Music Dances: Balanchine choreographs Stravinsky

I apologize for the "bootleg" quality of these videos...There were no videos available on Youtube and I was forced to resort to video taping a video, I also apologize for having to link a download to view the videos, both Youtube and the Blogger video uploaders were not cooperating.

Video 1: Introduction

“Watching Balanchine’s choreography was like hearing the music with one’s eyes”- Stravinsky

The praise between the two artists (Stravinsky and Balanchine) is unusual and demonstrates their respect for and relationship with one another.

Video 2: Further Development of Introduction

Stephanie Jordan confirms our assumptions of the tight-knit relationship between the two artists and gives us a preface for Agon’s importance not only as a musical composition but as a revolutionary development in the world of 20^th century dance/music.

Video 3: Bransle gay, "Visualizing the sound of music"

Highlights the connection between movement and music: especially the steps correspondence with notes in “phrases” (something we touched on earlier).

“Its an unusual musical structure and since there’s something that happens on every note and nothing repeats you have to learn that and uh, highs and lows and ins and outs…it’s a lot of fun and strangely enough I’ve learned that and never forgotten it” – Suzanne Farrell

“Musicians now are more comfortable playing Stravinsky. You know, in the early days it was somewhat cumbersome or difficult because they weren’t used to playing that kind of music”- Suzanne Ferrell

Video 4: First Pas de Trois

Further exploration of movement in combination with pitch as well as the relationship between the motivic lines.

“steps begin to relate to what you hear…the dance anticipates the rhythm” - Stephanie Jordan

Discussion of “pulse throughout” and the utilization of rests with movement in silences.