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“I’m not a singer. I’m a dancer!” defends Bella Lewitzky, who cited being a dancer as her occupation instead of a singer when questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee regarding whether she was a communist or not. Because of this, she was blacklisted and lost access to her main source of income, movies.
That was not the last time she stood up against government censorship of the arts and it certainly wasn’t the first either. As we learn from ‘Bella’, Lewitzky was a dancer, choreographer, and activist for the arts. (This documentary should not be confused with ‘Bella!’ about Congresswoman Bella Abzug that came out in 2022, although perhaps the name has something to do with inspiring outspoken Bellas.)
To suggest that the documentary portrays Lewitzky’s journey is not accurate. The best part of the film to some people, and Lewitzky herself, is that she is able to narrate her story instead. Director Bridget Murnane, along with some of Lewitzky’s peers, comments throughout the film, while also mixing Lewitzky’s interviews and speeches from the external 7 decades with archival footage and images.
She dismissed being called a modern dancer, saying, “It describes nothing.”
“It never said it was ballet.” In whatever classification it occupied, it was morphing, evolving, and defying norms and conventions at every new step. She framed her absence of untrained (or conventional) dance practice as beneficial because there were no invention constraints. When asked how she would describe her dance, she says, I wouldn’t. She meant that dance was a form of expression that needed no words and could only be performed.
That is why her footage as a dancer and as a dancer with other dancers is so interesting. For her, a dance was letting the force of gravity guide you through space. Her dances were massively effective and highly stylized but she abstained from narrativity. She was not conveying information with physical actions.
The collaboration that captured my attention the most was the one with Rudy Gernreich, the fashion designer who had the greatest impact on fashion during the 1960s. His costumes functioned like long strips of fabric that became a component of the dance by both permitting and inhibiting motion and gesture. Newell Taylor Reynolds, her husband, was a dancer who subsequently became an architect. His concepts of space, form, and shape most clearly influenced her work when he said to her, Look at all that unused space, explaining what was above the dancers’ heads. He collaborated with her to add another platform, which meant putting a second story above the dancers on the stage. Lewitzky’s partnership with Reynolds was very intense, and the film’s most tender images come from this relationship.
The National Endowment for the Arts, concerned by the initial backlash made against parts of the provocative art it put forward (some called it “obscene” or even blasphemous), instigated a policy where every grant recipient must sign a pledge of non-obscenity. Lewitzky assured that she won’t present anything obscene or offensive in any shape or form. And anyway, without the $72,000 grant, her dance troupe was extremely unlikely to survive. But it reminded her of the time she was blacklisted for refusing to answer questions posed by a Congressional committee. Thus, she decided to hold a press conference stating that she refused to sign and accept the grant.
Seven years later, she was awarded the National Medal of the Arts by Bill Clinton.
A quote by Lewitzky serves as the film’s starting point and conclusion. She explains that the ballet dancer in the classic movie “The Red Shoes” who, when asked “Why do you want to dance?” answers “Why do you want to live?” Lewitzky adds, There is such a thing as to live, and that is food, shelter, clothing And then there is such a thing as why do you live, and that is art. For Lewitzky, art was everything. Her life’s work, its meaning, its foundation. For her, a job is simply “a method in which I view life.” It is stunning how resolutely she dedicates herself to her vision, but this film shows us that, beyond its artistry, it kept her life filled with purpose and integrity, the most important lesson.
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