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Balanchine's Spirit Infuses New York City Ballet
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11711 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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4 / 1987 |
1,806 Words |
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Barbara Binkley
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George Balanchine's influence on the dance world is incalculable. Major companies throughout the world perform the ballets of this century's foremost dance genius. Currently, plans are underway to bring his ballets to the Central Ballets of China and the Shanghai Ballet as part of U.S.-China Arts Exchange. Talks with the Balanchine Estate also have been held to bring the ballets to the Kirov Ballet in the Soviet Union.
Balanchine was born in 1904 in St. Petersburg and trained at the Imperial School. When he was twenty, he left Russia for London and joined the company of famed impressario Serge Diaghilev. In the latter part of 1933, he came to America.
Distinctive Touch
The richest recipient of his work is America, where his career blossomed. Balanchine developed a distinctive style of choreography that required a special type of dancer. He founded the School of American Ballet in 1934 to train the dancers he needed for a performing company, which in 1948 became the New York City Ballet.
To further feature his ballets, he helped design the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center in Manhattan, where the company performs. Its inner motif is a jewel box with tiers known as rings. The stage has a floor of special materials suitable for ballet-performances.
A few years before his death in 1983, I passed Balanchine on the street as he walked toward the backstage entrance of the New York State Theater. He was in outward appearance an ordinary-looking man, yet there was about him an aura of inner determination, and it showed in his eyes.
Balanchine choreography is inherently musical. He had an uncanny ability to wed the ballets he choreographed to the music of the composers he chose. He understood the music as it was written and could bring this wisdom out in visual form. In his choreography, the music can be seen as well as heard.
The first ballet Balanchine choreographed in America was Serenade, set to Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings in C Major. His students performed it for the first time on June 9, 1934. The work has been remounted for other companies such as the American Ballet Caravan, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, the Grand Opera in Paris, and the New York City Ballet.
While there is a hint of melancholy in the Tchaikovsky work, from the start, the music is characteristically stark. A sense of destiny clearly resonates in this work, which may be why Balanchine chose it as a signature work of his career.
Serenade was performed several times in the company's 1986-1987 winter season. Its first performance featured Valentina Kozlova and Leonid Kozlov, who defected from the Bolshoi in 1979 and joined New York City Ballet at Balanchine's invitation in 1983. Their debut with the company took place the evening before Balanchine died. As their Russian spirits entered the company, his departed. The final Serenade performance for the season, a matinee, featured Stephanie Saland, Kyra Nichols, Maria Calegari, Otto Neubert, and Kipling Houston in the principal
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