A Muse for Horton

“The apprenticeship I had with Lester happened when I was quite young. I was in my teens and I thought everyone learned technique, learned to dance and to perform in this fashion. What I didn’t realize was that this man was building a technique directly on my body. I had no prior experience that would have prepared me to make a judgment about how I was learning. Because the technique was built on me, it felt extremely comfortable. Then he made ballets for me and I thought that was the way everybody grew in the world of dance. I didn’t know it was extraordinary.” 

–Bella Lewitzky (Friedler and Glazer 17)

The daughter of Russian-Jewish immigrants, when Bella Lewitzky moved to Los Angeles as a teenager, she was introduced to modern dance by Lester Horton. The young girl had valued dance before this, however, she was not a fan of the constraints that came along with ballet. Horton and Lewitzky were instantly a perfect match, and they became a dynamic team, with Horton eventually using her as his primary body for experimenting and creating his technique. Their collaboration lasted for fifteen years, during which Lewitzky served as Horton’s “stellar protégé who could embody his wildly imaginative movement ideas” (jwa.org). According to Lewitzky, “Lester never said, ‘Bella, I’m developing you’. We never had that kind of dialogue. He created approximately fifteen ballets for me which I took as a matter of course. I became Lester’s tool, his physical voice, both for a technique and for his repertory. At the end of the fifteenth year of working with him I could extend what he would start because I knew where he would want to go” (Friedler and Glazer 17).

Together, Horton and Lewitzky cofounded the Dance Theater with William Bowne, as well as composed dances based on “religious fanaticism, bigotry, the violent anti-Semitism of Nazi Germany, and the abuse of women” (jwa.org). However, time took its toll, and eventually the pair was strongly disagreeing with one another over the company’s artistic mission and finances. Lewitzky left the company in 1950, and the partnership was dissolved forever.

 Lewitzky would go on to lead a life outside of Dance Theater, directing the Lewitzky Dance Company for over thirty years. As noted in a review of a Lewitzky Dance Company performance, she was a leading figure in the West Coast dance world. She achieved many successes with her choreography, ultimately creating over fifty major pieces. Lewitzky was also the recipient of several awards over her lifetime, including earning Lester Horton Dance Awards from the Dance Resource Center of Greater Los Angeles on multiple occasions. Though Lewitzky left an unforgettable impact of her own, we cannot forget the impact that Horton left through her as well, as it is probably safe to say that the Horton technique, and everything else we know about him today, would not have been the same without Bella Lewitzky. 

Works Cited: jwa.org,

Friedler, Sharon E. and Susan B. Glazer. Dancing Female: Lives and Issues of Women in Contemporary Dance. G + B Science Publishers, 1997. Print.