Dance:

...DON McDONAGH...

...Lincoln Kirstein, one of the most positive believers in its future, brought him to the United States in 1933 to found the School of American Ballet and the American Ballet...

...15"), Gliick ("Chaconne"), Tchaikovsky ("Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No...

...He was characteristically modest about his accomplishments, commenting that he liked to "move people to music.'' When asked about his work, he compared himself to a cook or a carpenter and echewed the word ' 'create'' in relation to his ballets...

...To train dancers to meet these demands, he shifted the weight from the heel to the ball of the foot and eliminated the preparatory stances assumed between combinations of steps so that the musical flow was not halted...

...2," and "La Sonambula...

...He celebrated his ideal woman as muse, companion, and sharer of life's joys and disappointments in a variety of ballets such as "Apollo," "Duo Concertant," "Serenade," "Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No...

...and for him artistic expressiveness was inextricably linked with expanded technical ability...

...During the first flush of the revolution, when the Imperial School was closed, he supported himself at times as an accompanist to silent movies and after graduation played frequently in the popular cabarets that sprang up...

...Because of his restless energy both as a choreographer and teacher, the present-day dancer wields the classic vocabulary with a greater speed and fluency than had ever been seen previously...

...He increased the points of contact between the male and female partners to provide variety and greater expressive possibilities...

...The former is now effectively our national conservatory for classic dance training, and after several false starts the latter became New York City Ballet, our leading company...

...Henceforth he worked in this manner...

...To each he brought creative understanding in devising ballets using their music...

...Before him choreographers developed ballets according to a story line...

...In conversation he pointed out that the Greek root of technique was techne, meaning art...

...Because of his skill he was frequently asked by fellow students to accompany them in their school recitals...

...With Diaghilev's company he devised over thirty opera-ballets and nine ballets of which "Apollo" had the greatest significance for him...

...He was particularly fond of the waltz and created a variety of ballets exploring its possibilities as a sheer celebration of natural exuberance in The Nutcracker's "Waltz of the Snowflakes" and "Waltz of the Flowers.'' Poignant romantic interludes were delineated in "Valse Fantasie" and "Trois Valses Romantiques," while the waltz as a mirror of society found form in "Liebeslieder Waltzer" and "Vienna Waltzes...

...Literary devices as a pretext for dancing have been superseded by the rhythmic structure of music as the governing frame for imaginative development...

...The change reflected his,own great skill at deploying large masses of dancers and the increased technical skill of the contemporary dancer...

...As a choreographer he has created a body of work unmatched in the history of ballet and as a teacher has enlarged the technical capacity of the contemporary dancer...

...If his collaboration with Stravinsky"Apollo," "Agon," "Stravinsky Violin Concerto," "Symphony in Three Movements"-was the closest, he created equally masterful works with the music of Bach ("Concerto Barocco"), Mozart ("Divertimento No...

...Impressed by the economy and logic of Stravinsky's score, Balanchine translated his perception into choreographic gesture...

...The ballet had no libretto so he was free to work directly with the musical structure...

...Ballet, which had grown up as the stepchild of opera, now found itself confidently in possession of a movement vocabulary that is expressive in its own terms and without need of a narrative justification...

...Only God creates, I assemble...

...While his ballets have clearly established his creative genius, the extent of his impact on traditional ballet training has been less often remarked upon...

...Opinions of his work ranged from outright disapproval to enthusiastic affirmation...

...The nineteenth century relegated the corps de ballet to a decorative frame around the principal dancers and Balanchine transformed it into a participating "character" in his ballets...

...Born Georgi Melitonovitch Balanchivadze in St...

...While vitally concerned with creative innovation, he was thoroughly imbued with the classic vocabulary even as he extended its technical and artistic range...

...Woman was the creative inspiration that infused his work...

...His first choreographic efforts concentrated on duets for himself and fellow students, and subsequently a group called "The Young Ballet'' was formed around him...

...by the time he left Russia he had created nearly three dozen ballets or dance sequences in opera, theater, and cabaret...

...Balanchine's artistic ideals have infused them both...

...Later he dated this experience as the creative turning point in his life...

...His revolutionary ballet "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" for Rod-gers and Hart's On Your Toes in 1936 integrated dance into the plot line of the book, an innovation that became a creative . necessity in subsequent decades...

...To add visual excitement to the pas de deux, he introduced the technique of "off-balance" partnering in which the female was allowed to swing out far beyond her natural balance point while being supported and then returned to secure placement...

...By 1929 when Diaghilev died, Balanchine's name was known throughout Western Europe...

...Created in 1954, the latter's enduring popularity can been seen in the fact that next December New York City Ballet will present its one-thousandth performance of the Christmas classic...

...now they possess the imaginative freedom to order a ballet solely according to the framework of its accompanying score...

...This necessitated increasing the ability of dancers to move within faster musical time...

...He was engaged by Serge Diaghilev and appointed resident choreographer of the Ballets Russes de Serge Diaghilev, the most vital company of the time...

...Balanchine never attempted to render the music visual by assigning dancers the roles of being woodwinds, strings, or any other instrument...

...His taste in music was broad, encompassing Bach, Beethoven and Brahms along with twentieth-century innovators Stravinsky, Schonberg, Webern, Ives, and Hindemith as well as popular composers like Cole Porter and John Philip Sousa...

...In both cases the impulse for change stemmed from Balanchine's profound musical sensitivity...

...Instead he devised a structured theme in accordance with the rhythmic armature of the score...

...Though he preferred the shorter one-act ballet, he showed himself equally adept at creating full evening works of which he designed a half-dozen including The Nutcracker...

...In all cases the innovations were made to better express the dynamics of the musical score which accompanied the ballet...

...These changes were incorporated in the training at the School of American Ballet, creating a newer, more fluent dancer, ready to meet the demands of the Balanchine repertory...

...While still training in the Maryinsky School, he enrolled as a student of piano and composition, studies which he pursued concurrently for three years...

...Petersburg, Balanchine was a graduate of the Imperial School for Theater and Ballet and a member of the Maryinsky Ballet...

...Despite official disapproval their presentations attracted considerable attention...

...2" and "Serenade"), and Bizet ("Symphony in C...

...As part of a small group of artists called "Soviet State Dancers' ' he left Russia in 1924 and elected to remain in the West...

...Music and dance have far more in common than literature and dance, but until Balanchine turned his enormous gifts to demonstrating their direct relationship to one another, literature had brokered that alliance...

...Between then and 1951, he contributed dance sequences to nineteen musicals and became the first choreographer to also direct a whole production in Cabin in the Sky...

...During his career he devised over four-hundred works including film sequences and musicals as well as ballets...

...As he did so it became necessary to extend the training of the dancers so that they could more adequately respond to denser musical incidents...