In the book she wrote about him, dance reviewer Deborah Jowitt says, "He built an image of community. The dancers may face the audience quite a lot of the time, but they seem to be dancing for each other and with each other. Inaugurating a device that heightened this impression -- a device he would use many times -- Robbins made them spectators too. The men lounge on the floor and watch the women as they weave nonchalantly around the area."

http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?sid=33&pid=486063&agid=2
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Robbins built an image of community, but having watched his ballets, some numerous times, I believe that underlying everything he did was a spirituality deeply felt though not often a subject chosen by dance critics and reviewers.

As I sat in the house, I continually had poems come to me. The poems showed me spiritual themes brought into play in the ballets Robbins created made about people and their dramas.

Some Robbins' ballets are seemingly abstract, and yet, no dancing role - no being in his ballets -comes to us faceless or without character and without a reason for being.

As I wrote this blog piece, I found the following commentary from the New York Times's John Rockwell writing in 2006: that there were some "who found Robbins a truer, fresher representation of American dance than the Russian-trained Balanchine, for all his dalliances in theater and film. Some today speculate that in 50 years Robbins will be held in higher esteem than Balanchine."

Rockwell hoped that Balanchine's and Robbins' relationship might one day seem less sun and moon and more a double sun, and continued, "As Bob Fosse once put it, with sweet self-deprecation, 'I think Balanchine and Robbins talk to God, and when I call, he's out to lunch.' "

Robbins ballets inform us about ourselves and our life on earth. Whether the dancers are viewed as men and women, families with children, or an older person in a meadow or a town center or the space of earth and stage, the dancers Robbins' cast and who dance for us today show us something about eternity, the place where eternity resides in us, and the part of ourselves that is incredibly human (with all our foibles), as well as transcendent.

I believe that Robbins was looking for something through the dance and through exploring the variables of his craft. I hope that he found it, for I certainly have. And every time I watch one of his ballets, this great master teaches me more, reveals more. The dancers help, of course.

As John Rockwell wrote, from the same Times' article: "Robbins spent his life torn: between his Jewish heritage and the American mainstream of his day, between Broadway and ballet, between gay and straight (though he clearly preferred men despite his deep love for some women: above all, maybe, Tanaquil LeClercq, even when she was married to Balanchine)."

I'm going to give you a closer look at this theme through poetry that came in as I watched Robbins' ballets as danced by New York City Ballet, and then by a look at a problematic Robbins' ballet for some folks, The Dybbuk, which I only saw once but which immediately presented to me Robbins' grappling with spirituality, the Dybbuk theme in religion, and the idea of duality.

SEEING (Goldberg Variations, Part I)

Tonight,
his was a song, a prayer, a benediction.
From his gaze and his direction
I saw fingertips touch across worlds
I saw bridges of lace, of rope, of steel, of bone
open, descend, draw up, extend.

Tonight,
his arms gave arcs to heaven
showing space wholly, fully
all the places it exists: above, below, between
its textures, stillnesses, its many guises.

Tonight,
his movement gave soliloquies
on the strength in delicacy,
on the power in taking time and care,
the way arms, hands, legs, bodies
give gifts to existence--
surprising space with what it never knew was there

Tonight, I saw
how a man moves alone in safety
how he moves in eternity
how he moves among masses
how he looks about and his seeing cherishes
giving each man and each woman a place and a significance
making each remarkable.

*
Teach me to see this way
and I will always listen
Show me such sights
and I will always hear your songs
This dancing speaks across the greatest distances
Fulfills unspoken promises, rejoices, absolves...

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Another poem, one of my favorites, was written while NYC Ballet's Sean Lavery and Kyra Nichols danced years ago. I sent this poem to Jerry Robbins and it elicited a wonderful note of appreciation from him, which I framed and will always cherish. Jerome Robbins and I shared a miraculous language that has not ceased with his passing.

SILENT COUNTRY, GOLDBERG PAS DE DEUX

Silence has never been held so
as on intaken breath
Hands
Space embraced
as long as
as long as
lost tears on her face
uncertainty in his eyes
as long as goodbye

They walk together through a silent country,
it is true the music tells them
how to move,
but it is Space that meets them,
Space without sound
opening itself, faceless and infinite,
full of undiscovered textures and colors,
nothing before they step into it,
supple limbs carving it ivory

She carries the silence with her
propels it in front of her
makes it her own
and as she falls,
she falls safely through it,
through a thousand hands
to his hands,
hands already there
always there for her
gentle, careful

He leads her
as she leads him:
The melody carries them, caressing,
tendrils of legs
pressing the space around him.
Oh, she is his.
He belongs.
The silence engulfs each step he finishes:

They have never been here;
They have never passed this way;
It was only a promise when she said, "Follow,"
and he came

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THE DYBBUK

The right side - the she - pale, fragile, almost invisible. Sometimes called Leah'le-Maria-Hope-Faith-Light. She is a fairy, a sylph, a heroine, a goddess.

Fragile, consummately good. Her face expresses her feelings, but she does little to follow them when things are terrible, when things need to be said
--shouted-- "It hurts!" "You bitch, bastard, rogue!" The rage has evaporated from her. So many years alone, she has watched, contemplated. The emotion here has been muted, is muted.

Leah'le skims over life. She won't put up a fight. She remains silent, in flight or hanging like sheer silk, until, until a slight breeze passing through--

But you know the rest, the story of it, when he touches her again and she allows herself to be possessed.

I hope you notice that there are not feelings here of like or dislike, of passing judgment. Leah'le is barely perceivable; she has given so much of herself away.

She cloaks something. She has had to be this way, or at least I have always felt that about her. There is no one at fault here. She is not at fault. She simply is.

The left side hurts - the He - black, dark, seething at times, entirely visible. Or held taut, all emotion held in; all the rage, frustration, screaming, unfairness. This side known as Hannan-Tony-Justice-Longing-Dybbuk-Light. Strong, willful, capable, confident, controlling, self-assured, knowledgeable.

He will bite your head off. He won't allow you to get away with anything. He roars. But so often, he holds on, and this causes pain. Because so much holding builds, builds, builds, turning the black red, blistering, enlarging until Hannan appears a monster, a Dybbuk, a dragon, taloned, with enormous wings and fiery tongue inside a human form.

Hannan wants so much. He yearns for his Leah'le or his word for her--justice. He has been deprived of her, and he feels it unfair, an unfairness larger than the bonds of heaven and earth.

Hannan is suffering and angry. He is destructive. He will kill, even the one he loves, out of blind rage and hurt. You can see this beast with the sad eyes, beautiful, regal, but when that wound is hit--by anyone, any thing, any word--the beast emerges, seeks revenge on anything in its path, even itself. It has never known another way.

Tao. The good red road. The path of least resistance. The road less travelled by. It allows each side to live, each to reveal itself, its story. To connect around core essence. The road is sentient and understands all. It is the ground of being, the central column of light, the touch of God, Goddess, Quan Yin, Buddha, the divine.

Here duality merges: vesica piscis
Union
the Beloved
Hannan+Leah'le
One
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If you enjoyed the poems, you can find more in the book, Symphony in C Dance Spirit Poems, available for purchase at http://www.lulu.com/content/811414