Word: kellaway
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Intrigued by overexposure to the airline's familiar radio and TV ad, Balanchine commissioned Jazz Composer Roger Kellaway to write a score based on its musical theme. Then he set out to design what might be called a dance-ode to an airline terminal. Between takeoff and landing (complete with last-minute baggage scramble) there is a series of typically flowing Balanchine duets for three couples, vaguely identified as young marrieds, two hippies and a brace of space-age jet-setters. By far the best is an earthy, bluesy number for Frank Ohman and German-born Karin von Aroldingen...
...Composer Kellaway's arch, nervous score does nothing to hide the banality of the original theme, and Balanchine's ensemble choreography is often surprisingly distracted and cluttered. On the other hand, Jo Mielziner's nighttime airline setting is one of the City Ballet's best, and the fanciful costumes by Irene Sharaff might give Braniff a few good ideas. For all its frivolity, PAMTGG does display, once more, Balanchine's uncanny skill at catching the aesthetic potential in America's mass culture and at fusing pop dance with ballet. Slightly dated in its style...