NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
George Balanchine, or originally Georgy Melitonovich Balanchivadze, a Russian-born choreographer, is recognized as one of the foremost choreographers in the history of ballet. George was among a generation of dancers who spent the years of World War 1 at the Imperial school of ballet at the Mariinsky theatre. George was the son of a composer, and he also studied music from 1921 to 1924 at the Petrograd Conservatory in St. Petersburg. As a student Balanchine had already tried choreography. His first work in 1920 was a short piece danced to Anton Rubinstein's Nuit.
He also choreographed works for the evenings of experimental ballet performed by himself and his colleagues at the State school of Ballet. These early works were criticized as too avant guide. In 1924 Balanchine was one of four dancers who left the newly formed Soviet Union for a tour of Western Europe. All four dancers were invited by Impresario Sergei Diaghitev to audition for his Ballet Russes in Paris and were accepted into the company. Diaghitev also had his eye on Balanchine as a choreographer aswell, and after watching him stage a new version of the company s Stravinsky ballet, Le chant de Rossignol, Diaghitev hired him as ballet master to replace Bronislava Nijinska. Shortly after this, Balanchine suffered a knee injury which limited his dancing and made him commit to full time choreography.
Balanchine served as a ballet master with the Ballet Russes until the company was dissolved following Diaghitev s death in 1929. Balanchine returned to Paris in 1933 and formed his own company, Les Ballets. Boston born dance Connoisseur Lincoln Kirstein had a dream to establish an American school of ballet that would equal and even rival the established European schools. Balanchine was persuaded to move to America and he became the choreographer for the School of American Ballet, which was founded in 1934. The school remains in operation today, training students for the New York City Ballet and companies throughout the United States and the world.
The first ballet Balanchine choreographed in America was Serenade, to music by Tchaikovsky. It was created as a workshop for students and had its world premiere outdoors on an estate in New York. In 1935, Kirstein and Balanchine set up a touring company of dancers from the school and called it The American Ballet. That same year, the Metropolitan Opera invited the company to become its resident ballet, with Balanchine as the ballet Master. Tight funding permitted Balanchine to mount only two completely dance oriented works while with the Metropolitan Opera, a dance-drama version of Glucks Order and Eurydice and an all-Stravinsky program, featuring a revival of one of Balanchine s first ballets. Apollo.
Despite the popular and critical success, Balanchine and the Metropolitan Opera separated in early 1938. Balanchine spent his next years teaching at the school and working in musical theatre and films. In 1941, he and Kirstein assembled the American Ballet Caravan, which toured South America with Balanchine's new creations Concerto Barocco and Ballet Imperial. From 1944 to 1946, Balanchine was called in as artistic director to help revitalize the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo.
In 1946, Balanchine and Kirstein collaborated again to form Ballet Society, a company which introduced New York subscription only audiences to such new Balanchine works as The Four Temperaments and Stravinsky s Renard and Orpheus. Morton Baum, chairman of the City Center finance committee, saw Ballet Society during one of these performances. He was so highly impressed that he initiated negotiations that led to the company being invited to join the City Center municipal complex (of which at the time the New York City Drama Company and the New York City Opera were a part of) as the New York City Ballet. October 11 1948, the New York City Ballet was born, dancing a program consisting of Concerto Barocco, Orpheus, and Symphony in c. From that time until his death, Balanchine served as article director for the New York City Ballet, choreographing the majority of the productions the company has introduced since its inception. Among them were: Firebird - 1949 Bourne Fantasque 1949 Lavalse - 1951 The Nutcracker 1954 Ivesiana - 1954 Western Symphony - 1954 Allegro Brilliant - 1956 Agon 1957 The Seven Deadly Sins - 1958 Stars and Stripes 1958 Episodes - 1959 Balanchine s style has been described as neoclassic, as reaction to the Romantic anti-classic that was the prevailing style in Russian and European ballet when he had began to dance.
As a choreographer, Balanchine generally de-emphasized plot in his ballets, preferring to let dance be the star of the show, as he told an interviewer. Balanchine himself wrote: 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 visual spectacle, not the story is the essential element.
The choreographer and the dancer must remember that they reach the audience throught 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. Bibliography Msn Encarta web School of American Ballet. Biography of George Balanchine web Robin May The World of Ballet Great Britain, 1981
Free research essays on topics related to: dance, ballet, york city, choreographer, dancers
Research essay sample on York City Ballet School Of American Ballet Balanchine
