Ballet
George Balanchine and Serge Diaghilev were similar and yet different in various ways. For instance, both were prominent figures in the 20th century: they worked together in the Ballets Russes for five years in the latter half of the 1920s; Balanchine was the choreographer and ballet master, Diaghilev the promoter. Diaghilev had staged works, too, and is regarded as a pioneer in the field -- uniting new music and modernist styles and tactics with the traditional ballet forms to bring a new spectacle to the stage -- works like The Rite of Spring, for instance, which was so controversial that it caused a fight to break out in the theater on the evening of its first performance (Kelly 293). Balanchine, on the other hand, was devoted more towards the art of dance: he opened schools and worked in New York and in Hollywood. He lived for dance, it could be said, while Diaghilev lived for sensation and the revolution. By the time Balanchine developed Jewels for New York City Ballet, it was like he had returned to the pure form of ballet that he had spent so much time experimenting with in the early days when with the Ballets Russes.
Balanchine was creative and energetic, working with some of the greatest modern composers -- Stravinsky, Debussy, Ravel and Satie, while having sets designed by the great modernist painters like Picasso and Matisse (and, of course, this all occurred while with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes) (Fisher 25). The two shared a few years of creative outpouring, but in the big scheme, it was a small chapter in Balanchine's life and career. He went on to New York to found the School of American Ballet, took dancing to Hollywood and worked on films, and formed the Ballet Society company that -- like his time with Diaghilev -- also worked alongside modern composers on new works. At the same time, Balanchine stayed devoted to traditional works like Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker. Diaghilev also liked to do this -- but his focus was on spectacle -- both on stage and in terms of ideas and what was being expressed. Diaghilev wanted to move things forward in powerful ways; Balanchine understood the lesson of moderation to a more business-like degree -- as his success over many years shows.
One of the works that defined Balanchine's career was Apollo, which he developed with Stravinsky while in the Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. It was a minimalist piece that was heavily influenced by Stravinsky's modernist or post-modernist sounds: accompaniments from the jazz-inspired times, filled with suggestions of a break with the old dance temperament of the past. It was jazzy and fast, with twirls and movements predicated by the jazz rhythms and beats: it was like jazz dance music performed by ballerinas -- an odd pairing that jars upon viewing. It was an expression of the neoclassical movement and both Balanchine and Diaghilev were at the head of it. Thus, they were similar in this regard -- they both desired to experiment with genre...
American-born choreographers and dancers also added to the development of American ballet. "Choreographers such as Ruth Page, Agnes de Mille, and Jerome Robbins created dances to specifically American themes. American dancers who have gained fame in the 1900's include Maria Tallchief, Suzanne Farrell, Cynthia Gregory, Edward Villella, and Arthur Mitchell" (Ballet History, 2006). Ballet became firmly established in Australia in the early 1900's soon after visits by the ballerinas Adeline
Rite of Spring - Vaslav Nijinsky & Igov Stravinsky In what ways has The Rite of Spring laid the foundations for postmodernism in art, music, and dance? The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky, choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky, laid the foundations of postmodernism in art, music and dance by promoting the ideas rooted in Kant and Nietzsche -- namely that truth exists not as an objective reality but rather as a
By being able to do so -- by actually doing so -- he also changed the role of ballet in society and the role of classical male dancers in society. This change was certainly not an enormous one, but in the context of gender relations and the role of high art in society during his lifetime, it was startling (Ramsay, 1995). Audiences in Nijinsky's era rejected the legitimacy of masculinity
Four men stand out as the penultimate figures of Post-Impressionism, namely, Georges Suerat (1859-1891), Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), Paul Gauguin (1843-1903) and Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890), all of whom at first accepted the Impressionist methods and then moved away from it toward a new type of painting. In the case of Cezanne, the basis of his art had much to do with studying nature in a new way, for his aim
The piano plays quick octaves and the urgent bass motive portrays an intense wild ride. This strong galloping is also being formulated by the piano's triplet rhythm which allows for the development of the dramatic storyline's urgency. 5. ) There are four different characters in this piece: the Narrator, the father, the son, and the Erlkonig. Although Schubert uses one singer to portray and sing all of the four parts
Besides other awards, he was given a special Congressional Gold Medal by the United States Congress in 1986-87. Copland left an endowment from his estate to a Fund for Composers, which gives $600,000/annum to promote new compositions and performances (Congressional Gold Medial Receipients; Trudeau; Pollack, 548; Rockwell). Musical Examples Copland was an active composer of numerous genres from 1925 to the mid-1960s. His works expressed a new semblance of Americana so
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