Balanchine Finds His America: A Tale of Love Lost and Ballet Reborn

In 1933, George Balanchine arrived in the United States, brought by even younger sponsors who had dreamed of inventing an American ballet. He came with extraordinary skills: he had trained as a child in Russia's imperial dance academy, he had absorbed the utopian ideals of the Russian revolution, and he had spent nine years in a culturally volatile interwar Europe. But on a new continent, his career was blocked by local biases, global politics, and even his own character. His sponsors had t...