism, which meant overtime, over budget
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And he was really mad, right? And he thought, maybe I'm not even going to be put on the credits of the film
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But in fact, he agreed. And to Robert Wise's credit, his co-director, Wise sought him out in the editing process
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And what we have here in the collection is, and what's shown is his notes about the prologue in particular
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And you can see he is so precise He knows he saying there an extra snap You know he knows so well how to kind of make sure that the integration of music and movement are happening
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but how that is relating to what you literally see, you know, from shot to shot to shot
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And you have his Oscar here, too. That's his Oscar, the first Oscar given for choreography
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It was a special Oscar for him and for West Side Story. So now we've moved on for all you theater fans
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We're in the Fiddler on the Roof area of this. I mean, this was the first Broadway musical that I saw
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so I'm very excited to be in this room. And something on the wall that fascinates me the most
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is this letter that he was going to write to Harold Klurman. Why don't you explain what that is
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Sure. So, you know, he's famously known for, and rightly so, his research, Robbins
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And so he did an enormous amount of research for Fiddler as well, even though it was coming from his own Jewish heritage
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he went to orthodox ceremonies, particularly weddings, that became central to the way that
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he staged and choreographed the wedding scene in Fiddler on the Roof. And what Harold Klerman wrote
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in The Nation is like, these are not authentic. This is not authentic movement. And Robbins
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as he did, wrote a response that said, actually, these are very authentic. I did this kind of
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research. It wasn't the kind of movement that I had growing up. It wasn't that kind of movement
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yes, but this was in fact, this is in fact the movement that I saw and that I took from those
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weddings to stage. He never sends it and I think that's also part of sort of who he was on some
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level, that he needed to do this kind of expression before, after, middle of what he was sort of
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creating, understanding what it is that he did, but he didn't send it. And I think that that's
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also sort of, you know, he was only going to fight so many battles. But I guess he was able to work
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it out in his mind, which was great, which I think is fascinating with someone who's creative
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If someone says something negative about you, you're sort of like, I'll work it out my own way
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Yeah, it sticks in his craw. But I think, but he also ends up, you know, he has his response and he
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it affirms the approach that he took. One of his many achievements, of course
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is the musical Jerome Robbins Broadway. And behind us is the whole backdrop, right
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From the show. Right. Which is, you know, if we started the exhibition about like
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this is somebody who wants to take possession of New York City and claim it to be the place, his place
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You see this backdrop. He remade Broadway, right? He remade Times Square
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It's kind of a remarkable sort of visual of exactly his achievements
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But I think what's interesting about Jerome Robbins Broadway, it doesn't start out to be a Broadway show
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It starts out to be an act of preservation that he is very interested, consumed with, as this exhibition sort of shows, documenting, recording, providing us with his legacy in many ways
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And Jerome Robbins Broadway started out that way. And then they realized, you have you have a hit here
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If you can kind of show you are Robbins is the is the through line
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But there's so much there in all of these different pieces that form their own gem of their own
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So he leaves Broadway in 1964 with Fiddler on the Roof, doesn't come back to it until Jerome Robbins Broadway in 1989
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I mean, it looks like that Broadway was his street. It absolutely, that's exactly right
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And you know there so many shows that of course people immediately identify with him like West Side Story But so many more that he doctored that he helped out and you see there a recognition of that as well in this
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visual, I think. So there's a letter here that was just unearthed. Talk about the letter
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So we're still finding things, which is really exciting. Isn't that great for you as a curator
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Yes. As a historian, it's fantastic. In an old suitcase that was recently opened was a letter
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that he wrote to himself in the preview period of Jerome Robbins Broadway that I think sort of
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really encapsulates who he was. He recognizes his achievement in it. He says in the letter
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gosh, I created something. I made something and it's pretty great. And then he goes on to doubt
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himself and ends the letter by saying, but Bob Fosse and Gower Champion died on the opening night
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of their shows. And maybe that'll happen to me too. You know, that he's consumed not only by doubt
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but by fear of aging and death as well. But maybe that's the way to continue
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Like you say, I've done this, but there's some doubt. Now I have to do something else to top this
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There's no question. You see here, you know, in this final case, he has got plans
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Only a couple of years before his death, he's got, you know, at least like 10 different things
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that projects that are in the works. He couldn't stop creating. I think that is one of the, you know, stories of his life
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that it provided the vitality that he needed. You have done such a gorgeous job with putting his life and career
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seen through the eyes of New York City in this gorgeous exhibit. As you walk through here over and over, what goes through your mind
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I'm really proud of it and very excited about the collaboration that made it happen
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And also to show Robbins in a different light. I think it's really easy with these incredibly talented people to go, this is an extraordinary talent
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That's not the end of the story. That's the beginning of the story. And to seize a sort of process of creation and the doubt and the anxiety and the constant trying and the research and the effort
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that that's really what I want people to see. It's not just the landmark shows themselves, but in fact, the before, the middle, and the after of that process
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You know, it's great about what the library does here, the Performing Arts Library, and what you've done with this
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If anybody wants to go into the arts or become a director, choreographer, you see more than just the work
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You see into the man's mind. You see how, like you said, the doubt, the creativity, everything that goes into creating art
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Yes, I think that's exactly right. And it seems to me, too, it's not just for people who are going to be artists
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It's for all of us making sense of our lives. He provides a kind of model to do that, to go take footage out in Central Park
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to create a diary that's a collage of what's going on in your life
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and maybe to create an incredible musical. But it doesn't have to be just that, it seems to me
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We can take him as a kind of guide and inspiration to just be creative and expressive in our own lives
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And the great thing is these events are free. Anybody can walk into the Performing Arts Library here and see all of this for free
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That's absolutely right, and please do. These are treasures. So the exhibit runs till when
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The end of March. Okay. Thank you for an incredible day. Yeah, thank you so much
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The best
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