Word: ballets
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Ballet is important and significant-yes," he says. "But first of all, it is a pleasure. No one would enjoy watching a group of dancers jump about the stage aimlessly, no matter how well they jumped. After all, a pig can jump-but who wants to see a pig jump?" Nobody has a better right than George Balanchine to decide what ballet audiences do and do not want to see. As head man of the young (five years old) New York City Ballet Company, he has enticed record-breaking numbers of watchers into theaters on two continents; as a choreographer...
Working Bodies. Most of the repertory that the New York company carries in its theater trunks is something new and different in ballet. It is danced in modern "classic" style, with clean-cut silhouettes and unwasted movements. It often dares to use "classical" scores by Mozart and Bach. But it avoids telling such long-winded old "classical" ballet tales as the beautiful mechanical doll (Coppelia), the bewitched princess (Sleeping Beauty), or the peasant girl in love with the prince (Giselle). Though it is sometimes called "American" ballet, it pays almost no attention to "Americana." The repertory leans heavily (about...
...When you get older," says George Balanchine, who is 50 this week, "you eliminate things. You want to see things pure and clear." New York's ballet company is remarkable in still another way: it is not simply a showcase for a few rare stars, such as the Danilovas, Markovas and Fonteyns of other troupes. The company offers a fresh tradition almost equally adaptable to any of its leading dancers, and its proudest possession is a chorus that can dance rings around any other. When New York City Ballet Company dancers become "ballerina-minded," wrap the public...
Versatile Enigma. Balanchine, all but idolized by his pupils, old and new, remains an enigma and a system of paradoxes to most of them. He turns down an average of a dozen rich offers a year from Broadway and TV nowadays to go on working for the New York Ballet-where he takes no salary. He is satisfied with his income from the royalties (some $200 a week during a season) and occasional fees for outside commissions...
...movies' Sam Goldwyn, who hired him for Hollywood's first full-scale ballet (in 1938's Goldwyn Follies), calls him "the greatest choreographer we have in this country." and adds: "I don't think he has $10 to his name." In 1951 Goldwyn engaged him, at a sturdy fee, for the ballet in Hans Christian Andersen, only to have Balanchine beg off: too busy with ballet at City Center...