Lincoln Kirstein was a formidable figure in the development of American dance, and this week, a “wide-ranging centennial celebration” for the much admired but little understood educator gets underway in New York. “He was formidable yet oddly shy, a manipulator whose scheming was almost always discernible and almost always in the service of his beloved dance. He is probably best known for having founded, with George Balanchine, the City Ballet and its school. But he was a Renaissance man of the arts, though that title sat uneasily on his massive, ungainly shoulders.”