NOTES FROM THE DIRECTOR

Balanchine: Twin Masterpieces is a chance to see, in real time, the extent to which the ‘classical’ approach to art makes infinite expression possible. 

‘Classical’ in this context simply means the understanding and use of the tools, discoveries, and advancements made by centuries of artistic work as a way forward. 

While this may seem like the only logical approach, there is periodically (as during the 20th century) a conception that the path to artistic originality and greatness is through rejection of the past, and that the fundamental languages of music, dance, etc. have to be reinvented. 

To reject the advancements of masters and centuries may require a kind of hubris of which only young artists are capable. It is perhaps understandable, however: contemplating the towering greatness of the work created by one’s predecessors in any artistic field can leave a young artist paralyzed. It may seem easier to declare them misguided, proclaim revolutionary insight, and start from scratch. But it leaves the artist with a far worse burden.

To reject the past is to put oneself in the position of the primitive. Further, one cannot create art, and an artistic language, simultaneously. The creation of great art comes from absorbing an artistic language and models of its use so thoroughly that one’s own mind can spontaneously shape them according to one’s own inspiration. 

This is how composers like Bach and Handel were able to write with such fecundity, variety, and speed. It was the conception of artistic training that Michaelangelo grew up in. 

Balanchine’s own expression of this view was, “You must go through tradition, absorb it, and become in a way a reincarnation of all the artistic periods that have come before you." In the twentieth century, he stands as the definitive reproach to anyone who would throw out the past. While the artistic experiments of the erstwhile reinventers now look quaint and dated, many of Balanchine’s ballets still seem to be from the future. 

Balanchine also said, “There are no new steps, only new combinations.” One might expect a choreographer with such a view to be limited in his output. Instead, he was the most original, most wide-ranging, most inventive choreographer of his time. Perhaps of all time. One only needs to sample the repertory, from the futuristic Agon, to the jazz infused Rubies, to the sleek opulence of Concerto Barocco to see this.

Even the novice to ballet can see in these two works how much variety is created using not only the same choreographic language, but the same number and gender of corps dancers, soloists, and principals (8, 1, and 2 for both ballets). Both ballets are approximately the same length, and they are both storyless, a mode Balanchine developed in the 20th century (dancing as an expression of the music rather than as a storytelling device). They even use many of the same steps. And yet, the flavor, the atmosphere, the meaning (if one can apply such a term to ballet) of these two ballets is worlds apart.

Believe it or not, if one were to strip down the layers of stylization in these ballets, and the full extension of the legs, feet, and arms and grace of the hands and head that is responsible for much of ballet’s breathtaking beauty of ballet, you would find quite familiar and commonplace dance steps—steps that you might do or see at any wedding or nightclub. Steps that in one stylization or another have been performed for centuries, because they represent human beings’ inspired and instinctive responses to rhythm. 

It is not in the attempt to replace these that we find new forms. It is in building up from these foundations, adding layers of style and choices specific to the music, that works which are both timeless and utterly singular emerge.

Lincoln Jones, Artistic Director
American Contemporary Ballet