In the 1930s and 40s, choreographers were interested in finding ways to show American life on the ballet stage. Think: Lew Christensen’s Filling Station (1937) or Eugene Loring’s Billy the Kid (1938) or Jerome Robbins’s Fancy Free (1944). These ballets all blended stories of American life, movement from Broadway and vaudeville, and ballet technique to create a new style of “Americana” ballet.