Bella Lewitzky was born on January 13, 1916 at Llano del Rio, a short-lived utopian socialist community and an experiment in cooperative living. Although the Lewitzky family took up residence in LA shortly after Bella’s birth when the colony moved east, Bella still “lived it” through her family and friends since the political and social ideals continued to exert a profound influence on her father and their family. With both of Bella’s parents sharing the love for the arts, Bella decided to become a dancer at the age of seven without having even seen a dancer concert or met a dancer.
Bella Lewitzky as a child
Bella’s first real dance teacher was Teddy Kerr and Bella earned her way be working in the studio and running errands for Miss Kerr since she couldn’t afford the lessons. In return, she got “a little tap, a little song, and a little dance.” Plays and theatre also had a profound influence on Bella, which began at home with her father’s love of plays to Bella dancing as a chorus girl after school at the informal theatre (tent players) that came to town. In addition to toe, tap, song, and folk dances that Teddy Kerr taught at the school, there were ballet classes by visiting ballet dancers usually with the Ballets Russes. However, Bella had a “less than happy attitude towards ballet classes” and was suggested to look into a class being taught by a “crazy” man – Lester Horton.
From then on, in late 1934, Bella Lewitzky found her own dancing master and achieved astonishing heights as a virtuoso dancer and as a dramatic actress with tremendous powers. It was eventually Bella who helped Horton work out and clarify what was called the Horton technique. She was said to have become “the physical extension of Horton’s choreographic mind.” It was also in Horton’s company that Bella met her husband Newell Reynolds.
Bella Lewitzky in costume for Horton's 1937 Le Sacre du Printemps
Later in 1946, Lewitzky and Horton founded the Dance Theatre of Los Angeles with Horton’s promises of having a “small company of trained dancers” and that the company members should have a salary. However, a series of events lead to Bella leaving the company in 1950 and founded her own dance company (Lewitzky Dance Company) in 1966, which achieved international status. Lewitzky created more than fifty major concert works and received numerous awards including the National Dance Association Heritage Award. On Bella’s 18th birthday, she announced that 1996-97 would be the company’s final season. During the company’s final performance in May 1997, she said “the arts are under threat more than ever before… What legacy I have left here will die unless you become responsible for keeping it alive.”
Above information taken from article "Bella Lewitzky: A Legend Turned Real" by Elvi Moore
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