Bella Lewitzky (January 13, 1916,

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wo ...

– July 16, 2004, Pasadena, California) was a modern dance

choreographer Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which motion or form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A choreographer is one who cr ...

, dancer and teacher.

Biography

Born to

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...

n immigrants, Lewitzky spent her childhood on a ranch in

San Bernardino San Bernardino (; Spanish for "Saint Bernardino") is a city and county seat of San Bernardino County, California, United States. Located in the Inland Empire region of Southern California, the city had a population of 222,101 in the 2020 cens ...

and in a utopian

socialist colony An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious ...

in the

Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily i ...

. She moved back to Los Angeles in her teens, and briefly studied

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form ...

. In 1934, she joined

Lester Horton Lester Iradell Horton (23 January 1906 – 2 November 1953) was an American dancer, choreographer, and teacher. Early years and education Lester Iradell Horton was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on 23 January 1906. His parents were Iradell and Pol ...

's company, became its lead dancer, and was instrumental in the development of the Horton Technique. In 1946 Lewitzky founded Dance Theater of Los Angeles with Horton. The Dance Theater was one of the few institutions in the United States to house both a dance school and theater under the same roof. She left the company in 1950 to pursue her own interests and an independent career. She appeared as a specialty dancer in the 1943 Technicolor adventure film ''

White Savage ''White Savage'' is a 1943 American Technicolor South Seas adventure film directed by Arthur Lubin and starring Maria Montez, Jon Hall and Sabu. The film was re-released by Realart in 1948 on a double-feature with the same three stars in '' C ...

'', and she choreographed the films '' Bagdad'' (1949) (with Lester Horton), ''Tripoli'' (1950), and ''Prehistoric Women'' (1950). In 1951, she was subpoenaed by the

House Un-American Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...

to answer questions about

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a ...

activities in the arts. "I'm a dancer, not a singer", she replied. In 1955 Lewitzky gave birth to her only child, her daughter Nora. The same year she moved her rehearsals to Idyllwild, California, a small town in the

San Jacinto Mountains The San Jacinto Mountains (''Avii Hanupach''Munro, P., et al. ''A Mojave Dictionary''. Los Angeles: UCLA. 1992. in Mojave) are a mountain range in Riverside County, located east of Los Angeles in southern California in the United States. The mou ...

outside of Los Angeles. In 1956 she became the founding chair of the dance department at the Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts, which has since been renamed the

Idyllwild Arts Academy Idyllwild Arts Academy is a private school located in Idyllwild-Pine Cove, California, Idyllwild, in the San Jacinto Mountains and San Bernardino National Forest, within western Riverside County, California. The school was founded in 1946. It was ...

. She taught at the school until 1972. Her daughter, Nora, joined the dance faculty in 2003 and continues teaching Lewitzky technique. The Idyllwild Arts Academy is one of the few dance programs in the United States that offers ''Lewitzky Technique'' as part of their curriculum. In 1966, she founded the Lewitzky Dance Company. Under her artistic guidance, the company became one of the leading international modern dance companies, performing to critical acclaim in forty-three states across the U.S. as well as twenty countries on five continents. Among her dance associates was the former

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication Media (communication), medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of Transmission (telecommunications), television tra ...

child actress The term child actor or child actress is generally applied to a child acting on stage or in movies or television. An adult who began their acting career as a child may also be called a child actor, or a "former child actor". Closely associated t ...

Noreen Corcoran Noreen Margaret Corcoran (October 20, 1943 – January 15, 2016) was an American film and television actress. She is best known for playing Kelly Gregg in the American sitcom television series '' Bachelor Father''. Early years Corcoran was born ...

of '' Bachelor Father''. In 1970, she was the founding dean of the dance program at

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of bo ...

(CalArts) in

Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...

. In 1990 Lewitzky crossed out the anti-obscenity clause on the acceptance form of a $72,000

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federa ...

grant. She successfully sued NEA-chairman John Frohnmayer to have the grant reinstated. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' quoted her as saying in response, "I've been struggling in dance for 28 years. To exist merely to exist is stupidity. To exist to make art is a pretty grand act."

Personal life

Lewitzky was married to Newell Taylor Reynolds, an architect and set designer whom she met while they were dancers at Lester Horton's company. Reynolds designed sets for the Lewitzky Dance Company. Their wedding reception was in the

Samuel Freeman House The Samuel Freeman House (also known as the Samuel and Harriet Freeman House) is a Frank Lloyd Wright house in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles, California built in 1923. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1 ...

, which they frequented as part of an avant garde salon.

Awards and honors

Lewitzky received many awards including honorary doctorates from California Institute of Arts (1981), Occidental College (1984), Otis Parsons College (1989), and the Juilliard School (1993). In 1991 she was a recipient of the Heritage Award from the National Dance Association. In 1996, she was awarded the

National Medal of Arts The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and arts patrons ...

.Lifetime Honors, National Medal of Arts
, nea.gov; accessed 11 June 2017.

Quote

"Great control of every motion and placement," she says, "is a kind of self-care. It's self-love in the best sense. I make a contract with the dancers (not literally, of course) to keep them alive and well and progressive-doing level best to see that they're not injured." One must bear in mind, she says, that "dancing is not normal, that only a strong, knowledgeable body can protect against damage." - Bella Lewitzky, from an interview with Donna Perlmutter, ''Dance Magazine'' (January 1997)

References

External links