Musical Theatre: The Four Seasons

Jerome Robbins’s incredible dance history and background is what has left him ranked so highly in the musical theater industry today. From working to dazzle his audiences, Robbins can be held responsible for the industry’s serge in popularity over a short amount of time. It can be said by many that Robbins took a fresh approach to choreography to introduce to the world with a more energetic and dynamic performance to display. Robbins creative work elevated the role of dance in musical theatre, which was claimed to be the industry’s ‘Golden Era’.

On February 2, 2017, I was given the opportunity to view Innovative Works, performed by Charlotte Ballet, and created by Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux, in the Patricia McBride and Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux Center for Dance. Charlotte Ballet has been around Charlotte, North Carolina for twenty-five years as a professional company. Bonnefoux created the performance to announce the passion and intensity of each movement the dancer’s performed along with assistance from Mark Diamond, Sasha Janes, Sarah Harkins, and David Ingram. Before viewing the performance, the Dance Department of Coker College was given a tour around the building. During the tour, information was provided about how long the company has existed, we were able to visit the costume design

Listening to Music class has taught me a new way to listen and enjoy music. I have learned how to differentiate the melodies, rhythms, and instruments in a song. It has also introduced me to different genres in the music world, aside from what is usually played on the radio. I can now attend any concert, listen to any genre, or watch any ballet and easily recognize the many specific aspects the music being played has. Ballets are very interesting to me. The audience is able to enjoy the music being played as it is telling a story, and being acted out through the performer’s body language. In the two ballets, The Rite of Spring and The Nutcracker, a great story is told in both referencing the many great dynamics music has. These two specific ballets are written by different composers, and each one of them have certain conditions they were written under. As well as different receptions, popularity, and development. The Rite of Spring and The Nutcracker’s differences has made some sort of an impact in the performing world back then as well as now.

Just recently I went to view the Dance Plus Spring performance on Saturday April 23rd, 2016. Overall, the show was unique and exciting at the same time. Each of the performances were very different and they conveyed their own separate messages and themes, which made them all so exciting and fun to watch. The performance that I will be critiquing in this paper is “Excerpts from The Rambler.” Choreographed by Joe Goode and Melecio Estrella, this piece was performed in a proscenium stage because the whole idea was to have the entire audience engaged and have them view and understand the message they were trying to communicate.

Mrs. Farrell’s book is quite technical when it comes to the lengthy descriptions of the dances she rehearses and performs; from a dancer’s view these varied conclusions of the types of movements she was dancing is quite astonishing. In fact, it adds a whole new level to the imagination that can come alive in a person’s thoughts when they read an expressive book. Although the technical explanations will excited, astound, and reveal how much passion and deep meaning ballet had in Suzanne Farrell’s life, but a reader, who may not be involved in the arts will be unfamiliar with the ballet and musical terms in

Although I am open-minded about the four new ballets presented in the fall, it is appropriate that they will be performed in two different programs … and even seasons. (For various reasons I prefer Not Our Fate and Pulcinella Variations,

For a program in which none of the splendid female principals that make NYCB performances rewarding to attend participated, Sunday afternoon's spring season finale--Concerto Barocco; Agon; The Four Temperaments--proved eminently engaging. No matter how magnificent the ballets on a program may be, having appealing dancers in the cast is essential of course in order to bring them to life. Happily, although no one should be promoted to principal (or soloist) status at the drop of a hat, NYCB currently has several such dancers in its lower ranks.

While observing this dance ballet, there were many things that caught my attention. First, the theater itself was extremely large, and the stage itself was big, and the dancers had plenty of room to move across the stage and perform their routines. There were many dancers, and they all played various roles that ranged from Clara, Fritz, Herr Drosselmeyer, the Rat King, the Nutcracker, the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier, and many more. All of the performers wore vivid costumes

On April thirteenth two thousand seventeen, I attend the Moores School Ballet Orchestra, directed by Franz Anton Krager at the University of Houston. In this paper I would be discussing the music fundamentals of each song selection of the event. It was comprised of Peter Ilych Tchalkovsky Allegro Brillante Piano Concerto No.3, Op.75; Johann Strauss II Graduation Ball and Benjamin Britten Brigade Matinees Musicales Op.24 and Soirees Musicales Op.9.

Thinking about such a Great Ballets like “The Firebird”, “Petrushka”, “The rite of spring” and “Apollo” I feel a confusion when I

Before the 20th century, people used music and dancing to tell stories, but it had nothing to do with developing musical theater. Musical theatre is a type of play that tells a story through songs, spoken dialogue, and dancing. During the 20th century, there was a lot of change going on in Musical Theatre. Musicals are different from other types of stage works such as opera because a musical would not be a musical without the music, story line, or dancing. European operetta was becoming more popular than American Musical Theatre. The two main types of opera that were being made were called ballad operas and comic operas which had romantic plots. American composers sought to come up with something new, since Musical Theatre was not very popular with the general public. There were a lot of components that helped shape musical theatre in America , but most think that it was mainly developed because of the different tastes developing, likeable styles, spirit and energy by composers in America, it was not. Although musical theaters origins are not certain, Musical theatre gradually developed using influences of ballad opera, comic opera, operetta, vaudeville, and burlesque.

It's been said that Balanchine's ballets are dancer proof. That isn't quite true but many of his works can encompass dancers a broad range of body types and personalities. Today's Vienna Waltzes was a good example.

Originally premiering in December 1892, at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia; The Nutcracker was once not the beloved production we know of today, but instead was immensely criticized. It wasn’t until 1954, when George Balanchine re-adapted the classic for the New York City Ballet, that it gained the momentum now received nationwide. Nevertheless, Denver’s adaptation of the story surely doesn’t disappoint, incorporating a cast expertly delivered by both professional dancers, as well as students from the Colorado Ballet Academy with timeless choreography by Martin Fredmann and Sandra Brown.

Another production that I felt contained the greatest value in performance content and characteristics was Elmira College’s very own Orchesis. The content of Orchesis was also unlike any other production that I attended all semester because it wasn’t limited to just one genre of dance. The several performances embedded within the show comprised of several diverse genres of dance ranging from ballet, to hip-hop, to tap, to jazz, to contemporary. This increased the production’s vale because we rarely get to attend a show that consists of a variety of styles with each one triggering a different mood.

In this essay I will analyse and contextualise the work of 3 key practitioners who are currently active and influential within the classical ballet industry. I will discuss and develop key qualities of my three chosen practitioners and identify the main objectives that have allowed them to achieve their current high status within the industry. I will also identify, analyse and contextualise the main performance qualities of the key practitioners work and analyse ways in which I can incorporate these qualities into my own work. I will relate my studies of these 3 artists to my own chosen classical variation that I have chosen to perform. I will analyse and reflect on my own advanced understanding of my personal technical performance skills. I will use anatomical vocabulary and professional language when discussing and reflecting on my technical performance skills, translating from the barre to the stage with the use of stylistic knowledge and performance context.