Catch the Jerome Robbins documentary Feb. 18 on PBS

So, I made it to the big-screen screening (where, from the fourth row, all the talking heads were enormous) at the Dance on Camera festival last night and can attest to the doc's excellence.

I've read both authorized biographies--the first and more dance-specific by Deborah Jowitt, the second, more biographically oriented, by Amanda Vaill, both wonderful--and certainly understand that Jerome Robbins made his name on Broadway, but to see clips of the shows he directed and choreographed is something else again. Number after number is so whiz bang and brilliant, it's no wonder the likes of Sondheim and Bernstein can't stop calling him a genius.

Plus,  there are a few clips of Robbins in his youth dancing: it makes immediate sense why Balanchine would have revived "Prodigal Son" for him and why, as a choreographer, Robbins was drawn to the shades of untamed animal (in "The Afternoon of a Faun") and the Dionysian spirit (in "West Side Story" and "The Dybbuk," for example). As a young man, he's a headlong dancer--rough-edged, full-bodied, fearless.