San Francisco Ballet as part of the "triumvirate of great classical companies defining the American style on the world stage today". Willam Christensen, Harold Christensen, and Lew Christensen made up the famed trio of brothers considered by many to have done more than anyone else to establish ballet in the United States. Born into an artistic and musical family, the three brothers studied folk dance and ballet from early ages and went on to tour the famous vaudeville Orpheum Circuit during the 1920s and 1930s, exposing many Americans to ballet for the first time with their act "The Christ Brothers". As vaudeville faded
San Francisco in the 1970s San Francisco continued to contribute significantly to San Francisco in the 1970s. The black population of San Francisco peaked in the early 1970s; in 1972 one in seven citizens was black. Many African-American residents still lived in the Fillmore district, which had given birth to a thriving jazz scene and been called the Harlem of the West in the 50s and 60s. However, urban redevelopment began to push blacks out of the Fillmore in the late 1960s; by 1980 San Francisco's black population had decreased by 10%. Some Japanese-Americans had returned to the Fillmore after their internment during World War