Feature Stories

The Robbins-Tomasson Connection

Jerome Robbins, born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz in 1918, the only son of music-loving Russian Jewish immigrants, was the kind of complex, fascinating man that befits a legend. And legendary he remains, eight years after his death. His works are praised for their sense of community, evocative imagery, truth, and poignant beauty; the man himself for his gift as a dancer, as a choreographer who bridged the worlds of ballet and Broadway, and as an artistic complement to George Balanchine. A perfectionist with more than his share of personal demons, to some he seemed like an artiste terrible. But for Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson, Robbins was more than a choreographer, more than New York City Ballet’s associate director. From his first encounter with the teenaged Tomasson in Iceland in 1959, Robbins acted as a mentor to a young man who eventually would play his own definitive role in American ballet.

Tomasson was 17 when Robbins brought his company, Ballets: USA, to Iceland on tour. The young dancer’s teacher urged him to take class with the company, and so he did. Robbins offered him a scholarship to study at New York’s School of American Ballet; although he had already danced professionally, Tomasson says, “that didn’t mean that I couldn’t get better training under my belt.” He accepted Robbins’ invitation, never imagining that New York City Ballet’s studios would one day be his home for 15 years.

The following spring Robbins invited Tomasson to audition for the next incarnation of Ballets: USA. It was a “cattle call” audition, held in a cavernous Broadway theater. “It was my first time being in a huge theater with maybe 200 people,” recalls Tomasson. “He kept eliminating and eliminating, and I was always in the group that stayed. By the end he was down to maybe five or six [dancers] . I was disappointed that he didn’t take me into the company at that time, but thinking back on it, I realize that it would have been the wrong thing. He told me, ‘I think you need to dance in a more classical company.’ ”

In 1969, Tomasson, then dancing with the Harkness Ballet, decided to enter the first International Ballet Competition, to be held in Moscow. But what should he dance? Robbins “was always behind the scenes, keeping track of me,” says Tomasson, “so I went to him to see if he would choreograph a solo for me for the competition. Now I think, what nerve I had to go to him! He said he didn’t have time for that, but he had just choreographed Dances at a Gathering and there were a couple of solos in there. He taught them to me and I performed them for him, and I ended up doing the etude one. It was the only time I am aware of that Jerry ever let anybody dance anything of his at a competition.”

Tomasson returned from the Moscow competition with a silver medal and a new realization of what the future could hold for him. The Harkness Ballet was about to embark on a European tour, and Tomasson wanted to get out of his contract. He went to Robbins for advice and subsequently honored his contract. On returning from the tour he found a message from Balanchine’s secretary awaiting him, asking him to join New York City Ballet. “I found out after the fact that Jerry had gone to Mr. B [on my behalf ] ,” says Tomasson. “I also found out that Mr. B had seen me dance at one point and had really liked my dancing. Jerry just made the [connection]—again, he was always there for me.”

At New York City Ballet, Tomasson danced in many of Robbins’ timeless ballets, including some of his favorites: Dances at a Gathering, In the Night, Afternoon of a Faun, Other Dances, Dybbuk. When asked to characterize Robbins, he replies, “He was a great American choreographer. Balanchine was too, but I think of him as of the Russian school. Jerry came from America, that melting pot. His diversity shows how it influenced him. He Americanized ballet for us. Balanchine found his inspiration in the complexities of the music—that was his driving force—but Jerry was always looking at what people did, at life. That’s why he was so good at what he did on Broadway, because he could bring that to the stage. There was such humanism in his works.”

Although Robbins had a reputation as being difficult to work with, even cruel at times, Tomasson saw another side of him. “I always enjoyed him,” he says. “I never was a recipient of that sort of behavior. I think part of it was that he demanded so much of himself—he was an absolute perfectionist. He expected that anyone in the studio with him had to give as much as he did. That doesn’t always happen, and he would get upset and frustrated. I truly liked working with him. It was difficult at times because he would change things so much, from day to day. Sometimes he would even go back and say, ‘Do you remember what we did yesterday?’ That was sort of the norm. You would have to remember the versions he was discarding, and if you didn’t he would get upset because he wouldn’t remember.

“Jerry needed to work with people who he felt comfortable with, whom he liked,” continues Tomasson, “whereas Mr. B— not that he didn’t need it—could block that out. He would just use what he needed. But Jerry needed to feel liked by the people around him, or at least that they were there for him.”

Robbins influenced Tomasson’s career even after he stopped dancing, telling the San Francisco Ballet Board of Directors to look no further than the New York City Ballet principal dancer for their new artistic director. Once Tomasson was hired, Robbins gave him carte blanche to use any of his ballets for his new company.

Robbins’ quiet, behind-the-scenes stewardship of Tomasson’s career reveals much about his true nature, but Tomasson’s personal memories of his mentor are equally telling. “When I have an image of Jerry, so often it’s of him laughing—that easy laugh,” he says. Robbins often showed a generosity of spirit, as he did in one of Tomasson’s favorite stories about him. After sharing a meal with Tomasson’s family one evening, Robbins showed up at the studio the next day toting a brown bag. “Here,” he said, shoving it into Tomasson’s hands and muttering something about how its contents would look better in his house than in his own. In the bag were three plates, painted with scenes of French puppet theater, just like the five antique plates he must have noticed hanging on the wall at the Tomassons’ house. “They were absolutely complementary,” says Tomasson. “They were done at a different time because the glazing is slightly different, but they were of the same theater. I had heard that he could be very frugal, and yet he could be extremely generous.”

This great artist—a man whose harshly criticized testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s seems to have led to much personal suffering, who struggled with issues of belonging and heritage, who demanded nothing less than excellence from himself and everyone around him—gave more than his dancing and choreography to the art of dance. He shaped the career of a young dancer who would, in turn, nurture dozens of young artists, become a respected choreographer, and transform a regional company into a world-renowned one. As Tomasson thumbs through a mental scrapbook of his life, he understands that he must have held a rare place in Robbins’ heart, that Robbins may have thought of himself as more than a mentor—perhaps even a father figure—to him. “Maybe he took pride that there was this young teenager in Iceland that he discovered,” Tomasson muses. “Maybe he took a lot of pride in that.”

-Cheryl Ossola