A ballet class paper

Selections from the ballet Jewels

In place of a story, Balanchine offers a triptych of ballet style: French romanticism (Emeralds), American dynamism (Rubies), and Russian imperial classicism (Diamonds), with music by Fauré, Stravinsky, and Tchaikovsky, respectively. You have to grant that the man had a singular way of responding to musical structure with movement--at times you think no other gesture could express what the music is saying, at others the music is given a new dimension by a dancer's illustration of it in space. It's the ballet equivalent of "I never thought of it that way before."

Visually, the stage becomes a setting for the eponymous jewels, open to great washes of green, red, and white. The costumes are just as evocative as the music: in Emeralds, ballerinas wear "clouds of tulle;" in Rubies they've raided Radio City Music Hall; in Diamonds a crystalline white pervades.

Emeralds brought some excellent pas des deuxs, while the corps wafted by, arms elongated for the occasion. Naturally, one appreciates an impeccable entrechat six! You don’t see Rubies, but in it Balanchine uses a bended-knee emphasis in comparison to the other two pieces. The mood is jazzy, and nods to the Charleston and other popular dances of long ago show up. In the Diamonds selection, we only see the pas de deux, but you can still see Balanchine's ability to implicate the space between dancers, either through symmetrical movement or playing up an asymmetry (the male dancer aggressively advances, the ballerina skitters away en pointe). A foot apart, or thirty feet, empty air suddenly becomes live with charged particles. Diamonds is also the peak of presentation--many "Here I am!" series of gestures that aim for nothing more than your attention.

lkr

Fall 2016