Jerome Robbins helped define the way an entire generation of dancers moved during Broadway’s golden age, piling up Tonys and Oscars with hits like West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, Peter Pan, and Gypsy. He was equally influential in the highbrow world of ballet.
No matter the stage, Robbins colored his choreography with the dramas and gestures you’d find in the streets of postwar New York City. Think of the snapping in West Side Story. He made work about the everyman, and everybody loved it.
But like any genius, he was complicated. Threatened with being outed as a gay man, he named names to the House Un-American Activities Committee, ratting out fellow artists who had ties to communism. The decision haunted him all his life, and he was never able to address it directly in his art.
