Jack Anderson, 1936-2023

The New York Times for October 22 or 23 carried the news of Jack’s death in a New York City Hospital. With a picture of Jack in a study-like setting, the obituary was remarkably fair and detailed, if failing to acknowledge Jack’s most notable dance history, The One and Only Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. A work relating to the American Dance festival, published by Duke University Press was mentioned, along with unnamed works of poetry.

I believe I was one of Jack’s earlliest colleagues in dance journalism, although his presence in the san Francisco Bay Area pre-dated my sojourn with Dance News in 1962.  But I remember seeing him at concerts and chatting with him.  At the time he was writing dance reviews for The Oakland Tribune, remarkable for its willingness to engage someone with that deliberate a focus.  At the time virtually all critics on San Francisco Bay Area newspapers were musical in concentration, dance thrown in for good measure. If my memory serves, he either replaced or augmented Clifford Gessler, who came on the staff after years in Hawaii.

What I remember at the time was Jack’s conscientious capacities for civil liberties and justice. He asked The Tribune for leave to participate in a strike, and he was fired. The Tribune’s publishing family was devotedly Republican and I can remember the publisher of the time being called “China Boy” for his love of the Chiang-Kai-shek regime. The tenor of the paper changed when I wrote my once a month series of interviews on East Bay situated dance related figures, 1964-1966.