Truth, moment to moment, was all that mattered. He worked with and choreographed for the company until 1989, when he resigned from his position of co-ballet master in chief. Jerry did not feel lovable and was deeply guarded. When a piano belonging to Aunt Clara was parked in the Bernstein hallway, Lenny, aged 10, found his reason to be. In 1962, he saved A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), a musical farce starring Zero Mostel, Jack Gilford, David Burns, and John Carradine. In 1949 Robbins left Ballet Theatre to join George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein's newly formed New York City Ballet as Associate Artistic Director. Sondheim wrote and Robbins staged an entirely new opening number, "Comedy Tonight", which explained to the audience what was to follow, and the show played successfully from then on. When Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins met 75 years ago, they were young men hungry for their Big Break. Backstage and atmospheric photography by Gabriela Celeste or Erin Baiano. Hard to believe now that the suits at Columbia Records, when Bernstein and Sondheim auditioned the score for them, thought it was too advanced, too wordy, too rangyand no one can sing Maria. This masterpiece continues to defy category, though Laurents came closest when he called it lyric theater. As Martin Charnin, an original Jet who went on to direct and write his own shows, says today, You know how theres Mount Everest and then there are mountains? Choreography by George Balanchine The George Balanchine Trust. May 20, 2001. With this musical, Robbins blurred the lines between drama and dance as no one had done before. In the Middle Ages travelling minstrels and troupes of actors, dancers and singers performed popular songs and slapstick comedy. That was my contract with life, with God. At the height of his mastery on Broadway he insisted that his billing include a box around his name, showcasing his contribution, protecting it, arms crossed around it. Two more Robbins-Bernstein ballets came in 1946 and 1950Facsimile and Age of Anxiety, both psycho-analytically probingbut they are now lost. To help the young cast grow into their roles, Robbins did not allow those playing members of opposite gangs (Jets and Sharks) to mix during the rehearsal process. Nobody matches Jerry in musical theater. Were 70 years on in the life of that ballet and it is so alive, says Damian Woetzel, the incoming president of the Juilliard School and a former principal dancer at the New York City Ballet, where he danced Robbinss own role in Fancy Free. West Side Story created by Lenard Bernstein, Steven Sondheim, Arthur Laurents, and Jerome Robbins tell the story of Romeo and Juliet in 1950s New York. Said Robbins later: "What [she] gave me immediately was the absolute freedom to make up my own dances without inhibition or doubts." He was awarded three honorary doctorates including an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in 1980 from the City University of New York and an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from New York University in 1985. How did Bob Fosse influence jazz dance? He contributed a great body of superb work to our dance culture, represented all over the world, and in the continuous performances of musicals during the last 35 years. Jerome Robbins was caught between the moon and New York City. Both were artists in love with classicism, trained in European traditions yet bending them to their new-world will. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. In 1954, Robbins collaborated with George Abbott on The Pajama Game (1954), which launched the career of Shirley MacLaine, and created, choreographed, and directed the Mary Martin vehicle, Peter Pan (which he re-staged for an Emmy Award-winning television special in 1955, earning himself a nomination for best choreography). Robbins insisted that the show be cast with young unknowns who could dance as well as singbecause dance is a tribal language, primal and powerful. Influenced initially by the work of Jack Cole, Fred Astaire, and Jerome Robbins, Fosse was fluent in a dizzying mix of styles: in Redhead alone he incorporated elements of the ballet, jazz, march, cancan, gypsy dance, and the traditional English music-hall. Soon after that he choreographed The Guests, a ballet about intolerance. Top, Bernstein at work in New York City, 1958; bottom, a scene from Broadways West Side Story in 1957. But when it was put into the context of conducting or composing, suddenly his sense of rhythm was spectacularits what gives his music a thumbprint. The first quintessentially American choreographer, he fulfilled the American dream without ever fitting it: a small-town boy who. They were having a real good time, obviously. Bob Fosse is a choreographer, dancer and director best known for Tony Award-winning musicals including 'Chicago' and 'Cabaret.' He directed the Ford 50th Anniversary Show with Mary Martin and Ethel Merman for television in 1953, followed by a 1955 telecast of Peter Pan for which he received an Emmy Award. Mattox created a movement vocabulary that infused a mix of ballet, modern, tap, and flamenco with a propulsive energy. Bernstein and Robbins during an N.Y.C.B. Unlike previous choreographers, Robbins used the natural movement of the characters as the starting point for his choreography. Regarding Jerry, Bernsteins view was simple: We have to cater to genius. How did Jerome Robbins influence Bob Fosse? Leave it to Jerome Robbins to choreograph a dance of inner conflict that lasts the length of a shutters click. His only visible ear, the right, is largeand as centrally positioned in the portrait as middle C. Is this a fin de sicle poet dressed for the theater? Six months later the project was abandoned, no explanations. He was a director of musicals, plays, movies, and television programs. He just axed it all. (Gypsy was just around the corner.) Privately, Bernstein called it a dreadful experience. The Robbins biographer Amanda Vaill suggests that Robbins may have become just too authoritarian for his On the Town family. Two years after that, he directed and choreographed Bells are Ringing (1956), followed by the historic, operatic, and balletic West Side Story (1957). He had the ability to make the most complex movement appear effortless, and totally reflective of the musical score, as if it were created spontaneously for that exact moment in time. But this was one more thing that Lenny and Jerry had in commonbisexuality. The photographs on this website depict choreography copyrighted by the individual choreographers. Influenced initially by the work of Jack Cole, Fred Astaire, and Jerome Robbins, Fosse was fluent in a dizzying mix of styles: in Redhead alone he incorporated elements of the ballet, jazz, march, cancan, gypsy dance, and the traditional English music-hall. His fourfold eminence as a conductor of the worlds greatest orchestras, a composer of music in myriad forms, a concert pianist, and a teacher on television and at Tanglewood added up to a matchless legacy of accessibility and eloquence, gravity and theatricality, intellectual precision and ecstatic transport. The production ran over a year off-Broadway and was transferred to Broadway for a short run in 1963, after which Robbins directed Anne Bancroft in a revival of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children. Jerome Robbins (born 11 October 1918 in New York City) was the younger of two children of Harry Rabinowitz, who emigrated to America from Poland in 1904, and his wife Lena Rips. Their last collaboration to see the stage was a work they had wanted to do since Fancy Frees premiere. And the one thing that Jerry did not trust was his instinct. His infernal second-guessingan aesthetic integrity that had him tossing out thrilling ideas in search of even better, truer onescould get maddening, irrational. By Martha Swope/Billy Rose Theatre Collection, The New York Public Library. As we were rehearsing we keep hearing guys talking, says Silvey. He was simultaneously creating ballets for the New York City Ballet, which he joined in 1949 as Associate Artistic Director with George Balanchine. After inundating company management with over-ambitious ideas for ballets, Robbins finally offered up a timely, simple scenariothree wartime sailors on shore leave in Manhattan. aligning, says John Guare. How did Jerome Robbins influence Bob Fosse? Jerome Robbins is world renowned for his work as a choreographer of ballets as well as his work as a director and choreographer in theater, movies and television. He also performed uncredited show doctoring on the musicals A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1951), Wish You Were Here (1952), Wonderful Town (1953), and choreographed and directed several sketches for The Ford 50th Anniversary Show, starring Mary Martin and Ethel Merman on CBS.[11]. Dybbuk was an attempt to evoke the magical spirit of their heritage. Robbins planned to dramatize the story, to play to his greatest strength. In 1949, a first try by Robbins, Bernstein, and the writer Arthur Laurents, which substituted Catholics and Jews for Capulets and Montagues, went nowhere. This man, barefoot and wiry, wears a turtleneck and black tights cropped at the calf. It was like dealing with a dead whale in the room. A collaboration as frequent and close as theirs is a marriage, says Sondheim. But he was still uncomfortable in his own skin, hot-tempered with his collaborators, and a slave driver at work, demanding every minute, every second, of time owed him. And Jerry would be standing over him and hed clutch Lennys shoulders as if he were a musical instrument. Helping his lover, the actor Montgomery Clift, figure out how the role of Romeo might be refashioned in the present tense, Robbins thought, Why not create a contemporary Romeo and Juliet? It was a big, big deal, Lenny and Jerry working together again, remembers Jean-Pierre Frohlich, who oversees the Robbins repertory at N.Y.C.B. And certainly never Lenny. Images, Digital Colorization by Impact Digital. No matter what the material was, says Guare, if Jerry wanted to do it, people would follow him. And if the material wasnt right? The movie, filled with exhilarating dance sequences choreographed by Jerome Robbins and memorable songsincluding "Tonight," "Maria," and "Somewhere"by Leonard Bernstein (music) and Stephen Sondheim (lyrics), won 10 of the 11 Academy Awards for which it was nominated, including that for best picture. unhampered by tradition. Paging West Side Story. 2023 Cond Nast. Thus the movement might be jazzy or balletic, romantic or angular, athletic or even a little bumbling, depending on the circumstances: even in A Chorus Line the dancers' execution becomes . However, she did not seriously pursue a career in the profession until she was a student . Even Bernstein, who wrote the music for that show, came in for a pounding, at least psychologically, when Robbins crossed out some of his . Exuberance shoots through Lennys updates, letters of magical rapport and full of cocky confidence, just like the sailors in the ballet. Rock Musicals e.g. Both could make him sweat. It was too exposing. When Bernstein told People magazine, The ballet is based on our experience in Jewishness, Robbins corrected him: It isnt.. As Adam Green, Adolphs son, wrote in these pages, the four agreed that all the elements of the show would work as an integrated unit, with story, songs, and dancing all growing out of one another.. West Side Story is a contemporary version of Romeo and Juliet, set on the Upper West Side. West Side Story did, however, earn Robbins his second Tony Award for choreography. Robbins, though willing to confess to past party membership, resisted naming names of others with similar political connections; he held out for three years until, according to two family members in whom he confided, he was threatened with public exposure of his homosexuality. Robert Louis "Bob" Fosse was born on June 23, 1927, in Chicago, Illinois. The show, with music by Leonard Bernstein, marked the first collaboration between Robbins and Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the lyrics, as well as Arthur Laurents, who wrote the book. He established and partially endowed the Jerome Robbins Film Archive of the Dance Collection of the New York City Public Library at Lincoln Center. He continued to choreograph and stage productions for both the Joffrey Ballet and the New York City Ballet into the 1970s. His parents were Russian Jewish immigrants who had many connections in show business including vaudeville performers and theatre owners. His work is characterized by the intensity and compactness of its expression and its wide variety of mood whether it be rhapsodic, introspective, poignant, or hilarious. The Wiz/More varied musical and dance genres used August 14, 2014. All he needed was a score, which took him to Bernsteins studio in Carnegie Hall. In the early 1940s, when young Jerome Robbins was a dancer in a newly founded company, Ballet Theatre, he already had ambitions to be a choreographer, and he finally presented a scenario that. He won acclaim for highly innovative ballets structured within the traditional framework of classical dance movements. Until the end of their lives, Lenny and Jerrys respect for each other, their mutual support, never wavered. Jerry wanted to dig deeper and deeper. In 1940, Robbins joined Ballet Theatre (later known as American Ballet Theatre). Leonard Bernstein never looked more beautiful. He co-directed and choreographed the movie West Side Story (1960), for which he received two Academy Awards. His first musical, On the Town, (1945), was followed by Billion Dollar Baby (1946), High Button Shoes (1947), Look, Ma, I'm Dancing (which he co-directed with George Abbott in 1948), Miss Liberty (1949), Call Me Madame (1950), and the ballet "Small House of Uncle Thomas" in The King and I (1951). And the excitement was realized. Robbins was only the second director to win the Academy Award for Best Director for a film debut (after Delbert Mann for Marty). The plot, about Jews living in Russia near the beginning of the 20th century, allowed Robbins to return to his religious roots. The work was tailor-made for them. He wasnt a mensch. Jerome Robbins was one of the founding members of the Ballet Theatre when it was formed in 1940 portraying a variety of roles for several years before devising his own creations such as 'Fancy Free' about 3 sailors on leave in New York which marked a long association with Leonard Bernstein. But there's another, relatively unsung hero, and his name is Andy Blankenbuehler. Top, from Nara Archives/Rex/Shutterstock; bottom, by Hank Walker/The Life Images Collection/Getty Images. Robbins's primacy on Broadway and in ballet was assured; but he did more than reach the top in his two spheres of influence. From 1941 through 1944, Robbins was a soloist with the company, attracting notice for his performance as Hermes in Helen of Troy, the title role in Petrouchka, the Youth in Agnes de Mille's Three Virgins and a Devil, and Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet; he also came under the influence of the choreographers Michel Fokine, Antony Tudor, and George Balanchine. Jerome Robbins has influenced the commercial dance sector massively with his productions such as West Side Story still being recreated and performed to this day. Perhaps known under the auspice of 'Matt Mattox technique', Mattox's interpretation and approach to jazz dance has been practiced . Export: Opus Jazz (1958), Moves (1959), and Events (1961). In 1956 Robbins's muse, Tanaquil LeClercq, contracted polio and was paralyzed; for the next decade Robbins largely withdrew from his activities at New York City Ballet, but he established his own small dance company, Ballets USA, which premiered at the inaugural season of Gian Carlo Menotti's Festival of the Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy in June 1958, toured Europe and the US under the auspices of the State Department, and appeared on television on The Ed Sullivan Show. Starring Jason Alexander as the narrator (a performance that would win Alexander a Tony), the show included stagings of cut numbers like Irving Berlin's Mr. Monotony and well-known ones like the "Tradition" number from Fiddler on the Roof. The aesthetics of jazz dance have forever made an impact on the dance world. Today, people are constantly fusing styles to make new forms of dance and this is what Robbins was doing. Among his numerous stage productions were On the Town, Peter Pan, High Button Shoes, The King and I, The Pajama Game, Bells Are Ringing, West Side Story, Gypsy, and . Jerry would not give him that opening. Again, Jerry walked out of the projectin the middle of casting, no lessand Lenny burst into tears. Fosse had he no reservations about drawing upon the facts of his own . Finally I walk all the way up onstage and yell, Quiet on the gallery! I look up and theres Jerry and Lenny, side by side, looking over the rail at me. The 1980s saw an increased presence on TV as NBC aired Live From Studio 8H: An Evening of Jerome Robbins' Ballets with members of the New York City Ballet, and a retrospective of Robbins's choreography aired on PBS in a 1986 installment of Dance in America. At the end of that tunnel I could see light where the world opened up, waiting for me., Note the shared language of rapture. When Serge Koussevitzky, one of the several conductors who mentored Lenny, and himself a Jew, suggested he Anglicize his name to Leonard S. Burns, he replied, Ill do it as Bernstein or not at all. (Pronounced Bern-stine, with a long i.). Jerome Robbins received world renown as a choreographer of ballets created for the New York City Ballet, Ballets U.S.A., American Ballet Theatre, and other international companies. Im out in the house and even the dancers are kind of annoyed. personal life That same year, Robbins would become one of the first members of New York City's newly formed Actors Studio, attending classes held by founding member Robert Lewis three times a week, alongside classmates including Marlon Brando, Maureen Stapleton, Montgomery Clift, Herbert Berghof, Sidney Lumet, and about 20 others. The second features chamber music masterpieces, including the composer's well-known String Quartet performed by Quartet Integra. Bernsteins would come a month later, when on November 14 he took the podium at Carnegie Hallwithout rehearsal!and conducted for the ailing Bruno Walter. [13] Robbins named the names of persons he said were Communists, including actors Lloyd Gough and Elliot Sullivan, dance critic Edna Ocko, filmmaker Lionel Berman, playwright Jerome Chodorov, his brother Edward Chodorov, Madeline Lee Gilford and her husband Jack Gilford, who were blacklisted for their perceived political beliefs and had their careers suffer noticeably, to the point Gilford and his wife often had to borrow money from friends to make ends meet. During rehearsals for it, an incident happened that became a part of Robbins and Broadway lore: the choreographer, preoccupied by giving directions to the dancers, backed up onstage until he fell into the orchestra pit. And, man, you couldnt wait to go home and write after you got finished talking to Jerry. His downbeat, delivered against an upward thrust in the torso, has an instantaneous rebound, like that of a tennis ball, wrote the distinguished dance critic Edwin Denby. Jack Cole, born John Ewing Richter, in New Brunswick, New Jersey.Early on he decided to pursue dance with the Denishawn Dance Company led by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. It didnt help that in 1953, threatened by the House Un-American Activities Committee with a public outing of his homosexual relationships, Robbins named names. Although he gave this testimony only after years of pressure, and threats to make public his sexual orientation, his naming names caused resentment among some of his artistic colleagues, including blacklisted actors Jack Gilford[17] and Zero Mostel, who, while working on Fiddler on the Roof "openly disdained Robbins". Paul R. Laird and David Schiff. Oxford Music Online. One of the greats who made this impact . His career as a gifted ballet dancer developed with Ballet Theatre where he danced with special distinction the role of Petrouchka, and character roles in the works of Fokine, Tudor, Massine, Lichine and de Mille, and of course his first choreographic sensation: Fancy Free (1944). Jerome Robbins was an American theater producer and dance choreographer best known for his work in Broadway Theater and ballet/dance. At an early age, Dunham became interested in dance. Left, Philippe Halsman/Magnum Photos; Right, United Artists/Photofest, Digital Colorization by Lee Ruelle. Jazz is so much more than sleek finger snaps, sharp hips, and jazz hands. Robbins's next musical was a jazz-age fable,Billion Dollar Baby (1945). His debut made the front page of The New York Times, and the skinny kid, soon dubbed the Sinatra of the concert hall, soared to stardom. They were probably up in Jerrys officetheres a door from the fourth-floor hallway that goes right into that galleryand they just sneaked in to look down and see what was happening onstage. And it wasnt metaphorical. He took over the direction of two troubled productions during this period and helped turn them into successes. He's the one . Jerome Robbins. He nevertheless staged Les Noces for City Ballet in 1998, his last project. How did Jerome Robbins influence Bob Fosse? Jerry just breathed theater, says the composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, who worked with both men. Jerome Robbins, original surname Rabinowitz, (born Oct. 11, 1918, New York, N.Y., U.S.died July 29, 1998, New York City), one of the most popular and imaginative American choreographers of the 20th century. He had the ability to make the most complex movement appear effortless, and totally reflective of the musical score, as if it were created spontaneously for that exact moment in time. Categories . The boy attended a. by Philippe Halsman, 1959; right, director-choreographer Robbins on the set of West Side Story with Chakiris and Verso. . time. repertory this spring, a tale of two souls fated and luminously fused. And despite his wit and charm after hours, Robbins at work used confrontation and cruelty to get his way. In the summer of 1937 Robbins began dancing and choreographing at Tamiment, a progressive-movement resort in Pennsylvania's Pocono mountains which featured a resident singing-acting-dancing troupe and weekend revues starring emerging talents like Danny Kaye, Imogene Coca, and Carol Channing. The streak of hits continued with Gypsy (1959), starring Ethel Merman. Or like two boy wondersco-pilots on the same comet. 30 films. how did jerome robbins influence jazz And the rhythm of your pas de deux is something startlinghard at first, but oh so danceable with the pelvis! Some friends who knew them then have said that Bernstein and Robbins had a brief affair. With Jerome in one of the leading roles it opened at . West Side Story (done by Robbins) was co-choreographed by a former Fosse student. . Management bit. Off-Broadway, he directed the play by Arthur Kopit, Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feeling So Sad (1962). In the early 1920s, the Rabinowitz family moved to Weehawken, New Jersey. Carol Lawrence, the original Maria in West Side Story, has said that Lenny would bring in new music and he would play it for us. A documentary about Robbins's life and work, Something to Dance About, featuring excerpts from his journals, archival performance and rehearsal footage, and interviews with Robbins and his colleagues, premiered on PBS in 2009 and won both an Emmy and a Peabody Award the same year. Throughout its history, jazz . 1. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Penn Badgley Loves His Wife Too Much to Do Sex Scenes in, I askedSera Gamble, the creator, Can I just do no more intimacy scenes? the former, Inside Thom Browne's Fantastical New York Fashion Week Show With Penn Badgley, Queen Latifah and Lil Nas X. Every individual style of jazz dance has roots traceable to one of these two distinct origins. Sandor also encouraged him to take ballet, which he did with Ella Daganova; in addition he studied Spanish dancing with Helen Veola; Asian dance with Yeichi Nimura; and dance composition with Bessie Schonberg. Jerry flipped. . . All rights reserved. . Bernstein wrote the music and Smith designed the sets. mix of styles: in Redhead alone he incorporated elements of the ballet, jazz, march, cancan, gypsy dance, and the traditional English music-hall. A storyteller in movement, Robbins daily murdered his darlings and those of his colleaguesdance phrases that were too fancy or distracting, music, text, and emotion that were too much. Early Life of Bob Fosse. Because Robbins was touring with Ballet Theatre, much of the collaboration on Fancy Frees score took place through the mail. Gene Kelly was born in the Highland Park district of Pittsburgh on August 23, 1912. Among the dances he created for Ballets USA were N.Y. The genesis, impact, and influence of West Side Story has been explained and analyzed in countless histories and memoirs. The show starred Zero Mostel as Tevye and ran for 3242 performances, setting the record (since surpassed) for longest-running Broadway show. Unlike previous choreographers, Robbins used the natural movement of the characters as the starting point for his choreography. Matt Mattox, the renowned dancer, choreographer and teacher who helped shape contemporary jazz dance in the United States and Europe, died on February 18, 2013 in France aged 91. Dance Style of Bob Fosse Fosse's unique jazz dance style was stylish, sexy, and easily recognized. In 1957, he conceived, choreographed, and directed West Side Story. Lenny was educated at Harvard and then on scholarship at the Curtis Institute of Music. He was a director of musicals, plays, movies, and television programs. Theres no explaining why he had this incredible aptitude for rhythm, but it is true that he synthesized what he got out of Hebrew cantillation, and the music and dancing in that world, combined with his getting really obsessed with what were called race records, in his college yearsBillie Holiday and Lead Bellyto say nothing of Stravinsky and Gershwin. yes, thats it., This was the kind of hands-on collaboration that Bernsteinwho never liked being alone in a roomwould always love. A mere eight months later, on December 28, 1944, On the Town opened on Broadway, directed by that granddaddy of the stage George Abbott. I felt totally immersed in it and lost, she says, lost in the music. Dybbuk comes back into N.Y.C.B. For the movie, Robbins was brought on as a co-director with Robert Wise, taking the helm for the choreographed segments, while Wise covered the narrative scenes. At this time, most of Penns subjects were middle-aged and long-established, but not these two. The prizes should "lean toward the arts of dance" The first two Jerome Robbins Awards were bestowed in 2003 to New York City Ballet and to lighting designer Jennifer Tipton.[21]. Yet his torso twists in another direction, and his arms are held tightly behind his back, hidden as if handcuffed. A genius for me means endlessly inventive, says Sondheim. These were true American voices that were addressing what it meant to be American, through dance and music. 0. how did jerome robbins influence jazz. Legendary dancer, choreographer and anthropologist Katherine Dunham was born June 22, 1909, to an African American father and French-Canadian mother who died when she was young. Serving Denver's small businesses. In 1944, flush with the future, they were both drawn backward to a Yiddish classic of 1920S. His expression is wary. It is a confident, demanding presence that hypnotizes audiences and allows them to be their purest self. When their strengths came into alignment it was like the stars Robbins recreated his stage dances for The King and I for the 1956 film version. Robbins had come to a place of peace about being a Jew. The New York premiere was September 26, 1957: Jets and Sharks; Polish-Irish-Italian Americans vs. Puerto Ricans; Tony and Maria. This ballet, followed by Interplay (1945) and Facsimile (1946), was performed by Ballet Theatre, after which he embarked on a prolific and enormously successful career as a choreographer and later as a director of Broadway musicals and plays. A journey into the world of Jerome Robbin's Broadway is more than just a trip down memory lane. He said that one of his inspirations for this ballet had been Paul Cadmus's 1934 painting The Fleet's In!, even though it was lighthearted, which the painting decidedly was not. Robbins displayed an early interest in music, dancing, and theatrics whilst at school. The first program includes students from the Trudl Zipper Dance Institute, who will dance choreography by Jerome Robbins to live performances of Debussy's music. When he went over to work with Lenny he headed directly to the studio. Nobody had Jerrys invention. (When you make your first work with someone, Robbins would say in an interview before Dybbuks premiere, it makes for a certain bond.) And the plays focus on the existential secrets of the Kabbalah had a Promethean subtext, the reaching after cosmicread artisticpower. how did jerome robbins influence jazz. According to Dan Duell, the artistic director of Ballet Chicago, Robbins wanted to capture the rarefied atmosphere that was still alive and breathing there.