"We must first realize that dancing is an absolutely independent art, not merely a secondary accompanying one. I believe that it is one of the great arts. Like the music of great musicians, it can be enjoyed and understood without any verbal introduction or explanation ... The important thing in ballet is that movement itself, as it is sound which is important in a symphony. A ballet may contain a story, but the visual spectacle, not the story is the essential element. The choreographer and the dancer must remember that they reach the audience through the eye — and the audience, in its turn, must train itself to see what is performed upon the stage. It is the illusion created which convinces the audience, much as it is with the work of a magician. If the illusion fails, the ballet fails, no matter how well a program note tells the audience that it has succeeded."
So writes the foremost contemporary choreographer George Balanchine! He was not only a gifted ballet dancer himself, debuting as a cupid at age 10 in Sleeping Beauty with Mariinsky Ballet Theatre, but he was a son of a composer and studied both the piano and music composition. Read more about his background at this link, where this quote and the one below come from: http://www.nycballet.com/explore/our-history/george-balanchine.aspx
"He began studying the piano at the age of five and following his graduation in 1921, from the Imperial Ballet School (the St. Petersburg academy where he had started his dance studies at the age of nine), he enrolled in the state's Conservatory of Music, where he studied piano and musical theory, including composition, harmony and counterpoint, for three years. Such extensive musical training made it possible for Balanchine as a choreographer to communicate with a composer of such stature as Igor Stravinsky; the training also gave Balanchine the ability to reduce orchestral scores on the piano, an invaluable aid in translating music into dance. ... Igor Stravinsky, once described their association on one particular ballet as follows:
For a short video of the two of them in discussion and view short excerpts from two versions of Balustrade, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CV9vtFpbgo
Balustrade, the ballet that George Balanchine and Pavel Tchelitchew made of the Violin Concerto, was one of the most satisfactory visualizations of any of my works. Balanchine composed the choreography as he listened to my recording, and I could actually observe him conceiving gesture, movement, combination, composition. The result was a series of dialogues perfectly complimentary to and coordinated with the dialogues of the music." Hofmannsthal once said to Strauss: "Ballet is perhaps the only form of art which permits real, intimate collaboration between two people gifted with visual imagination."
For a list of Balanchine's works and more personal details on his life, see this Wiki entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Balanchine
If you would like to see Balanchine's dance choreography performed, these youtube videos will illuminate the ideas quoted above.
http://www.youtube.com/channel/HC3zW-K8AV91o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FixT33wXqk8 Diana Vishneva - Vyacheslav Samurov - "Rubies"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud8zVcHPnuM Selections from Agon with music by Stravinsky
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm_xxKPliwM La Valse with music by Ravel (rare entire ballet)
http://www.youtube.com/channel/HC3zW-K8AV91o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FixT33wXqk8 Diana Vishneva - Vyacheslav Samurov - "Rubies"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud8zVcHPnuM Selections from Agon with music by Stravinsky
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm_xxKPliwM La Valse with music by Ravel (rare entire ballet)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
If you are in Los Angeles, come and join us on Sunday June 9 at UCLA's ROYCE HALL on our fieldtrip to see Los Angeles Ballet perform Balanchine Red Festival showcasing these three dances:
La Valse - A waltz of frenetic energy with a hint of doom.
Agon - Twelve dancers in black and white in a contest of dance.
Rubies - The embodiment of the gem's elegance and appeal.
We will be having picnic lunch from 12noon, attend a talk about Balanchine at 1pm if you wish, and then see the show at 2pm. Contact me at reallykf@gmail.com for details on this special and very affordable fieldtrip. Limited tickets available and first come, first served :)
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