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Arpino cofounded the Joffrey in 1956 with his onetime lover, choreographer and dance historian Robert Joffrey. They started small–six dancers touring the country in a station wagon pulling a trailer, performing original pieces by Joffrey. But by the late 1960s the Joffrey was recognized as a major company on a par with New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. While the troupe’s dancers weren’t always as technically superb as NYCB’s and ABT’s, Joffrey and Arpino’s choreography was exciting, innovative, sometimes exquisite, and often politically charged, reflecting the tumult of the time. Arpino’s contributions to the Joffrey repertory included The Clowns, an expressionistic anti-war piece; the groundbreaking rock ballet Trinity, which celebrated the youth culture of the time; Sacred Grove on Mount Tamalpais, a dance recreation of a San Francisco hippie wedding; the colorful neoclassical charmer Viva Vivaldi!; and The Relativity of Icarus, a homoerotic pas de deux for two men. Though Arpino and Joffrey tried to be discreet about their own homosexuality–fearful in part of alienating potential donors–their work often highlighted the power of male dancers.
Robert Joffrey died in 1988 after a long struggle with AIDS.On the night of his death, the company that bore his name was performing at the Civic Opera House here. Arpino succeeded Joffrey as director of the company, defying an attempt by some board members to take control of artistic decisionmaking. Those board members hadn’t counted on just how shrewd and stubborn the soft-spoken Arpino really was.
