Essay on George Balanchine

During the Russo-American Era, Russian choreographers, such as, Michel Fokine, Anna Pavlova, Vaslav Nijinsky, Léonide Massine, and Bronislava Nijinska; benefited from the American audience and started to make dramatic changes to the classical ballet. Every single one of these choreographers implemented and transformed the way people view, danced and perceived ballet in the early 20th century. Several ideas for these innovations were from Michel Fokine. In 1914, he wrote a letter to the London Times, stating the five principles of ballet that befitted the 20th century ballet:

For the history of Russian Classical ballet, it originated in a group of dance academies in Moscow and St Petersburg in the eighteenth century. At first the dancers were from poor backgrounds - usually from orphanages - but the Tsars were particular ballet enthusiasts and so the profile grew. However, in the nineteenth century some of the best French and Italian dancers and teachers went to Russia and ballet developed considerably more than in Western Europe where opera was preferred. It was under this climate that Russian ballet led the way in classical dance with such famous stars as Anna Pavlova, Mikhail Foskine and the legendary Nijinsky, who all trained with the Frenchman Marius Petipa at the St Petersburg Imperial Ballet.

Rudolf Laban was first recognised for his dedication to supporting the movement of expressionist dance (also known as Ausdruckstanz), which had a big effect on the culture of movement as it changed the artistic stagnation of classical ballet and the maturity within the future of art. This movement arose in the 1900’s and was a protest against classical ballet which was perceived as tightly held and mechanical in fixed and conventional forms. This changed movement to become free and natural, allowing more flow and openness to arise. Rudolf Laban was considered a significant figure within this movement as he influenced the younger youth, teaching at a creative art school called Monte Verita situated in Switzerland. Laban became a key figure based off of his metaphysical ideas regarding his exploration of time and space within movement which further developed later in his career. Without Laban’s teaching skills and inspiring the next generations, classical ballet wouldn’t have as much meaning

Which choreographer created several famous full length ballets, including Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, and The Nutcracker?

Renowned choreographer Alonzo King is the Balanchine of a new style of dance, his style of dance, a style shying away from the expected and catapulting its audience into a state of wonderment. Alonzo King uses sharp lines intertwined with severe movements all engaging a classical technique in order to create movements, unseen to the dance world. King’s impressive résumé includes having trained with a number of world-renowned ballet companies, and setting works on an even more substantial number of companies, along with establishing his own celebrated company: Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet in San Francisco, California.

Marie Taglioni was one of the pioneers during the Romantic era whose contribution to ballet still strongly influences the ballet performers today. Before Marie Taglioni, dancers had gone on pointe but only to pose. She was the first ballet dancer to make the weightless gravity-defying pointework popular among both the performers and audience in the 19th century. Today, pointework has been intergrated into ballet training and is still a strong definitive characteristic in classical and contemporary ballet.

Balanchine garnered attention for staging a production of the Stravinsky ballet, Le Chant de Rossignol. He was one of four dancers who had left the Soviet Union for a tour of Western

Without George Balanchine the dance world might not be what it is today. He combined the technique of classical ballet and his modern movements to shape and mold the many styles of dance. He is remembered as the foremost contemporary choreographer in the world. George Balanchine choreographed over four hundred ballets. George Balanchine, a revolutionary ballet choreographer, began his career in Russia, continued in the United States, and left a memorable legacy worldwide.

Balanchine came to America in 1933 to establish a ballet company with American, Lincoln Kirstein. Their collaboration, the School of American Ballet, was founded in 1934. Kirstein and Balanchine’s second collaboration was Ballet Society, which is now known as the New York City Ballet. Both companies are highly recognized in the art world, as the schools continue to train students from New York City Ballet and other companies. While serving as artistic director of the New York City Ballet, Balanchine’s repertoire multiplied. Audiences were intrigued by Balanchine’s choreography including inspired American contemporary choreographer, William Forsythe. Even though Forsythe’s style of choreography is contemporary, he was first trained in ballet.

Soon after hiring Balanchine and his comrades, Diaghilev realized that Balanchine had great choreographic potential and proceeded to promote him to the rank of ballet master and principal choreographer. It was at Diaghilev’s instance that the surname Balanchivadze was shortened to Balanchine (“George Balanchine Biography” 2014). As the Ballet Russes’s resident choreographer, Balanchine would create eleven full-length works, among them the L'Enfant et les Sortilèges to the music of French composer Maurice Ravel and Le Chant du Rossignol, accompanied by a Stravinsky score. Other notable ballets choreographed exclusively for the Ballet Russes include Apollon Musagète and Prodigal Son. During this period, Balanchine suffered a serious knee injury,

In 1920, at the age of 16, Balanchivadze arranged a dance for the annual school performance. He choreographed the pas de deux "La Nuit" to music by Anton Rubenstein (Mikhail Barishnikov claims that this ballet is still

All heads are gently tilted to the right. This dance portrays the geometric shapes classical ballet formed, but Balanchine tells a story in the madness of the movement. Tony Bentley, who danced for the New York City Ballet for ten years, writes The Ballet That Changed Everything online at The Wall Street Journal. In his piece, Serenade, Balanchine incorporated the history of classical dance before him into thirty-two minutes. Although he is most known for his ballets, Balanchine choreographed musical theater dances on Broadway.

French Ballet began in the 17th century. It was a flamboyant entertainment presented in front of the aristocracy and royalty in the courts. French Ballet was also performed when they were celebrating marriages and showing off the wealth and power of the ruler. Besides, Ballet was called “la belle danse”, and it means “the beautiful dance.” In order to help the audience to recognize the characters in the story, dancers usually wore extravagant costumes. Moreover, the idea of different ballet movements was based on the social dance of royal courts, like beautiful arm and upper body movements and floor patterns were included. Also, in the beginning, only men were allowed to dance ballet, and women played the first ballet with parts until 1681.

The Russian National Ballet was founded in 1989 by Sergei Radchenko, former star of the Bolshoi Ballet. Radchenko and his wife, who run the company together, decided to tour in smaller groups, to reach audiences in smaller cities around the globe and bring beautiful ballet to everyone. Founded when Russia was known as the USSR, the company was government owned, but allowed Sergei, an honored artist, to start and operate the company. Sergei and his wife, Elena found success with this company, and opened The Moscow Festival Ballet, allowing them to tour and perform all over the world. Some of their repertoire includes “Don Quixote,” “Cinderella,” “Coppelia,” and of course, “Sleeping Beauty,” performed March 4, 2017 at the State Theatre of New

Tchaikovsky excelled at composing the genre of ballet. While others struggled with this genre he had all of the right compositional skills that make the perfect opera. Unlike other composers he was not good at creating intricate thematic relationships over a long period of time. Instead, he could create one outstanding melody after the other. This was exactly what is needed for ballet. It creates one distinct scene and then moves on to the next. His short-segment style was perfect for ballet because dancing in a ballet is very tiring and usually only lasted for three minutes at a time (Wright,