Lauryn Johnson

"Within a few weeks there was genuine excitement when we premièred a very experimental new ballet. The company had danced the previous July in Montreal at Expo '67, and Balanchine, touring the various exhibitions, first heard the "music" of the Greek mathematical composer lannis Xenakis. It was played in conjunction with a light show that structurally mimicked the sounds, and I think that idea intrigued Mr. B. Xenakis' Mestastaseis & Pithoprakta consisted of sixty-one different sounds each...

“Last night's program by the New York City Ballet at the City Center did not go in for novelty, but it certainly concentrated on performance with excellent results. The only unfamiliar item of the evening was Violette Verdy's first appearance in the role of the Sleepwalker in George Balanchine's "The Night Shadow," which she brought off with her by now well-established distinction. It is a role set in a single key and providing the slenderest thread upon which to hang characterization and...

From Amanda Vaill's Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins: Photo by Martha Swope, 1958 "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...