1939–1940

From 1939 to 1940 Balanchine and Kirstein continued their independent activities. Balanchine and Zorina took on additional projects on the stage and screen, including a film adaptation of On Your Toes, the romantic melodrama I Married an Adventuress, and a new stage musical by Irving Berlin, Louisiana Purchase. Balanchine also created dances for the short-lived revue Keep Off the Grass as well as serving as producer and director of Cabin in the Sky, for which he collaborated with Vernon Duke and choreographer Katherine Dunham and her dance company. Kirstein continued to tour with the company now billed as the American Ballet Caravan, which completed a second transcontinental tour that included the premieres of the ballets City Portrait and Charade. The company secured one final engagement in a ballet called A Thousand Times Neigh, presented at the World’s Fair Pavilion of the Ford Motor Company.