NYCB Vol. 19 No. 19 - NY Export: Opus Jazz
From Amanda Vaill's Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins:
"Jerry had originally conceived it as an ambitious work, an 'examination of the Beat Generation' —which he described to Lenny Bernstein as 'our WSS kids a little older'—'and their search, pain, drives, ecstasies, depressions, and astonished puzzlement.' Typically, he'd given himself a cram course in the subject. He'd [visited] the joints myself and read... as many articles as I can,' including Norman Mailer's 'The White Negro' and a lengthy interview with Jack Kerouac; he'd scanned the scripts of five television shows on Beat culture; and he'd accumulated a list of writers, including Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Denise Levertov, whom he wanted to speak to. In the end he scaled back his ambitions, but although Opus Jazz isn't the epic such preparations seemed to promise, its twenty-eight minutes are a remarkable distillation of Beat transgressiveness, self-preoccupation, and jive. The ballet draws on the urban themes Robbins had been exploring for years, from the scenarios for 'Rooftop' and 'War Babies' to Fancy Free and West Side Story, and its swivel-hipped, turned-in vocabulary of cartwheels and à la seconde jumps and jitterbug lifts seems like a natural evolution from the smaller-scale acrobatics of Interplay and the dramatically integrated dancing of West Side Story. But with Shahn's stylish urban-rooftop scenery, which has the graphic punch of movie or television titles, and Florence Klotz's hipster costumes of soft jerseys, black tights, and sneakers, Opus Jazz is distinguished by a very different kind of cool.
Photos by Martha Swope, 1958.
"The ballet has five sections that explore the different combinations of dancers and music in what Robbins intended as a Balanchinian way. ('You were generous to say [the structure] is like George's, commented Lincoln Kirstein, 'but actually it is classic.') In the first, 'Passages,' the dancers slink onstage, each staring edgily at the audience as if spoiling for a fight; each reaches down to touch the floor-an iconic Robbins gesture that in this context says, "my turf" —then they come together in a cluster reminiscent of the insects in The Cage, before spinning out into a series of syncopated figures. The third and fifth movements, "Improvisations" and "Theme, Variations, and Fugue, are full of explosive, freewheeling solos and group dances (including a boys' chain dance that looks like a takeoff on Balanchines linked-arms choreography in Concerto Barocco or Theme and Variatons, with the difference that, instead of swooping under their partners' joined hands, the boys are stepping over them); in 'Improvisations cast members sit or stand on the sidelines like the kids in Pied Piper and applaud their colleagues efforts. All good, clean fun. But in the second section, 'Statics,' a lone girl intrudes on the bonding rituals of a group of boys. At her en-trance, three of them rise up, like the boy in Afternoon of a Faun times three, from their recumbent positions on the floor; her slinky duet with one of them incites the others to lust or anger (or both), and after spinning her back and forth between them like a top they hurl her offstage 'like she was a piece of garbage,' as one of the dancers, James Moore, described it. The fourth section, 'Passage for Two,' is hardly less shocking, if more lyrical: a pas de deux for the blond girl next door, Wilma Curley, and the black, beautiful John Jones—a pairing that in 1958 could still turn heads in most of the United States and even in Europe.
To soft, bluesy music the two of them enter, dance close, but don't touch; then suddenly they're pressed together in a clinch, bodies arching. There's a series of intricate lifts in which the girl's legs scissor and twine around the boy's body— and then they exit, one to the right, the other to the left. Was Robbins, with his racially mixed company, illustrating the difficulty of interracial love? Or just of love in general?
"Days before the company was due to depart for Spoleto, they gave two invitation-only previews at the Longacre Theatre—no scenery or costumes, no orchestra, only the company's unflappable accompanist, Betty Walberg, at the piano-and Opus Jazz became an overnight sensation. John Martin of the New York Times was given special dispensation to see one performance and loved the "predominantly young, sleek, capable, and thoroughly 'professional' company,' and both Leland Hayward and that wily impresario Sol Hurok, smelling money, began making noises about booking them for Broadway and a national tour after their summer engagements were over. Even more gratifying, Lincoln Kirstein was smitten by Opus Jazz. The ballet was 'nervous, frustrating, irritable, sinister, threatening, or even tragically lyric, the strongest piece you have ever done,' he told Jerry with characteristic hyperbole. 'No one but you has understood Jazz in its flexibility, and no one has had the gift to make it so interesting.' Balanchine even wanted to add it to City Ballet's repertory in September, the first new Robbins ballet to be presented there since The Concert in 1956. But Jerry didn't feel he could let City Ballet have it if the company stood firm on its policy of not using guest artists: he told Lincoln he had "obligations... to the sixteen kids who have been knocking themselves out (at minimum pay).' They'd already worked so hard, he said, that he felt he had to give them a chance to dance Opus Jazz for a hometown audience. 'If you and George would consider at all using these dancers for these special performances, then I wouldn't consider the Broadway venture,' he explained, but Lincoln couldn't give him that assurance.
Photos by Friedman-Abeles, 1958.
"Meanwhile, the sixteen kids—and their director-were enduring a hellish journey from New York to Italy. Bad weather forced cancellation of their transatlantic flight (the first many of them had ever been on) and they had to travel by train to Philadelphia, where another airplane, hastily booked, finally took off close to midnight. Arriving in Rome very late the following evening, they were met with the glare of television lights and the questions of journalists as they staggered off the plane, and they didn't get to Spoleto, two hours north of Rome, until the small hours of the morning. In the dark they couldn't see the arches of the medieval Ponte delle Torri spanning the green valley between the town and Monteluco, the mountain where Saint Francis lived as an anchorite, or the stone and stucco houses, or the steep cobbled streets. But in the morning, when they woke in the various private villas in which they had been billeted and gathered in the Piazza del Duomo for their first look at Spoleto, they must have thought they had landed on a different planet."
--From Amanda Vaill's Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins:
Original Cast:
Patricia Dunn, Jay Norman, Tom Abbott, Bob Bakanic, John Mandia, James White, Wilma Curley, John Jones, Sondra Lee, Gwen Lewis, Erin Martin, Barbara Milberg, Beryl Towbin, Joan Van Orden, James Moore
Jerome Robbins' Ballets: U.S.A." (1959) is a film from the U.S. National Archives U.S. Information Agency collections. This unique and important historical record was produced in 1959 by USIA for television audiences in foreign countries, but could not be shown in the United States for 12 years. It is now in the public domain and belongs to the American people. We share it here as a public service & have not see it elsewhere on the internet. The second half of the film is an extended dance rehearsal set to jazz music. ** National Archives description: "This film summarizes the career of Jerome Robbins and shows footage of Robbins leaving his apartment and directing rehearsals of routines. Also provided is information about Robbins' ballet "N.Y. Export: Op. Jazz," with scenes of composer Robert Prince working with Robbins on the musical score."
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