Marcia B. Siegel: Deborah, for those of you who don't know, is working on a biography of Jerome Robbins under rather extraordinary circumstances. Tell us how this came about for you. Deborah Jowitt: Well, I got a phone call from a close friend of Robbins who is also the partner of one of the literary executors of the estate saying, "Do you have any idea how much Jerry liked your writing?" And I said, "No...." Although I did know that we got along fairly well. And he said, "How would you like to write a biography of him, and we will give you complete access to all his private papers. We'll do everything we can to help you." They did also give that privilege, eventually, to another writer, which presents an interesting problem of two supposed rivals-cheek by jowl, often-writing. MBS: And researching. DJ: And researching. I think Amanda Vaill is probably writing a full-scale biography. I'm focusing on the work. And the whole business of thinking about what history is now is so important and controversial that if you think about it too much you can't even write it anymore. Marcia's working on a book on Twyla Tharp, and we share things. I think that in a sense what drew me to dance history in the beginning was a very old-fashioned sense of how wonderful it was to sleuth, to discover something, to try to really invade
The young people who began to assemble in the New York dance studios early in the 1930s were seized by reformist zeal. They believed they were building a better world, and their idealism served them well, both as incentive when there were few other rewards, and as a sign to the world that they were to be taken seriously. For indeed, they wished to be taken seriously, and in those very first days, their legitimacy in the world of American art seemed certain.As Doris Humphrey began to think more formally about the group that was to realize her works, she set forth her aims in a long letter to prospective members. She was enlisting them in a crusade. With the extraordinary mixture of crystalline practicality and inspirational ardor that she kept all her life, she foresaw a journey that would be all the more glorious for the obstacles they would surmount together. “I am first a creative artist, thirsting to see my conceptions made visible; after that I am also interested in developing individual talent in others, in performing for audiences, educating audiences, promoting the cause of Dance, making money, and establishing a Dance Theatre in America.” The order in which she set down these goals was not accidental. She wanted her dancers to understand that Humphrey-Weidman could pay virtually nothing — $10 a performance — and she frowned on the commercial theater as a supplementary source of income. “All group dancing in musical comedy or opera or motion picture houses” she placed in a “different class” — by implication an inferior one.
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