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BLAINE
archives          
THURSDAY, MARCH 3, 1983

Critic's Notebook
'Civilized' Dances in

by JACK ANDERSON
Among the pleasures of attending the San Francisco Ballet's recent 50th anniversary gala at the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House was that seeing choreography by Lew Christensen.  One of three dancing brothers - the others being William and Harold Christensen - who have guided the San Francisco troupe over the years, Lew Christensen became company director in 1952.  However, much of his choreography is unknown in New York because his company has not been a frequent visitor here.

EDWIN DENBY
TURNS 80:
(my dear old friend & former neighbor)
N Blaine

This season, New Yorkers saw choreography by Mr. Christensen when the New York City Ballet presented his "Norwegian Moods," a pas de deux for a happy couple.  Like many of his works, it suggests that Mr. Christensen has a profound respect for the art and craft of classical ballet.  Long may he thrive.

That same wish can also be extended to Edwin Denby, who turned 80 on Feb. 4.  Although Mr. Denby is a distinguished dance writer, he would probably consider himself first of all a poet.  Certainly his poetic abilities have influenced his dance writing.
Born in China, where his father was American Consul in Shanghai, Mr. Denby was educated at Harvard and the University of Vienna.  In the 1920s he contemplated becoming psychoanalyst, but he also studied modern dance and joined a company in Darmstadt.  He said in conversation that the turned down a job with a group in Essen because he felt intimidated by its director.  He thereby lost the chance to perform under the guidance of Kurt Jooss, who shortly after this incident gained international acclaim as a choreographer.
After moving to New York in the 30's, Mr. Denby translated a French farce for Orson Welles, wrote a libretto for Aaron Copland and became dance critic for Modern Music in 1936.  From 1942 to 1945, when Walter Terry, the paper's regular critic, was in military service, Mr. Denby was dance critic for The New York Herald-Tribune.  (Across the aisle, for the New York Times, was John Martin, who will be 90 on June 2.)  From 1945 onward, Mr. Denby contributed to several American and English publications.  However, in recent years, what he acknowledges as a writer's block has limited his productivity.  He is the author of two influential books of dance criticism, "Looking at the Dance" (1949) and "Dancers, Buildings and People in the Streets" (1965), and his "Collected Poems" appeared in 1975.

I am mentioned in this book (1965)

Mr. Denby's poetry is usually formal - he is particularly fond of the sonnet - and in his choice of themes he prefers observing the world around him to introspection.  He once said, "I don't have any inner life."  That may be an overstatement. But what can't be doubted is that he has a good eye, and his keenness of vision and stylistic elegance are evident throughout his dance writing.  What makes his prose distinctive is the way he attempts to convey the look and significance of stage action through poetic imagery.
Sometimes his metaphors combine visual with kinesthetic images a when, in discussing Bronislava Nijinska's "Chopin Concerto," he contrasts groups possessing "the weight of statues" with "rapid arrowy flights" of soloists.  Elsewhere, his imagery can be fanciful.  Yet it is always apt. Thus he likens Mr. Balanchine's "Danses Concertantes" to a conversation in Henry James; he declares that the graciousness of "Raymonda" represents a revolutionary conception of society; he finds the Paris Opera Ballet's ensemble dancing akin to a party at which everyone talks at once and, in reviewing Mr. Balanchine's "Concerto Barocco," he called the moment when a ballerina's foot touches ground in a descent from a lift a "deliberate and powerful plunge into a wound."
Mr. Denby's comments on dance are full of surprises.  Indeed, they can be as surprising as dancing itself.