America Cultural Visionary
His life story has the makings of an epic motion picture. He was a complicated and conflicted man whose relentless drive and love of the arts made him one of the 20th century's most influential cultural movers and shakers. He was a poet, a critic, a pioneer and a visionary. Far less known than the names of the institutions and great artists whose careers he helped to start, Lincoln Kirstein (1907-1996) is remembered as a true champion of the arts in America.
This year marks the centennial of the birth of the man who brought us George Balanchine, the School of American Ballet, the New York City Ballet, and who was instrumental in the development of New York's Lincoln Center, Museum of Modern Art, and the American Shakespeare Festival.
The second child of Rose and Louis Kirstein, a wealthy Boston executive with Filene's Department Stores, of his siblings, younger brother George and sister Mina (10-years his elder), Kirstein was closest to Mina who was his confidant growing up; her free-spirited nature both echoing and at times at odds with Kirstein's views on the world. A gifted intellectual, Kirstein was an inconsistent student flunking out of a few prep schools on his way to earning a degree from Harvard in 1930. At Harvard he founded the modernist literary magazine Hound and Horn as well as the precursor organization to MOMA, the Harvard Society for Contemporary Art. Kirstein's interests extended into several areas of the arts, he was a painter, a collector and the author of some fifteen books on arts criticism, dance (including the life of Vaslav Nijinsky), and several volumes of his own poetry. He created the U.S.'s first dance archive and founded the short-lived but trailblazing magazine Dance Index.
Although Kirstein's interests and influence led him to become friends with noted writers T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and E.E. Cummings, poet W.H. Auden, photographer Walker Evans (who he practically discovered), composers Aaron Copeland and Virgil Thompson as well as businessman Nelson Rockefeller, Kirstein was perhaps most affected in his outlook on life by Ballet Russes impresario Sergei Diaghilev and George Ivanovich Gurdieff, who ran France's Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man and who espoused enlightenment through meditation. Both men spoke to the dreams and fears Kirstein harbored within him and would ultimately dictate the course of his life.
Ballet and Balanchine
Kirstein's mother was the first to introduce young Lincoln to dance and the arts, taking him to the symphony and to dance performances. From as early as age twelve Kirstein began to think critically about his feelings on what he felt constituted quality. The first ballet performance he witnessed "The Dance of the Hours" from Ponchielli's opera "La Gioconda" he found uninspiring. Subsequent performances he attended with his cousin Nat Wolfe of Anna Pavlova however sparked in him a lifelong love of ballet.
As a young man Kirstein took dance lessons first with a former student of Isadora Duncan and then with the legendary Michel Fokine. Too tall (6'3") and too awkward a mover, Kirstein gave up on a career as a dancer and instead turned his attentions toward establishing America's first major ballet institution pattered after institutions he admired in Europe.
After seeing his work as a choreographer with Diaghilev's Ballet Russes and meeting him in person in 1933, Kirstein saw Balanchine as a genius and convinced him to come to America to help him realize his dreams of creating a world-class American ballet company. The pair co-founded the School of American Ballet in 1934 and after years of financial struggles with forerunner ballet companies, the New York City Ballet.
"Lincoln not only believed in ballet but he believed in Balanchine," said veteran dance critic and editor of Ballet Review Francis Mason. "Balanchine wouldn't have come to this country so easily and started so auspiciously without Lincoln."
Going into his partnership with Balanchine Kirstein expected the relationship would be collaborative according to Martin Duberman, author of the biography The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein (Knopf, 2007). But within a few years of his arrival, says Duberman, "Balanchine began to distance himself from Kirstein as a collaborator."
Kirstein favored the themed ballets of the Ballet Russes, where dance, music and theatrical elements were given equal attention and he wanted Balanchine to create American themed ballets with the music of American composers of that ilk. Balanchine however wanted to take ballet in another direction -- his own.
"Balanchine and Kirstein were not close," said Nancy Goldner of The George Balanchine Foundation. "Balanchine was cordial with Kirstein but they were not friends."
All but locked out of the artistic direction of SAB and NYCB, Kirstein concentrated on being the organization's impresario, taking charge of the survival and growth of each organization.
"He was sort of a hovering spirit," says Goldner. "He presided over the whole thing. He raised funds for the company and school and sometimes became involved with costumes and suggesting themes for ballets as well as protecting Balanchine so he could do his work."
An Enigmatic Man
"Name a human quality and Lincoln had it and its opposite," says Duberman.
While a man of generosity and caring Kirstein's outward persona to most was rather imposing, if not terrifying. "He was always stalking about in his inevitable black suit and tie with his arms locked behind him scowling madly," said Duberman. "People were afraid of him and that kept a lot of them away from him which he wanted. He was not without his arrogance and even as a young man he did not suffer fools lightly that is, unless the fool was attractive enough."
"He was approachable if not a bit severe," recalled Mason.
Kirstein was known for being impatient and sometimes rude to everyone even his friends. In her recollections of Kirstein in a 2007 letter to the Dance Critic's Association, Barbara Weisberger, founder of the Pennsylvania Ballet and Balanchine's first child student at SAB pondered: "If we met today, would he give me a big bear hug (which he did at times) or would he tell me I was 'not his friend' (which he did just as often). I wonder."
Kirstein's erratic behavior could be explained by a bi-polar disorder he suffered from which manifested itself in episodes of odd behavior such as leaving in the middle of a dinner party without saying a word to anyone or being in conversation with someone as they walked down the street and then crossing the street without as much as a goodbye. At times throughout his life Kirstein was hospitalized for his mental illness, even receiving electric shock treatment.
In his biography of Kirstein, Duberman writes that in his teens Kirstein began to recognize he suffered from mental illness, describing himself as a "person of moods and fancies." In a letter to his sister Mina he confided that his mood swings deviated between very happy and very depressed with no halfway point.
Duberman feels Kirstein needed his gruff exterior to shelter a super-sensitive nature. "He had antenna out all over his body, he received and noticed everything."
Enormously curious and not able to be idle for very long, Kirstein's engagement of people in conversation was staccato. Says Goldner of her talks with him, "He would fire off questions at you boom, boom, boom."
When Kirstein wasn't pacing about (as was his practice), he was known to lurk quietly in doorways to watch a Balanchine class or rehearsal and at times when seated in one, would nod off.
Former NYCB principal Patricia Wilde recalled his lurking and pacing during her tenure in the 1950's and 60's. "He was a nervous and neurotic man," said Wilde.
Likewise, former NYCB star Patricia McBride remembered Balanchine once saying "It was so amazing that someone who had the physical presence of a dinosaur, could appear and disappear from site like a little pin."
A lifelong bisexual (preferring men), Kirstein participated in orgies and even an incestuous liaison with his brother George. During his half-century marriage (1941-91) to wife Fidelma Cadmus, sister of artist Paul Cadmus, Kirstein continued to see men and for a time his longtime lover Jensen Yow lived in the Kirstein's household. Although seemingly tolerant of Kirstein's gay relationships, Fidelma also suffered with bouts of mental illness and was institutionalized later in her life.
Kirstein's Legacy
In spite of his peculiarities and inconsistencies such as being a staunch supporter of all things American and yet dabbling with communism or his decrying modern dance and then embrace of choreographer Martha Graham's work and contributions of money to Paul Taylor's dance company, Kirstein was a mover of cultural mountains, amassing several lifetimes of personal accomplishments all the while not being completely satisfied with what he had achieved.
Kirstein is remembered for his contributions to dance in America, his writings, his unwavering integrity, and his indomitable service to the arts.
For more on Lincoln Kirstein visit www.nycballet.org