Timeline

1904 Harry Rabinowitz, father of Jerome Robbins, emigrates from Poland to New York, where he opens a delicatessen on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

Feb. 9 1911 Harry Rabinowitz marries Lena Rips.

1913 Sonia Rabinowitz, elder sister to Jerome Robbins, is born.

Oct. 11 1918 Jerome Robbins, birth name Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz, is born at the Jewish Maternity Hospital at 270 East Broadway.

1921 The family moves to Weehawken, New Jersey, where Harry opens a corset factory. Jerome grows up taking piano lessons and dance classes, does well at school, and enjoys creative writing. He also has perfect pitch and an excellent sense of rhythm.

Summer 1924 Lena takes Jerome and his sister Sonia to the family’s native village of Rozhanka, a shtetl that was once in Russia but, after the First World War, became part of Poland.

Mid 1930’s In the summers, the Rabinowitz family spends time at Camp Kittatinny, where Jerry performs in Gilbert & Sullivan operettas and vaudeville routines.

1936 Sonia introduces her brother Jerry to The Dance Center, a small dance company on West 56th Street in New York City. The company is run by the dancer, choreographer, and director Gluck Sandor and his wife, Felicia Sorel. Sandor, whose birth name was Sammy Gluck, encourages Jerry to acquire a stage name.

Feb. 1937 The Dance Center presents a concert at the Federal Music Project’s theater on West 55th Street, in which Jerry Rabinowitz is credited as “Gerald Robbins,” the first iteration of his stage name.

Late 1930’s Robbins, who has already shown an interest in choreography, enrolls in Bessie Schönberg’s composition class in New York City. He also begins studying ballet. After unsuccessfully applying to the School of American Ballet, he studies with Ella Daganova, former member of Anna Pavlova’s touring company. To pay for classes, he does janitorial work around Daganova’s studio. He also begins taking small roles at the Yiddish Art Theatre and auditioning for Broadway musicals.

1938 Robbins attends Camp Tamiment, in the Poconos, a resort with a summer performance season. While there, he and the other performers stage weekly Broadway-style revues. He creates his first choreographies. Robbins returns to Tamiment every summer through 1941. He describes Tamiment as “my first contact with other professional theater people.”

1938 Lands his first role in a Broadway show, The Great Lady, choreographed by George Balanchine. Later in the same year, he dances in The Straw Hat Revue, for which he also does some uncredited choreography.

Jan. 1940 Ballet Theater, later American Ballet Theater, holds its début season in New York. By the summer, Jerome Robbins is a member of the company, with a salary of $32.50 per week. He works with prominent choreographers including Antony Tudor, Agnes de Mille, and Michel Fokine, and dances with such colleagues as Nora Kaye, Muriel Bentley, and John Kriza.

Early 1940’s Briefly joins the American Communist Party, along with his sister Sonia.

Spring 1942 Jerome Robbins is drafted, but is released after he tells the draft board, in an interview, that he has had homosexual experiences. He remains with Ballet Theatre.

Apr. 1943 Performs the role of Benvolio in Antony Tudor’s Romeo and Juliet with Ballet Theatre.

Sep. 1943 Meets the composer Leonard Bernstein, who will become a longtime collaborator and friend.

Apr. 18 1944 Premiere of Fancy Free, the first collaboration between Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein, at Ballet Theatre. The cast consists of: Harold Lang, John Kriza, Jerome Robbins, Muriel Bentley, Janet Reed, Shirley Eckl, and Rex Cooper. It is a huge hit, performed continually to this day.

Dec. 28 1944 On the Town, a musical comedy based on Fancy Free, opens on Broadway, to great success.

1944-1948 Robbins choreographs five more ballets: Interplay, Facsimile, Pas de Trois, Summer Day, and Afterthought. As well as four musicals: Billion Dollar Baby, High Button Shoes, Miss Liberty, and Look, Ma, I’m Dancin’!

1946 Lincoln Kirstein and George Balanchine establish Ballet Society, the precursor to New York City Ballet.

1948 Founding of New York City Ballet.

1948 Robbins joins New York City Ballet, on the invitation of George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein.

Jan. 1949 Tells Bernstein he is thinking of creating a modern version of Romeo and Juliet set in the urban slums, in which the warring clans would be Jewish and Catholic youth gangs.

1949 Performs in Balanchine’s new Bourrée Fantasque (with Tanaquil Le Clercq) and 1929 Prodigal Son, the latter of which Balanchine revives for him.

Feb. 26 1950 Age of Anxiety, based on W. H. Auden’s book-length poem of the same name and set to Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra, premieres at New York City Ballet.

1950 Ed Sullivan threatens to expose Robbins as a Communist and a homosexual. Robbins meets with him privately and defuses the threat, albeit temporarily.

1951 First trip to Israel, underwritten by a grant from the American Fund for Israel Institutions. While there, he visits several dance companies and festivals.

Mid 1950’s The films The Wild One (1953) and Rebel Without a Cause (1955) introduce stories of disaffected youth and gang-related violence, drawn from the headlines, to the general public.

Mar. 1951 Ed Sullivan publishes his column “Tip to Red Probers, Subpoena Jerome Robbins” in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Mar. 29 1951 The King and I, a musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, choreographed by Jerome Robbins, premieres on Broadway. It contains such memorable dances as “Shall We Dance?” and “The Small House of Uncle Thomas.”

June 10 1951 The Cage premieres at New York City Ballet.

1952 Polio epidemic explodes.

Dec. 31 1952 Tanaquil Le Clercq, Robbins’s close friend and confidant, marries George Balanchine, to Robbins’s disappointment.

May 1953 Testifies before the House Un-American Activities Committee, at which he willingly offers up the names of several theater people from his circle.

May 14 1953 Premiere of Afternoon of a Faun, inspired by Vaslav Nijinsky’s L’Après-midi d’un faune, at New York City Ballet. The original dancers are Tanaquil Le Clercq and Francisco Moncion.

1954 Creates, choreographs, and directs Peter Pan, starring Mary Martin, on Broadway. Music by Moose Charlap and Jule Styne, lyrics by Carolyn Leigh and Comden & Green.

Apr. 1955 Robbins’s mother Lena dies of breast cancer.

Aug. 1955 Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents sketch out their ideas for West Side Story.

Winter 1955-1956 Stephen Sondheim joins the West Side Story team as lyricist. (The show will be his Broadway début.)

1956 Le Clercq develops polio in Copenhagen during a New York City Ballet European Tour. She will eventually be paralyzed from the waist down. She and Robbins will remain close friends for the rest of their lives.

Mar. 6 1956 The Concert, a comic ballet set to Chopin piano pieces, premieres at New York City Ballet.

1957 Robbins takes a series of photographs of Le Clercq during her long stay at Lenox Hill Hospital. He does so again during a joyous picnic in Georgia that summer.

Sep. 26 1957 West Side Story opens on Broadway and becomes an instant hit.

June 8 1958 NY Export: Opus Jazz, created for a small touring company Robbins has founded, Ballets: USA, premieres at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy.

1957-1969 Hiatus from producing ballets for New York City Ballet. During this period, he works mainly on Broadway.

May 29 1959 Gypsy, a musical directed and choreographed by Robbins, premieres on Broadway.

1959 Takes his company, Ballets: USA, on tour to Israel, where he witnesses a Sabbath celebration at a Hasidic synagogue that includes dancing, which will provide inspiration for the Bottle Dance in Fiddler on the Roof.

July 3 1959 Robbins’s ballet Moves, performed in silence, premieres in Spoleto with Ballets: USA.

Oct. 18 1961 Premiere of the film version of West Side Story, co-directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins. Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer star. The film receives 10 Oscars, including one for direction. Robbins also receives an Honorary Oscar for his choreography.

1962 Rents vacation home, “Ding Dong House,” in Snedens Landing, Rockland County, where he will spend many summers.

Mar. 28 1963 Directs Bertold Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children on Broadway, one of his forays into non-musical theater.

Summer 1963 Reads script based on the stories of the Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem (which will become Fiddler on the Roof). Begins interviewing his father about shtetl life.

Nov. 22 1963 Assassination of John F Kennedy. Work on Fiddler is interrupted.

Sept 22 1964 Fiddler on the Roof, directed and choreographed by Robbins, opens on Broadway. After the premiere, Robbins’s father weeps with recognition.

1965 Establishes American Theatre Lab, an incubator for new, experimental theater works, with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Mar. 30 1965 Premiere of Robbins’s version of the ballet Les Noces at American Ballet Theatre.

1967 Buys townhouse at 117 East 81st Street in New York City, where he will live for the rest of his life. He builds a ballet studio on the top floor.

1969 Suzanne Farrell, object of Balanchine’s infatuation and muse for several of his ballets, leaves New York City Ballet. For a period, Balanchine’s artistic output flags.

1969 Robbins is hospitalized for a torn Achilles tendon.

May 8 1969 Creates Dances at a Gathering, an hour-long ballet set to Chopin piano pieces, for New York City Ballet.

1970 Hospitalized for hepatitis.

Jan 29 1970 Creates In the Night, an intimate piece for three couples set to Chopin Nocturnes, for New York City Ballet.

1971 Release of film version of Fiddler on the Roof, directed by Norman Jewison. It retains some of Robbins’s dances, including the “Bottle Dance”.

May 27 1971 Premiere of Goldberg Variations, set to Bach’s eponymous keyboard work, at New York City Ballet.

Feb 3 1972 Watermill, a ballet inspired by Japanese esthetics and philosophy starring Edward Villella, premieres at New York City Ballet.

May 16 1974 Premiere of Dybbuk, based on S. Ansky’s play The Dybbuk, at New York City Ballet.

May 15 1975 Robbins produces In G Major and 4 additional ballets for New York City Ballet’s Ravel Festival.

Summer 1975 After various setbacks, including the discovery that his lover is involved with someone else and the loss of his summer house in Snedens Landing, Robbins briefly commits himself to Mclean mental hospital.

Nov. 26 1976 Creates Other Dances, a pas de deux for Natalia Makarova and Mikhail Baryshnikov, set to Chopin mazurkas.

Dec. 1977 Father Harry Robbins dies.

Spring 1978 Balanchine suffers his first heart attack, which is followed by bypass operation and a lengthy absence from the company the following year.

Oct. 1979 Buys summer house in Bridgehampton.

Apr. 30 1983 Balanchine dies. The cause is Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

1983 Discussions and negotiations over the future of New York City Ballet’s leadership lead to a split decision: Jerome Robbins and dancer Peter Martins will share the artistic leadership. In practice, Martins takes over the day-to-day management of the company while Robbins stays on as resident choreographer

May 12 1983 Premiere of Glass Pieces at New York City Ballet.

June 16 1983 Premiere of I’m Old-Fashioned at New York City Ballet

Feb. 2 1984 Premiere of Antique Epigraphs, inspired by the bronze Danaids at the Architectural Museum in Naples, at New York City Ballet.

June 13 1985 Premiere of In Memory Of… at New York City Ballet

Feb. 4 1988 Premiere of Ives, Songs at New York City Ballet.

1990 Death of Leonard Bernstein.

1991 Death of Robbins’ friend and ex-partner, Jesse Gerstein, of AIDS. Robbins cares for him during his final months.

1992-1994 Robbins and Baryshnikov intermittently work on a series of solos to Bach that will one day become A Suite of Dances.

June 4 1994 2 & 3 Part Inventions, set to Bach, premieres at the School of American Ballet.

Mar. 3 1994 Robbins creates A Suite of Dances, set to sections of three Bach cello suites, for Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Jan. 22 1997 Brandenburg, also set to Bach, premieres at New York City Ballet.

July 29 1998 Death of Jerome Robbins, at home, after a massive stroke a few nights earlier.

1999 The New York Public Library’s Dance Division is renamed the Jerome Robbins Dance Division in recognition of his bequest of $500,000 plus a fixed percentage of future royalties from Fiddler on the Roof to the library.