A Ford in Its Future

When the Ford Foundation announced last week that it was blessing the future of American ballet with a staggering grant of $7,756,000, the major share of the blessing seemed to be brightening the career of Choreographer George Balanchine. Of the total amount, nearly $4,500,000 is going to the two cradles of Balanchine's art--$2,000,000 to the New York City Ballet, $2,425,000 to the School of American Ballet. The grants indeed entrust Balanchine with the future of classical dance in America. But though the honor may be Balanchine's, the victory belongs to the man whose name followed Balanchine's in all the announcements: Lincoln Kirstein, 56, Balanchine's patron, impresario, adviser and friend.

It was Kirstein who brought Balanchine to New York in 1933. As a wealthy young esthete at Harvard, he was a founder of the highbrow magazine Hound and Horn and Harvard's Society for Contemporary Art; but by the year of his graduation (1929), he had become a heartstruck balletomane. After seeing Balanchine's Les Ballets 1933 in Paris, Kirstein persuaded the young Russian to bring the U.S. "a new art." In the 30 years since then, he has been Balanchine's unfailing champion, and has spent more than $750,000 of his own money* to commission new music and ballets.

Kirstein is almost as intimately involved with the hopeful results of the Ford grants as is Balanchine: he is founder and director of the school and general director of the ballet company. Kirstein always intended the school to be national. "That has been my dream for 30 years," he says. Now, with its munificent grant, the school can pick and choose among the best students. "This almost approaches the Soviet system, which subsidizes not only the student but the student's family," says Kirstein. "It won't produce instant ballet, but it will give the ballet stability in which to develop."

The grants caused a flurry of pouts elsewhere in the dance world. The American Ballet Theater got nothing; nor did the entire field of modern dance. And though the foundation patiently announced that a grant to ballet did not preclude future grants to modern dance, this did not smooth the ruffled fur. "People stop me on the street," says Kirstein, "and tell me I'm taking bread out of their mouths."

* He inherited his wealth from his father, Louis Kirstein, philanthropist and vice president of Boston's Filene's department store until his death in 1942.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.