Submitted by Martha Ullman West, Jan 24, 2007 13:02

Without diminishing Lincoln Kirstein's huge contributions, both intellectual and financial, to the development of the arts in America, it's not quite true that nobody was working on developing ballet as an American art form before he brought Balanchine to this country in 1933. That year, Willam Christensen, who several years later established the San Francisco Ballet as the first professional regional ballet company in America, was working with a small group of dancers in Portland, Oregon, among them Janet Reed, who later was a principal dancer with both Ballet Theatre and City Ballet, originating roles in works by Jerome Robbins, Balanchine and Antony Tudor.

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