Agon: From a different angle--A look at relationships

As I stated in the previous entry, I decided to shift my focus from a strictly musical aspect and point of view to a look of the collaboration of both Stravinsky and Balanchine as well as dance and music. I believe that this is more beneficial to myself and any others who choose to learn about this work.

Relationships are essential and inevitable--no matter what characteristics a relationship may posses, it still exists.

The relationship between Stravinsky and Balanchine was a strong, professional, healthy, productive relationship. Balanchine choreographed thirty-nine of Stravinsky's work--they had a good groove together and their sense of communication was impeccable. It was as if Balanchine could interpret and express in movement every minute detail that Stravinsky chose to write about in his music. Nothing was haphazardly completed and both men seemed to feed off of each other's creative energy; an unstoppable power couple and a force to be reckoned with and ultimately admired in the dance and music world.

Agon specifically displays the strong relationship between dance and music, which is in essence why ballet and other genres of dance/music exist: expression.

This relationship is especially present in the serial movements of Stravinsky's revolutionary ballet. When I first heard this piece and read about it, I wondered how the movements would correspond the the music--specifically the tone row-- would certain pitches have certain movements? Would the movements relate at all to the pitch, timbre, rhythm or other music elements?

After watching an amazing video titled: Music Dances: Balanchine choreographs Stravinsky, I not only received my answers but also more information on the correspondence between music and dance as well as Stravinsky and Balanchine.

There was indeed a strong relationship between the tone rows and the movement laid out by Balanchine-- Each pitch had a movement, not a movement specific to that pitch but it was as if the mechanism of movement followed the rhythm and occurrence of pitch. The dancers would count bars according to the number of pitches within a phrase meaning one phrase may be counted to 8 while the one immediately following it is counted to 11. Another interesting thing to note is that while Balanchine utilized all of the pitches and melodic material, he also took advantage of the rests, allowing for movements in moments of silence creating the feeling of an ever-present pulse throughout each section and really creating what the film depicts as a "visualization of the sound of the music".