Mr. Anderson continued in exhortation: “Let there be more all-male dances in which the performers portray saints, sinners, clowns, fools, lovers, haters, visionaries, bumblers, idealists, maniacs and ordinary citizens. Let this choreography be lyrical, bumptious, reverent, elegant, earthy, sassy and as unpredictable as life itself.”
Jack Warren Anderson was born on June 15, 1935, in Milwaukee. His mother, Eleanore (Force) Anderson, worked as a hospital administrator, and his father, George, was a movie projectionist.
In the late 1950s, Mr. Anderson earned a bachelor’s degree in theater from Northwestern University and a master’s in creative writing from Indiana University. He began working as a drama and dance critic around 1960 and spent several years on the staff of Dance magazine.
He became a dance critic for The Times in 1978 and remained in that position until 2005. Afterward, he kept writing for the paper as a freelancer; his most recent piece, an obituary about the dancer and choreographer Anna Halprin, was published in 2021.
He also wrote poetry and books about dance history.
On Feb. 12, 1965, Mr. Anderson was on a subway platform near Lincoln Center in Manhattan reading the program for George Balanchine’s “Liebeslieder Walzer” after seeing the production. Mr. Dorris, who had also just seen the ballet, approached Mr. Anderson and struck up a conversation. The two men took the subway downtown and got coffee.
They were a couple for 58 years, marrying in 2006 and sharing a Greenwich Village apartment. In 1977 they co-founded Dance Chronicle, a scholarly journal that they also coedited. It is currently seeking submissions for a 2024 issue.
