Born On this Day- May 4th... Impresario Lincoln Kirstein

I know more about dance & it’s history than most civilians because my boyfriend in college was/ is a dancer- the fabled Walter Kennedy. Because of him, I have an interest in dance & the Husband & I enjoy dance concerts. If I could have any talent, it would have been to be able to dance like Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly , Bob Fosse, or Baryshnikov. I am also a student of life in NYC in the 1940s- 1970s, & today’s birthday gay is an absorbing figure of that epoch.

He was a writer, impresario, art connoisseur & major 20th century cultural figure in NYC. Lincoln Kirstein's assorted attractions, ambition & attention to high culture, along with a small fortune, gave him a circle of accomplished friends: George Platt Lynes Jared French, Katherine Anne Porter, Barbara Harrison, Gertrude Stein, Cecil Beaton, Jean Cocteau, Walker Evans, & Sergei Eisenstein among many others.

Like my infamous sex diaries, Kirstein kept records, beginning in summer camp in 1919 until the late 1930's, making note of enjoying sex with men: Harvard undergraduates, sailors, street boys, in the showers at the 63rd St YMCA. He enjoyed long affairs with dancer Pete Martinez, artist Dan Maloney, & conservator Jensen Yow. Casual sex frequently grew into longterm friendships.

Portrait of Lincoln Kirstein by Pavel Tchelitchew, Portrait (1937)

In 1941, he married Fidelma Cadmus, the sister of one of my favorite artists- Paul Cadmus. Kiestein & his wife had an amicable but stressful relationship until her death in 1991. Some of his boyfriends lived with them in their East 19th townhouse; His wife was enormously fond of most of them. The NYC art world considered his gayness an "open secret," although he did not publicly acknowledge his homosexuality until 1982.

Kirstein was the primary patron of his wife’s brother, buying many of his paintings & subsidizing his living expenses. Cadmus had difficulty selling his work through galleries because of the erotically charged depictions of working class men, which provoked great controversy.

Kirstein's tastes were clear & confident. He was an advocate for American arts. A man of culture, commitment & courage, he is best known for making possible the career of the choreographer George Balanchine in the United States. He dedicated himself to classical ballet in the USA for 60+ years. He was also a prolific writer on the subjects of dance & art, a poet, a passionate art collector, an organiser of cultural events, & an adviser to government.

Kirstein by Walker Evans (1930)

In Venice in 1929, while researching El Greco, he happened upon on Diaghilev's funeral. The event had a profound effect on young Kirstein. He studied the history of dance & took ballet classes. He came upon the notion of bringing a distinguished choreographer to found a ballet tradition in the USA. He was able through her to secure an introduction to George Balanchine, the choreographer whose work he most admired.

Kirstein founded & financed the School of American Ballet, as the center for Balanchine's work. Kirstein would remain the board chairman until 1989. He was also the backbone behind Balanchine's companies: the American Ballet Company, The Ballet Society, & the NYC Ballet, where he served as general director until 1989. Kirstein founded a touring group- Ballet Caravan, in order to stage ballets by American choreographers on American themes, including Eugene Loring's, Billy the Kid, one of several works with librettos by Kirstein.

Kirstein was instrumental in the development of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in Manhattan, where the NYC Ballet was in residence. Not limiting himself to dance, he was a founder of the American Shakespeare Festival Theatre at Stratford, Connecticut.

During WW2, Kirstein served with the US Army in England, France & Germany. In 1945, he discovered & supervised the recovery of the huge collection of art looted by Nazis.

In his later years, Kirstein struggled from depression, & paranoia. He destroyed the studio of his friend Dan Maloney, & sometimes was in a straitjacket for weeks at a psychiatric hospital. His illness did not affect his professional creativity until the end of his life.

Kirstein involved himself in the civil rights marches in Alabama in 1965. He was also a firm supporter of Arthur Mitchell's Dance Theatre of Harlem from its earliest stages.

Lincoln Kirstein by Jamie Wyeth (1965)

Kirstein requested that there be no religious service when he died, & that no religious words be spoken as his ashes were scattered across the pond near his country house. There were a only dozen mourners, & the wind blew some of the ashes back in their faces. He had lived that kind of a life.

The Wonderful Life Of Mercier Philip Cunningham, Born On This Day- April 16th

Walter Kenndy is a University Professor of Dance, & he was a principal dancer with the internationally acclaimed Lewitzky Dance Company for 20 years. Because of him, I know more about dance than most civilians, yet I always feel a bit awkward when I do posts on dancers & choreographers. He may wish to weigh in.

With his partner in life & art- John Cage, Merce Cunningham, born on this day in 1919,  created some of the most memorable dance pieces of the 20th century & beyond. He is considered to be one of the world’s greatest choreographers. Cunningham ranks with Isadora Duncan, Serge Diaghilev, Martha Graham & George Balanchine in giving the public the chance to rethink the essence of dance & choreography.

Cunningham met Cage soon after he moved to New York from Washington State, where he was discovered by Martha Graham. His first solo concert, in 1944, was in collaboration with Cage, & the couple remained together until Cage’s death in 1992.

Cage on the left with Cunningham in the late 1950s

Cunningham formed his own dance company in 1953. The company quickly became known for innovation & established itself as an important contributor to the post-war New York dance scene.

Robert Rauschenberg worked as the company’s stage manager, & collaboration with artists-Richard Serra, Jasper Johns & Sol LeWitt continued into the new century. As late as 2007, Cunningham & Rauschenberg continued topremiere new pieces.

Cage was as influential in the world of serious music as Cunningham was in dance. The couple were an artistic punch that slammed through the conventions of post-war America. They experimented with chance encounters of dance, music, & structures.

Cunningham never stopped challenging himself. That he also challenged the rest of us is our enduring good fortune. Cunningham continued to dance into old age. At 80, he danced with Mikhail Baryshnikov. Cunningham gradually relinquished day to day management of his dance company. On July 26, 2009, he died peacefully in his sleep in his Manhattan home.

Born On This Day- March 17th... Рудо́льф Хаме́тович Нуре́ев

Again, I wish I had Walter Kennedy available to question about this post. He is a dance historian, a professional dancer, & a professor of dance at the University of Oregon, & I seem to recall that he once had an encounter with Nureyev.

From After Dark Magazine circa 1973

I remember my mother explaining who he was when he defected from the USSR in 1961. If Rudolph Nureyev's story had been already filmed, it should have been a preposterously pedantic piece directed by Ken Russell. He grew up in extreme poverty during WW2 in the USSR & yet somehow had this sterling single-mindedness, spirit, & strength to get himself out of his small town & to the West. Nureyev played a role in so many major historical & cultural events of the 20th century; his life was absolutely Forrest Gumpian.


I knew & understood who he was at early age & his image was sered into my young teenage consciousness by a photo from After Dark Magazine. Nureyev was admired by Jackie Onassis, Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithful, Andy Warhol, Freddie Mercury, Bobby Kennedy, & Madonna. Soviet Prime Minister Leonid Brezhnev personally tried to thwart his career. He was the very pretty face of the Cold War, an icon of the 1960’s sexual revolution, a representative of the new popularization of the celebrity personality as high culture. He was lordly, lusty, obsessive & opinionated. Nureyev was a 20th century true genius & his life is a record of that era.


Nureyev consorted with royalty & with gay hustlers. He was a dancing contradiction: defiant of authority, but an unmatched disciplinarian in the studio, needy & nonchalant, pious & promiscuous, cruelty & charitable.


Nureyev had an intimate, intriguing, tumultuous affair with Erik Bruhn, the very beautiful blond Danish ballet star 10 years older than Nureyev. He remained the great love of Nureyev's life even after their relationship ended.


I supervise fifteen 20-30 year olds, several who are gay, & today I tried to explain what he meant to our culture, but not one of them had heard of Rudolph Nureyev. It was just a few decades ago that he was everywhere, & now he seems almost forgotten, probably because dance is that most ephemeral of art forms.


Thousands of screaming fans used to wait for him at the stage door after his performances. Nureyev was on the cover of Time & Newsweek in the same week. Like Nijinsky, he was a dance star & a pop star.

The film of his life will have to feature a classic suspense sequence. While dancing with Kirov Ballet, the Communist Party & the KGB didn't trust Nureyev's political loyalty, & he angered them by associating too freely with Westerners while on tour. He was at the Paris airport with the Kirov, ready to fly with them to London, when he learned that he was being sent back to the USSR. Flanked by KGB agents, Nureyev made an urgent appeal for help to a Paris friend, Pierre Lacotte. Lacotte brought in another friend, Clara Saint, who rushed to the airport. Posing as an adoring girlfriend, she convinced the KGB agents to let her say goodbye to Nureyev.

While kissing his cheeks, she whispered plans into his ear. Then she rushed away & got the French airport police, telling them that a famous Russian dancer wanted to stay in France. The police agreed to protect Nureyev if he could get away from the KGB & into their custody. They accompanied Saint into the airport bar where the KGB was guarding Nureyev. She approached him one last time, whispering that he needed to get to the police across the room. Nureyev bolted from his chair to the bar, a distance a few yards. He yelled: “I want to stay in France!!!” The KGB agents lunged for him & the Paris police, as promised, protected him.


The leap to freedom made Nureyev famous, but his stardom came from his impassioned, impetuous, impulsive, inspiring, intense dancing. Male Ballet dancers at that time were virile & vigorous, but they were deferential to their female partners. Nureyev gave the audiences animal attraction, allure, & astonishing sexuality onstage. I was cold cocked & riveted by his hip, flamboyant charms.

Nureyev died in 1993 from complications from HIV. He was just 54 years old. Newsweek ran its second Nureyev cover with the headline "AIDS & the Arts: A Lost Generation."

God Of Dance

I should have handed this post off to my dear friend WCK3, who is a professional dancer, a dance historian & a Professor of Dance at The University of Oregon. WCK3 was briefly my boyfriend in college, but we have stayed excellent friends for 37+ years. Because of this supremely talented man, I know more about dance than most civilians.

Vaslav Fomich Nijinsky was born on this day in 1890, in Kiev to Polish parents, but for his lifetime he considered himself a Pole. He grew up poor, but by the time he was in his late teens, he had already had heady affairs with several much older men: Prince Pavel Dimitrievitch, Lvov & Count Tishkievitch, who each lavished with him luxurious libations. Soon after, Nijinsky started his rapturous romantic & professional partnership with Sergei Diaghilev. Diaghilev, a renowned & highly innovative producer of art exhibits, ballet & opera, who concentrated on promoting Russian visual & musical art abroad, groomed the young Nijinsky to be known as the God of Dance.


Nijinsky was the rare male ballet stars to perform en pointe, & his fame in Russia & Paris grew with each new dancing role: Cleopatra, The Sleeping Beauty, & Giselle. Diaghilev advanced Nijinsky’s work as a choreographer of his own works & the radical results were remarkable. The dancer was just 22 years old when he created a piece set to Debussy's Afternoon of a Faun which ended with him masturbating. The next year his ballet collaboration with Igor Stravinsky- The Rite of Spring ended in riotous reaction at the Théâtre de Champs-Élysées when they premiered it in Paris. His work was judged as obscene, but was defended by such artists as Auguste Rodin & Marcel Proust.


While on tour in South America, Nijinsky, in an act rash, reckless & ruinous, he married a Romanian countess- Romola Pulsky, who had taken up ballet in order to pursue the young dancer across Europe & the Atlantic Ocean. The incensed & injurious Diaghilev fired him.

Nijinsky tried to start his own dance company. But, bad choices & ill-conceived projects, brought the celebrated star from luster, laurels, & lavish gifts, to needing to support a wife & child with no funds & no dance company.


Nijinsky went to Hungary to recover from nervous exhaustion. When WW I broke out, he was considered an enemy because he was a Russian citizen & he was jailed. In 1916, Diaghilev rescued him & took the family to NYC, so that Nijinsky could re-join his Ballets Russes. Diaghilev & Nijinsky rekindled their love affair, but the wife did all she could to come between the pair.


Nijinsky's mental state declined. The dancer became paranoid & obsessive, & worse; he was frightened of performing on stage. With Diaghilev back in Europe; Nijinsky was left in charge of the company. However, it was around this time in his life that signs of his schizophrenia were becoming apparent to members of the company. He suffered a nervous breakdown in 1919, & his career effectively ended. The depressed Nijinsky was diagnosed with schizophrenia & taken to Switzerland by his wife. Later Diaghilev attempted to reconcile, & again his wife kept her husband from him, preventing any more reunions. Nijinsky he was just 29 years old. For the next 3 decades he was in & out of institutions until his death in London in 1950.


Nijinsky left a diary with appeals for compassion toward the less fortunate, & for vegetarianism & animal rights. He also wrote of his love for Diaghilev.


In 1970, a long planned film of his life was to start filming. With a screenplay by Edward Albee (with whom he shares a birthday today), The film was to be directed by Tony Richardson, starring Rudolf Nureyev as Nijinsky, & Paul Scofield as Diaghilev, but producers scrapped the project.


A decade later a film was finally made. Nijinski was directed by Herbert Ross, starring dancers- George de la Peña as Nijinsky &  Leslie Browne as Romola, & with Alan Bates as Diaghilev. Romola Nijinsky had a writing credit for the film. The film makers got the attitude right, but the history all wrong. The film is available on something called VHS, I have no idea what this is. I think the story is ripe for the right filmmaker to take another shot at it. My suggestion: John Cameron Mitchell writing & directing, with Daniel Radcliffe as Nijinsky, Natalie Portman as Romola & me as Diaghilev.

Born On This Day- February 15th... Bill T Jones

When I consider Bill T Jones, I land on the irony & cruelty of HIV. Jones & his longtime partner in life & dance- Arnie Zane were both diagnosed in 1986, Zane would be gone in 1988 & 24 years later, Jones would win his second Tony Award for Fela!, which he co-created, directed, & choreographed. They had intended to accomplish it all as a team & as a couple.

Jones was born on this day 60 years ago. He would go from being the 10th of 12 children of migrant farm workers to one of the most notable, recognized modern-dance choreographers & directors of our time. They had intended to accomplish it all as a team & as a couple.

When I became aware his dance career in the late 1970s, I thought he was one of the most beautiful men ever & a dancer of extraordinary grace. Jones brought the physicality of dance into a political statement with moral outrage & intellectual considerations, a choreographer/ performer/ philosopher.


I was able to see his pieces- Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land & Still/Here on PBS.  In the aughts he turned his attention to dance on Broadway with Spring Awakening & Fela! & along the way garnered an honors & awards & honorary doctorates. In 2010 Jones was a Kennedy Center Honoree, but before then there was a Time Magazine cover, a MacArthur Award in 1994, numerous downtown dance & performance Bessie awards, the Gish prize in 2003 & Tonys in 2007 & 2010.


Now 60, Jones remains a remarkably handsome man.


“I am not usually a pleasant person to work with. Everything is do or die for me.” 

Born On This Day- January 5th... Alvin Ailey

I am always grateful to my college boyfriend & longtime buddy- Walter for giving me an education in Dance History. He is a professional dancer, dancing with the famed Bella Lewitzki Dance Company for decades, & now a professor of Dance at the University of Oregon. Because of our relationship, I am more savvy about dance than most civilians.

Today’s Birthday Gay is Modern dance pioneer Alvin Ailey, recognized for his lasting impact on the American arts landscape, which he achieved despite struggles racial discrimination, mental illness & internal conflict about his sexuality.

On this day in 1931, Ailey was born in Rogers, Texas. Apprehensive & artistic, he was uncomfortably aware of his attraction to other boys at an early age, but his strapping physique spared him from harassment.

Moving to LA at 12 years old, Ailey developed a love for dance after seeing a performance by dancer/activist- Katherine Dunham. He met & began studying with Lester Horton, who created the first racially integrated dance company in the USA.

He transferred to San Francisco State College to study teaching, but Ailey continued to dance, performing at a nightclub with Maya Angelou, at the time, a dancer. Eventually, he chose to leave school, & join Horton’s troupe.

After Horton’s death in 1953, Ailey was named director of the company. A year later, he relocated to NYC. He studied with dance masters, including Martha Graham & Merce Cunningham. His work was well-received, but jobs for black dancers were scarce.

To offer more opportunities for black talent, Ailey started his own company- The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT), which made its debut in 1958. In 1962, the US State Department began sponsoring AAADT on international tours. Ailey integrated the company in 1963, saying he wanted to work with the most talented dancers regardless of race. Even as Ailey continued to develop pieces for AAADT, he mentored several promising young performers, including the powerful Judith Jamison, who succeeded Ailey as AAADT artistic director.

Despite his professional success, Ailey’s personal life was driven by difficulties. His sexuality was an open secret, yet he rarely spoke of his personal relationships, & seemed ill at ease with being gay. He was in a long term romantic relationship with a young white schoolteacher who helped manage his dance company. Ailey spent his time socializing in gay bars. He had numerous short-term liaisons with young men who his friends felt took advantage of his generosity. He suffered from bipolar disorder, which worsened over time, as did his drinking & drug use.

In his 50s, by the time the AIDS crisis struck NYC, Ailey was infected with HIV. Though increasingly ill, he continued traveling to oversee productions & receive awards. He died in 1989 from AIDS-related complications.

In Ailey’s memory, a stretch of West 61st Street was renamed “Alvin Ailey Way.” But his greatest legacy is AAADT, which has performed for more than 20 million people in some 70 countries.



Choreography by the man himself...

Born On This Day- December 10th... Hermes Pan

Hermes Panagiotopoulas would become Hollywood’s Hermes Pan, the man who danced with Fred Astaire. He was born on this day, 102 years ago in Memphis, Tennessee.

Pan & Astaire met in an RKO rehearsal studio in 1933. Hermes was 24, penniless, & moving in the middle of the night from house to house with his mother & his sister.

Pan had been hired by the RKO Dance Director Dave Gould to work with Astaire, because ironically, Gould didn’t know how to dance. There were no choreographers in those days.

Born in Tennessee on this day in 1910, as a little boy his “mammy,” as black housekeepers were named in that era, used to take him home at night sometimes to the part of town known as Black Bottom, a common name for the ghetto in Southern cities.

The influence of the culture of Black Bottom is felt to this day, great music & dancing emerged from those communities. Pan recalled, late in his life, how those trips to Black Bottom were always exciting because there was nightlife in the streets & musicians with tubs, broomsticks & strings that played what was then called “gut bucket jazz.” This music gave birth to Rock n’ Roll.

Pan worked as a dancer on Broadway where he met Virginia McMath. She was headed to Hollywood where word was out that the movies were looking for musical comedy performers. McMath convinced Pan to try his luck. The first few years were tough & he was broke when Pan was hired, at $75 a week, to work with Astaire in Flying Down To Rio, only Astaire’s second film & the first teamed with Virginia McMath, now named Ginger Rogers.

The pair of men had very different personalities but compatible sensibilities in dance, music & humor. Pan was a decade younger than Astaire &more in tune with the “latest”, & Astaire was smart about show biz, recognized Pan’s youthful zip.

Pan & Astaire’s collaboration that lasted for the rest of the men’s lives. Pan acknowledged that the dancing that the world knew as Fred Astaire Style was mainly African in its roots. Astaire was very drawn to percussive sounds & rhythms. There were rumors that Astaire took some lessons from John Bubbles, a vaudevillian, entertainer, dancer. He played Sportin’ Life in the original Gershwin Porgy & Bess & he was regarded as a genius. Astaire was a follower.

The movements & concepts that Pan brought to the dance floor for Astaire were acquired as a small child in Black Bottom, thanks to his mammy & the men who played gut bucket jazz in the streets of Memphis.

Pan worked with Astaire on 17 pictures, including all 10 of the films Astaire made with Ginger Rogers. In the years he worked as a choreographer for Astaire at RKO, Pan always taught Rogers the steps well before she worked with her on-screen perfectionist partner. Pan would first dance the Astaire part while Rogers slowly learned hers. Pan resembled Astaire physically & as a dancer. He often dubbed Rogers taps for her films with Astaire. He is said have done so in high heels for authenticity.

Pan enjoyed a long career as a dance director/choreographer & hired a number of major American dancers for their first Hollywood jobs including Bob Fosse & Jack Cole. He won an Oscar for Damsel in Distress in 1936.

After Astaire & Rogers were no longer a team, Pan went to 20th Century Fox where he worked with Betty Grable, who at the time was then the #1 box office star in the USA. In the 1950s he moved over to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In the 1960s Joe Mankiewicz hired him to stage Elizabeth Taylor’s Cleopatra entering Rome.

Pan: “Dancers are like children. That’s the only way they can do what they do.”

Pan died at his home in Beverly Hills in 1991, a few months short his 81st birthday. He’d got up that day, fed his cat & made bacon, eggs, toast & coffee. After he finished his breakfast he sat down in his favorite chair in his living room overlooking his patio & swimming pool. Later that afternoon, a family member who hadn’t been able to reach him, found him still sitting there, already having departed for the big dance floor in the sky.

You've Got To Have Friends... Walter Kennedy Turns Somewhere Between 40 & Death Today- June 15th

The University that I attended in L.A. had a junior year at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, the only school in the USA to have such a program. The faculty could choose as little or as many students to send to England, as they saw fit.. Another day & another blog post will tell the tale of my NOT going to RADA.

On the 1st day of the autumn term, the Theatre Department held auditions for the fall plays. I was sitting in a large class room with 50+ other theatre majors, waiting for my chance to do my prepared pieces & my song in hopes of being cast in Godspell & not Racine’s Phaedra. Sitting close to me were 2 adorable freshmen, just barely 18 years old (I was a few months shy of my 21st birthday). I watched them watching the “theatre people”. The students from the previous year’s sojourn to RADA were newly returned to campus complete with British accents & a whole new attitude. I had never witnessed so much air kissing & scarf tossing & shrieks of- “I have not seen you since we were in Our Town together", followed by more hugging.

I turned to the newest members of the department- WCK3 & his high school buddy- Little Stevie B & with a dry drop of disgust at the histrionics & mentioned to them- “my, have you ever seen so much drama from a Drama Department?”

I had already started on my life’s journey of loving to perform, but disliking the artifice of "Theatre People". WCK3 & Little Stevie B & I were all cast in Godspell, with WCK3 landing the role of Jesus (on his 1st day of University!). I was given the song- All Good Gifts, which was perfect for me, because I like to show off. WCK3 & I became fast friends & eventually boyfriends. WCK3 was not interested in going steady. He was quite young & wanted to play the field & I was unwilling to give up my adventures as a slut. But we stuck together. I introduced him to cocktails & nasty sex. I was a bit of a mentor in the hedonistic arts. He already had years of dance training by the time we met & I was very impressed with his flexibility. WCK3 is much more conservative then I… & I can still shock him all these decades later.



WCK3 & I transitioned from lovers to friends. We have been very close for more than 35 years. We lived together several times, including a run in the mid-1970s in NYC when WCK3 studied at Julliard & I was at HB Studios. I was always made to feel at home with his parents & siblings. WCK3 is a handsome & remarkably talented man. He can be just a tiny bit opinionated, his recollections can be a bit long-winded, but I would always want him to be in my life.

WCK3 would go on to a life as a professional dancer. At one point he had to choose between an offer from Michael Bennett to tour in A Chorus Line or to join a famed Modern Dance Company- The Lewitzky Dance Company where he was a principal dancer for 20+ years. WCK3 has traveled all over the world with Bella Lewitzky’s dancers. He was trained by Bella Lewitzky to be a master teacher of technique, improvisation, & composition, & was appointed the company's rehearsal director from 1990 until the company's farewell performance in 1997. He has also worked as a dancer for choreographers: Lar Lubovitch, Laura Dean, Joe Goode & Anna Sokolow.

His choreography has been honored at several American College Dance Festivals, & at such venues as Highways Performance Space & the Dance Kaleidoscope Festival in Los Angeles. In the summer of 1998 he was invited as guest choreographer to The Yard, an artist's colony on Martha's Vineyard, & at the University of Arizona. WCK3 has an MFA from University of Illinois where he was also Visiting Assistant Professor, & a BFA, from California State University, Long Beach, where he was also on the faculty.


WCK3 is now on the faculty of the University of Oregon & we have the chance to see each other often. When we do, we toss our scarves over our shoulders, air kiss, squeal & then we list our credits, because we are THEATRE PEOPLE.

Born On This Day- May 4th... Lincoln Kirstein

I know more about dance & it’s history than most civilians because my boy friend in college was/ is a dancer- the fabled WCK3. Because of him, I have an interest in dance & the Husband & I enjoy dance concerts. If I could have any talent, it would have been to be able to dance like Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly , Bob Fosse, or Baryshnikov. I am also a student of life in NYC in the 1940s- 1970s, & today’s birthday gay is an absorbing figure of that epoch.

He was a writer, impresario, art connoisseur & major 20th century cultural figure in NYC. Lincoln Kirstein's assorted attractions, ambition & attention to high culture, along with a small fortune, gave him a circle of accomplished friends: George Platt Lynes Jared French, Katherine Anne Porter, Barbara Harrison, Gertrude Stein, Cecil Beaton, Jean Cocteau, Walker Evans, & Sergei Eisenstein among many others.

Like my infamous sex diaries, Kirstein kept records, beginning in summer camp in 1919 until the late 1930's, making note of enjoying sex with men: Harvard undergraduates, sailors, street boys, in the showers at the 63rd St YMCA. He enjoyed long affairs with dancer Pete Martinez, artist Dan Maloney, & conservator Jensen Yow. Casual sex frequently grew into longterm friendships.

Portrait of Lincoln Kirstein by Pavel Tchelitchew, Portrait (1937)

In 1941, he married Fidelma Cadmus, the sister of one of my favorite artists- Paul Cadmus. Kiestein & his wife had an amicable but stressful relationship until her death in 1991. Some of his boyfriends lived with them in their East 19th townhouse; His wife was enormously fond of most of them. The NYC art world considered his gayness an "open secret," although he did not publicly acknowledge his homosexuality until 1982.

Kirstein was the primary patron of his wife’s brother, buying many of his paintings & subsidizing his living expenses. Cadmus had difficulty selling his work through galleries because of the erotically charged depictions of working class men, which provoked great controversy.

Kirstein's tastes were clear & confident. He was an advocate for American arts. A man of culture, commitment & courage, he is best known for making possible the career of the choreographer George Balanchine in the United States. He dedicated himself to classical ballet in the USA for 60+ years. He was also a prolific writer on the subjects of dance & art, a poet, a passionate art collector, an organiser of cultural events, & an adviser to government.

Kirstein by Walker Evans (1930)

In Venice in 1929, while researching El Greco, he happened upon on Diaghilev's funeral. The event had a profound effect on young Kirstein. He studied the history of dance & took ballet classes. He came upon the notion of bringing a distinguished choreographer to found a ballet tradition in the USA. He was able through her to secure an introduction to George Balanchine, the choreographer whose work he most admired.

Kirstein founded & financed the School of American Ballet, as the center for Balanchine's work. Kirstein would remain the board chairman until 1989. He was also the backbone behind Balanchine's companies: the American Ballet Company, The Ballet Society, & the NYC Ballet, where he served as general director until 1989. Kirstein founded a touring group- Ballet Caravan, in order to stage ballets by American choreographers on American themes, including Eugene Loring's, Billy the Kid, one of several works with librettos by Kirstein.

Kirstein was instrumental in the development of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in Manhattan, where the NYC Ballet was in residence. Not limiting himself to dance, he was a founder of the American Shakespeare Festival Theatre at Stratford, Connecticut.

During WW2, Kirstein served with the US Army in England, France & Germany. In 1945, he discovered & supervised the recovery of the huge collection of art looted by Nazis.

In his later years, Kirstein struggled from depression, & paranoia. He destroyed the studio of his friend Dan Maloney, & sometimes was in a straitjacket for weeks at a psychiatric hospital. His illness did not affect his professional creativity until the end of his life.

Kirstein involved himself in the civil rights marches in Alabama in 1965. He was also a firm supporter of Arthur Mitchell's Dance Theatre of Harlem from its earliest stages.

Lincoln Kirstwein by Jamie Wyeth (1965)

Kirstein requested that there be no religious service when he died, & that no religious words be spoken as his ashes were scattered across the pond near his country house. There were a only dozen mourners, & the wind blew some of the ashes back in their faces. He had lived that kind of a life.

 

The Wonderful Life Of Mercier Philip Cunningham, Born On This Day- April 16th

Walter Keendy is a University Professor of Dance, & he was a principal dancer with the internationally acclaimed Lewitzky Dance Company for 20 years. Because of him, I know more about dance than most civilians, yet I always feel a bit awkward when I do posts on dancers & choreographers. He may wish to weigh in.

With his partner in life & art- John Cage, Merce Cunningham created some of the most memorable dance pieces of the 20th century & beyond. He is considered to be one of the world’s greatest choreographers. Cunningham ranks with Isadora Duncan, Serge Diaghilev, Martha Graham & George Balanchine in giving the public the chance to rethink the essence of dance & choreography.

Cunningham met Cage soon after he moved to New York from Washington State, where he was discovered by Martha Graham. His first solo concert, in 1944, was in collaboration with Cage, & the couple remained together until Cage’s death in 1992.

Cage on the left with Cunningham in the late 1950s

Cunningham formed his own dance company in 1953. The company quickly became known for innovation & established itself as an important contributor to the post-war New York dance scene.

Robert Rauschenberg worked as the company’s stage manager, & collaboration with artists-Richard Serra, Jasper Johns & Sol LeWitt continued into the new century. As late as 2007, Cunningham & Rauschenberg continued topremiere new pieces.

Cage was as influential in the world of serious music as Cunningham was in dance. The couple were an artistic punch that slammed through the conventions of post-war America. They experimented with chance encounters of dance, music, & structures.

Cunningham never stopped challenging himself. That he also challenged the rest of us is our enduring good fortune. Cunningham continued to dance into old age. At 80, he danced with Mikhail Baryshnikov. Cunningham gradually relinquished day to day management of his dance company. On July 26, 2009, he died peacefully in his sleep in his Manhattan home.

Born On This Day- March 17th... Dancer Рудо́льф Хаме́тович Нуре́ев

Again, I wish I had WCK3 available to question about this post. WCK3 is a dance historian, a professional dancer, & a professor of dance, & I seem to recall that he once had an encounter with Nureyev.

From After Dark Magazine circa 1973

I remember my mother explaining who he was when he defected from the USSR in 1961. If Rudolph Nureyev's story had been already filmed, it should have been a preposterously pedantic piece directed by Ken Russell. He grew up in extreme poverty during WW2 in the USSR & yet somehow had this sterling single-mindedness, spirit, & strength to get himself out of his small town & to the West. Nureyev played a role in so many major historical & cultural events of the 20th century; his life was absolutely Forrest Gumpian.


I knew & understood who he was at early age & his image was sered into my young teenage consciousness by a photo from After Dark Magazine. Nureyev was admired by Jackie Onassis, Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithful, Andy Warhol, Freddie Mercury, Bobby Kennedy, & Madonna. Soviet Prime Minister Leonid Brezhnev personally tried to thwart his career. He was the very pretty face of the Cold War, an icon of the 1960’s sexual revolution, a representative of the new popularization of the celebrity personality as high culture. He was lordly, lusty, obsessive & opinionated. Nureyev was a 20th century true genius & his life is a record of that era.


Nureyev consorted with royalty & with gay hustlers. He was a dancing contradiction: defiant of authority, but an unmatched disciplinarian in the studio, needy & nonchalant, pious & promiscuous, cruelty & charitable.


Nureyev had an intimate, intriguing, tumultuous affair with Erik Bruhn, the very beautiful blond Danish ballet star 10 years older than Nureyev. He remained the great love of Nureyev's life even after their relationship ended.


I supervise fifteen 20-30 year olds, several who are gay, & today I tried to explain what he meant to our culture, but not one of them had heard of Rudolph Nureyev. It was just a few decades ago that he was everywhere, I now he seems forgotten, probably because dance is that most ephemeral of art forms.


Thousands of screaming fans used to wait for him at the stage door after his performances. Nureyev was on the cover of Time & Newsweek in the same week. Like Nijinsky, he was a dance star & a pop star.

The film of his life will have to feature a classic suspense sequence. While dancing with Kirov Ballet, the Communist Party & the KGB didn't trust Nureyev's political loyalty, & he angered them by associating too freely with Westerners while on tour. He was at the Paris airport with the Kirov, ready to fly with them to London, when he learned that he was being sent back to Flanked by KGB agents, Nureyev made an urgent appeal for help to a Paris friend, Pierre Lacotte. Lacotte brought in another friend, Clara Saint, who rushed to the airport. Posing as an adoring girlfriend, she convinced the KGB agents to let her say goodbye to Nureyev.

While kissing his cheeks, she whispered plans into his ear. Then she rushed away & got the French airport police, telling them that a famous Russian dancer wanted to stay in France. The police agreed to protect Nureyev if he could get away from the KGB & into their custody. They accompanied Saint into the airport bar where the KGB was guarding Nureyev. She approached him one last time, whispering that he needed to get to the police across the room. Nureyev bolted from his chair to the bar, a distance a few yards. He yelled: “I want to stay in France!!!” The KGB agents lunged for him & the Paris police, as promised, protected him.

The leap to freedom made Nureyev famous, but his stardom came from his impassioned, impetuous, impulsive, inspiring, intense dancing. Male Ballet dancers at that time were virile & vigorous, but they were deferential to their female partners. Nureyev gave the audiences animal attraction, allure, & astonishing sexuality onstage. I was cold cocked & riveted by his hip, flamboyant charms.

Nureyev died in 1993 from complications from AIDS. He was just 54 years old. Newsweek ran its second Nureyev cover with the headline "AIDS & the Arts: A Lost Generation."

Born On This On This Day- God Of The Dance... Ва́цлав Фоми́ч Нижи́нский

I should have handed this post off to my dear friend WCK3, who is a professional dancer, a dance historian & a Professor of Dance at The University of Oregon. WCK3 was briefly my boyfriend in college, but we have stayed excellent friends for 37+ years. Because of this supremely talented man, I know more about dance than most civilians.

Vaslav Fomich Nijinsky was born on this day in 1890, in Kiev to Polish parents, but for his lifetime he considered himself a Pole. He grew up poor, but by the time he was in his late teens, he had already had heady affairs with several much older men: Prince Pavel Dimitrievitch, Lvov & Count Tishkievitch, who each lavished with him luxurious libations. Soon after, Nijinsky started his rapturous romantic & professional partnership with Sergei Diaghilev. Diaghilev, a renowned & highly innovative producer of art exhibits, ballet & opera, who concentrated on promoting Russian visual & musical art abroad, groomed the young Nijinsky to be known as the God of Dance.


Nijinsky was the rare male ballet stars to perform en pointe, & his fame in Russia & Paris grew with each new dancing role: Cleopatra, The Sleeping Beauty, & Giselle. Diaghilev advanced Nijinsky’s work as a choreographer of his own works & the radical results were remarkable. The dancer was just 22 years old when he created a piece set to Debussy's Afternoon of a Faun which ended with him masturbating. The next year his ballet collaboration with Igor Stravinsky- The Rite of Spring ended in riotous reaction at the Théâtre de Champs-Élysées when they premiered it in Paris. His work was judged as obscene, but was defended by such artists as Auguste Rodin & Marcel Proust.




While on tour in South America, Nijinsky, in an act rash, reckless & ruinous, he married a Romanian countess- Romola Pulsky, who had taken up ballet in order to pursue the young dancer across Europe & the Atlantic Ocean. The incensed & injurious Diaghilev fired him.

Nijinsky tried to start his own dance company. But, bad choices & ill-conceived projects, brought the celebrated star from luster, laurels, & lavish gifts, to needing to support a wife & child with no funds & no dance company.


Nijinsky went to Hungary to recover from nervous exhaustion. When WW I broke out, he was considered an enemy because he was a Russian citizen & he was jailed. In 1916, Diaghilev rescued him & took the family to NYC, so that Nijinsky could re-join his Ballets Russes. Diaghilev & Nijinsky rekindled their love affair, but the wife did all she could to come between the pair.


Nijinsky's mental state declined. The dancer became paranoid & obsessive, & worse; he was frightened of performing on stage. With Diaghilev back in Europe; Nijinsky was left in charge of the company. However, it was around this time in his life that signs of his schizophrenia were becoming apparent to members of the company. He suffered a nervous breakdown in 1919, & his career effectively ended. The depressed Nijinsky was diagnosed with schizophrenia & taken to Switzerland by his wife. Later Diaghilev attempted to reconcile, & again his wife kept her husband from him, preventing any more reunions. Nijinsky he was just 29 years old. For the next 3 decades he was in & out of institutions until his death in London in 1950.


Nijinsky left a diary with appeals for compassion toward the less fortunate, & for vegetarianism & animal rights. He also wrote of his love for Diaghilev.


In 1970, a long planned film of his life was to start filming. With a screenplay by Edward Albee (with whom he shares a birthday today), The film was to be directed by Tony Richardson, starring Rudolf Nureyev as Nijinsky, & Paul Scofield as Diaghilev, but producers scrapped the project.


A decade later a film was finally made. Nijinski was directed by Herbert Ross, starring dancers- George de la Peña as Nijinsky &  Leslie Browne as Romola, & with Alan Bates as Diaghilev. Romola Nijinsky had a writing credit for the film. The film makers got the attitude right, but the history wrong. The film is available on something called VHS, I have no idea what this is. I think the story is ripe for the right filmmaker to take another shot at it. My suggestion: John Cameron Mitchell writing & directing, with Daniel Radcliffe as Nijinsky, Natalie Portman as Romola & me as Diaghilev.

Born To Dance

I saw her on Broadway several times, at least 3 time in the musical- Chicago alone, & she is a long time favorite of mine. Gwenyth Evelyn Verdon was one of Broadway's biggest stars of the Golden Era & beyond. She was an actress & dancer who won 4 Tony awards. With flaming red hair & an endearing quaver in her voice, Gwen Verdon was a critically acclaimed dancer & occasionally an actor in films in the 1950s,1960s & 1970s... & into the 1980s with terrific work in the films Cocoon & Marvin's Room.




Verdon is strongly associated with the work of her husband, director/choreographer Bob Fosse. She was his primary dancer/collaborator & muse for whom he choreographed much of his work. She was the guardian of his legacy after his death. Because of his extramarital affairs, in 1971 Verdon filed a legal separation from Fosse, but never divorced him. She held him in her arms as he suffered a fatal heart attack on the sidewalk outside the theatre where  his musical- Sweet Charity was being revived.

Verdon & her daughter with Fosse- Nicole collaborated to create the Broadway show- Fosse. She continued to teach dance & musical theatre until 1999. Best known for her verve, vim & vivacity. On the day she died in 2000, the lights on Broadway were dimmed in honor of the passing of one of its brightest stars. Gwen Verdon would have been 84 years old today.

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I caught Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake on PBS a few years ago & I was blown away. His production turned tradition upside down & took both the theater & dance worlds by storm when it arrived on Broadway in 1998. Swan Lake to the unlikely step of playing Broadway, instead of a concert hall or opera house. It went on to win 3 Tony Awards. Acclaimed as a landmark achievement on the international stage, it has become the longest running ballet in London’s West End & on Broadway. I was revived this season on Broadway, & has had hugely successful tours in Britain.



Bourne was the Artistic Director of his first company- Adventures in Motion Pictures (1987-2002). His new company is named- New Adventures.

His best know productions include Nutcracker!, Swan Lake, The Car Man ( A modern dance version of the opera- Carmen) & Play Without Words. Bourne is a Resident Artist at Sadlers Wells Theatre & has created the choreography & direction for several major revivals of classic musicals: Oliver!, My Fair Lady, South Pacific & the hit West End & Broadway musical Mary Poppins for which he won an Olivier Award & A Tony. His production of Swan Lake is featured in Stephen Daldry’s film- Billy Elliot.

Bourne started training to be a dancer at the rather late age of 22 .He's grateful he came to it late: "If I hadn't had my experience of all those things, I don't think my work now would connect with a much wider audience than the dance world. If I'd started young as a choreographer, as a dancer, the subject of my work would be movement, much more choreography as such, because I wouldn't have all those other influences".

He danced professionally for 14 years creating many roles in his own work. In 1999 he gave his final performance playing The Private Secretary in the Broadway production of Swan Lake. His other ballets include Edward Scissorhands & Dorian Gray. I am a bit smitten. I had a lover who was a professional dancer. He was very flexable. Bourne turns 51 today.

Born On This Day- October 11th... Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz

There is the famous anecdote, I hear it 1st when I was in high school. He was well know for dressing down actors in rehearsal, & was not kind. Jerome Robbins had tantrum while directing West Side Story in preview in Washington DC, in a fit of pique, Robbins backed up & fell into the orchestra pit leaving the cast with big smiles on their faces.

 

Choreographer & director, Jerome Robbins was both a great choreographer of classical ballet & a Broadway innovator. He was so afraid that he might be outed as gay, & his reputation tarnished, that during the height of McCarthyism, he "named names" during a meeting of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Many major figures in the arts never forgave him.


Dance & Theatre critic Clive Barnes: “Jerome Robbins was an extremely demanding man, not always popular with his dancers, although always respected. He was a perfectionist who sometimes, very quietly, reached perfection."


Between 1944 & 1997, Robbins choreographed 66 ballets & choreographed &/or directed 15 Broadway musicals. During his extraordinarily prolific career he not only excelled in 2 different fields, but he also worked with uncommon versatility. In the 1950s, Robbins began to direct as well as choreograph, creating masterpieces: The King & I (1951), Bells Are Ringing (1956), Gypsy (1959), Fiddler on the Roof (1964), & West Side Story (1957). Unlike other directors of musicals, Robbins demanded that his actors dance as well as sing. His high expectations of the cast of West Side Story, for example, created what we now earmark as the triple-threat performer: actor/singer/dancer.


The extraordinary West Side Story was influenced by the fact that 7 members of the creative team were gay: Robbins, Laurents, composer Leonard Bernstein, lyricist Stephen Sondheim, set designer Oliver Smith, lighting designer Jean Rosenthal, & costume designer Irene Sharaff, plus to the original actor to play Tony- Larry Kert.

Bea Arthur: “Talk about a gift from God!" But he really wasn't a very nice person … Actually, he was the only director who ever made me cry. He was a really dreadful human being. Everybody hated him. I was friends with a dancer called Swen who raised Yorkshire terriers to do dog tricks. Whenever Swen had a party, he always left the door open. And at some point in the evening, he'd go to the doorway & look out & say, 'Oh my God, here comes Jerry Robbins!' & the little dog would fling himself against the door and slam it shut."



Jerome Robbin suffered a massive stroke & died at his home in New York on July 29, 1998. On the evening of his death, the lights of Broadway were dimmed for a moment in tribute. Among his many lovers is Montgomery Cliff.

Check PBS’s Great Masters- Jerome Robbins: Something to Dance About.

Perfection

I am a Fred Astaire guy & the Husband comes down in the Gene Kelly camp. It doesn’t really matter. Gene Kelly’s dance artistry, masculinity & his taut, supple buttocks are perfection, & he could tap dance on rollerskates. Really. I have seen it… tap dancing on roller skates! Today is the 98th anniversary of his birth.

Born On This Day- August 8th... Fashion Icon & Gay Rights Pioneer- Rudi Gernreich

WCK3 in Gernreich dance wear.

My most excellent buddy- dancer, choreographer, professor of Dance Studies- WCK3, didn’t just know him, they have history together. I don’t think I even know all the details even now. WCK3 was a senior dancer & rehearsal director  for the modern dance troupe- the Bella Lewitzky Company.

Do I have your attention boys & girls? This story is important. This story is fabulous, & this story is true. A little Viennese gay baby boy- Rudi Gernreich was born on this day in 1922. Jewish Rudi fled Austria at age 16 to escape the Nazis. He migrated to L.A. & became a dancer with the Lester Horton company. In 1974, Gernreich co-starred again with Bella Lewitzky, with whom he had danced in Salome 30 years before, when both were members of Horton's troupe. His remarkable costumes for the Lewitzky presentation of Inscape were part of the set & part of the plot. His "Siamese" twins were joined at the skull in stretchable hoods that kept the dancers connected both literally & figuratively. Gernreich continued to collaborate with Lewitzky, designing sets & costumes for Pas de Bach in 1977, Rituals in 1979, Changes & Choices in 1981, & Confines in 1982, all danced by the beautiful WCK3 in his dancing prime.

60 years ago in L.A., Gernreich, with his lover at the time- Harry Hay & others, formed the Mattachine Society, probably the first gay rights group in the country. Some later criticized the designer for not coming out after taking those amazingly brave early steps, but most of us now could barely imagine how difficult and dangerous it was to do so: you could lose your job, your friends & family, even your life. He did not come out, until after his death, when the estate of he & his partner of 31 years- Oreste Pucciani, provided an endowment for ACLU in their names. Oreste Pucciani, chairman of the U.C.L.A. French department was instrumental in bringing Sartre to the attention of Americans.He was a pivotal figure in the gay rights movement.

 Hay & Gernreich, are the main characters of the play The Temperamentals by Jon Marans, with Thomas Jay Ryan playing Hay and Michael Urie (with whom he shares ths birthday) as Gernreich; after workshop performances in 2009 the play opened to rave reviews off Broadway in spring 2010.

 Rudi Gernreich was the first to use cutouts in clothes. He was the first to use vinyl & plastic in clothes. He Introduced androgyny: men's suits & hats on women. He designed the first see-through clothes. Gernreich designed the first soft transparent bra--the "no bra "bra. He invented body clothes based on leotards & tights. He used hardware such as zippers, & dog leash clasps as decoration. He did the first designer jeans. He designed the 1st thong bathing suit. He was the first to design men's underwear for women.


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Rudi Gernreich spent most of his productive life entirely aware that clothes were ideas in material form. His innovations embraced the new concept of lifestyle & in his soft bathing suits ,thongs, body clothes & tube dresses, in his unisex looks & signature, playful witty look, celebrated the removal of restriction and conformity.


Gernreich seemed to understand that a piece of clothing could embody a larger sense of freedom and liberation.   It had to have something to do with his being gay, & of course being a dancer must have informed his vision of how a dressed body should float with naked ease in & around every situation.

I love 1960s conceptualist fashion. High Art fashion. Its not just fashion; it is a way of life. Life as theatre. Today in the stereotypical gay lifestyle & queer fashion is being appropriated by straight culture. Gay S&M fashion once an underground subculture, has gone mainstream. Slings are a home decor accessory. Rudi Gernreich was cutting edge, but today would he be cutting edge? The real queens of the past: Rudi Gernreich, Quentin Crisp, Joe Orton, Jean Genet, Truman Capote, Jean Cocteau were so brilliant, they defied fashion convention, they were not subservient to it. I hope that Rudi’s friend WCK3 is lounging around his apartment, enjoying his coffee in a purple thong or one of the famous unitards.

The Temperamentals 2010

The Original Mattachine Society