Career
He is known for bringing the complete version of the Russian ballet The Nutcracker to the United States, as well as staging the first American performances of Swan Lake and Coppélia. Christensen"s Nutcracker was first staged in 1944 in San Francisco, where the ballet remains an annual tradition, though the production now staged there is not necessarily the Christensen version. Christensen is often credited with helping to rejuvenate American dance.
While there, he was asked to stay on and help the University create a department of ballet.
He agreed, and spent the remainder of his life working in Utah and the Intermountain West. The University of Utah was the first accredited University to have a ballet department in the United States. While in Utah, Christensen also founded Ballet West.
Author Debra H. Sowell wrote that Willam, Harold, and Lew Christensen are the closest thing the United States has to a European-style "ballet dynasty".