Early Life and Training
Christensen was born in Brigham City, Utah, to a family with roots in dance and music. His grandfather, Lars Christensen, who emigrated from Denmark, taught folk and social dances. Christensen was raised a Mormon, and this upbringing informed his latter career with of a sense of focusing on propriety.
Christensen began studying dance with his uncles and music with his father when he was ten. He was taught early ballet technique by Stefano Mascagno, an Italian teacher. His brother Willam started Lew and their third dancing brother, Harold, in vaudeville. In addition to small vaudeville shows, the three brothers landed jobs in the Broadway musical The Great Waltz, during which time Christensen became a student at Balanchine's new School of American Ballet. In 1935, he joined the Metropolitan Opera's American Ballet Ensemble with Harold.
Read more about this topic: Lew Christensen
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or training:
“We do not preach great things but we live them.”
—Marcus Minucius Felix (late 2nd or early 3rd ce, Roman Christian apologist. Octavius, 38. 6, trans. by G.H. Rendell.
“For me, the principal fact of life is the free mind. For good and evil, man is a free creative spirit. This produces the very queer world we live in, a world in continuous creation and therefore continuous change and insecurity. A perpetually new and lively world, but a dangerous one, full of tragedy and injustice. A world in everlasting conflict between the new idea and the old allegiances, new arts and new inventions against the old establishment.”
—Joyce Cary (1888–1957)
“At present I feel like a caged animal, bound up by the luxury, comfort and respectability of my position. I can’t get the training that I want without neglecting my duty.”
—Beatrice Potter Webb (1858–1943)