Apollo: The birth of a god

Transcription

1 Bohaty 1 Noelle Bohaty Dance 4490/7490 HTL Special Topics Professors Bales and Zuniga- Shaw February 9, 2015 Apollo: The birth of a god Created in 1928, Apollo musagète is considered to be one of George Balanchine s first pivotal works though he had already choreographed 84 ballets up to this point. Set to music by Igor Stravinsky, Apollo underwent several renovations during its lifetime and, as with any changes, led to nuances of interpretation in and around the work. This paper seeks to parse out Apollo s impact from its inception to its current version, tracing the shift from neoclassical toward pure dance or dance for dance s sake particularly after the edits made to the 1979 version. The paper will examine the ways in which Balanchine adapts the structure of classical ballet, references elements of his lineage through Petipa, and utilizes a lexicon that departs from traditional danse d ecole. As the title suggests, Apollo was crafted after the wave of Hellenism at the fin de siècle, and traces the maturation of the god, Apollo, and his three muses, Terpsichore, Polyhymnia and Calliope. In the 1928 version, this included the birth of Apollo from his mother, Leto, as well as the gifting of the lute to the soon- to- be- fully- realized musical deity by two handmaidens. By the time Baryshnikov was performing the title role in 1979, Gone were Apollo s birth, the presentation of the lute and Apollo s dramatic pirouettes out of his swaddling clothes and first, wobbly baby steps (Goldner 11). One could argue that the deletion of these elements was a move away from pantomime, or narrative ballet, and toward the realm of pure dance dance for dance s

2 Bohaty 2 sake. Writer and scholar Susan Jones argues that the inclusion of precursory components denotes an early lack of confidence on Balanchine s part: I believe Balanchine was telling us the story of his conflict as a burgeoning choreographer within the context of the aesthetics of dance at that period By the time Balanchine made the final cuts to the 1979 version he was confident in presenting the dance as that thing in itself (Jones 328) With danse d école as the shining example of classical ballet, even highly respected critics such as André Levinson found the inclusion of pantomime or mimetic device within the old ballet structure limiting. 1 This is not to say that Levinson was a fan of Balanchine, or the disruption of classical ballet with movement which he found, Crude and awkward, this choreography seemed an assault on ballet s fundamental principles a deformation a drawing and quartering of the pure and graceful forms of danse d école (Bellow 240). There is little doubt that Balanchine was influenced by a variety of other modalities for his source material. His appropriation for Apollo includes steps from a variety of other forms including folk dance, character dance, social dance, and later in his career, Broadway and Hollywood movies. 2 It is possible that the original prologue to Apollo even pulled from concepts seen in early American modern dance. For example, the way in which Apollo is unswaddled from his wrappings is almost Graham- like in execution, as it employs contractions and flexed feet. It is worth considering that 1 See Levinson s The New Ballet Versus the Old. 2 See Juliet Bellow s Balanchine and the Deconstruction of Classicism, as well as Gay Morris s A Game for Dancers.

3 Bohaty 3 Balanchine would have been exposed to other modern dancers as well: though she died the year before Apollo was made, Isadora Duncan achieved fame in Europe in the early 20 th century, also by looking to the Greeks for inspiration. 3 An examination of Apollo reveals the appropriation and manipulation of movement in ways that did not conform to classical ballet: It s easy to find sinning elements in the choreography the occasional turned- in leg, the flat- footed shuffles, the novel ways of partnering, the inclusion of acrobatics. (My god! Was that Terpsichore doing the splits?) None of this stuff was new, but now it was applied to a noble subject matter. (Goldner 9) Dance scholar Juliet Bellow cites Apollo musagète as Balanchine s first work in neoclassicism, a pure dance ballet blanc that marked the end of his parodic experiments with the danse d école (241). However, it seems a rash judgment to say that Balanchine completely ignored all of the elements of danse d école; rather, he shifted the paradigm of how these conventions were employed choreographically. One such example is the use of repetition in classical ballet. In a pas de deux, typically the sequence of movements repeats itself three times. In Apollo, the rule of three exists, but it is distributed across three female bodies. Balanchine clearly understands this rule he employs this repetition in Apollo s first solo: an arabesque turn, hands flicking, landing in 4 th with bent wrists, is seen thrice. Yet, almost all of the muses choreography in the pas d action following Apollo s first solo is also seen three times one in each female body. In this way, Balanchine recognizes the importance of 3 See Duncan s chapter in The Vision of Modern Dance: In the Words of Its Creators, p7 10.

4 Bohaty 4 repetition to the classical format and the danse d école, but deliberately pushes the boundaries of that formalism. At their introduction, the muses converge on Apollo using a battement devant, landing in 4 th position en pointe. However, this is done not happen simultaneously, but in a canon. Similarly, when Apollo rolls the muses onto his shoulder, he does so individually, one by one. The piqué arabesque to kneeling is executed in this way as well. Balanchine even plays with the timing of how the reiteration occurs: when Terpsichore is first separated from her sister muses, Apollo lifts her under her arms and lowers her to the floor over her knees; he repeats this strategy with the other two muses simultaneously, satisfying the rule of three, but this time as a 1 then 2 sequence. Balanchine continues this interplay where Apollo often executes his movement in threes, and the women frequently move in canon. This deconstruction of classical techniques was not unfamiliar to a dance audience. It can also be found in Petipa s work. Perhaps this is why Balanchine includes visual references to earlier works, such as La Sylphides and Sleeping Beauty as an acknowledgement of the legacy from which Balanchine stemmed; a legacy which grew away from pantomime and nearer to pure dance. Or perhaps Balanchine s intentional manipulation of, for example, the bluebird lift from Petipa s Sleeping Beauty in the pas de deux between Terpsichore and Apollo, speaks to Balanchine s desire to push farther than even Petipa dared in terms of reaching a white act that spanned a whole ballet. 4 However, this shift from neoclassical dance to pure dance did not happen fully in Apollo, even with the reduction of the prologue from its original performance. While, 4 See Bellow s Balanchine and the Deconstruction of Classicism. and Jones Modernism and Dance: Apolline or Dionysaic?

5 Bohaty 5 The revisions show us his [Balanchine s] artistic development as he reduced the narrative and representational function of the dance it did not and cannot eliminate the narrative aspect of Apollo entirely (Jones 314). This is due to the fact that the muses solos incorporate elements of their talents, namely mime and poetry. To establish her gift, each muse dances a solo with her prop and utilizes some pantomime to clue the audience as to her offering to Apollo. Though the maturation of Balanchine s choreography does seemingly parallel that of the maturation of the piece, Apollo musagète, art cannot be broken down into chains of causality (Levinson 76). In other words, the deletion of the beginning of the work certainly highlights the more ballet blanc ideal; however, it does not entirely eliminate the references to old ballets pantomime or its narrative aspect, particularly because of the ties to the Greek story of Apollo. In examining the evolution of Apollo from its inception to the current version, one can clearly see Balanchine s own transition toward movement for movement s sake. The Apollo edits laid the groundwork for what was to come in terms of a shift away from narrative ballets towards a kind of pure dance that had not been fully realized even by Fokine or Petipa. Perhaps more to the point, then, is the evidence and strong execution of Balanchine s re- envisioning of the classical format of dance and the danse d école: a paradigm shift that not only shaped the course of Balanchine s career, but also ballet as we know it. Arguably, Apollo depicts the birth of not one god, but two.

6 Bohaty 6 Works Cited: Bellow, Juliet. Balanchine and the Deconstruction of Classicism. The Cambridge Companion to Ballet. Ed. Marion Kant. NY: Cambridge UP, Print. Jones, Susan. Modernism and Dance: Apolline or Dionysiac? The Ancient Dancer and the Modern World, ed. Fiona Macintosh. Oxford: Oxford UP, Print. Levinson, André. The New Ballet Versus the Old. Ballet Old and New. Translated by Susan Cook Summer. Princeton, NJ: Dance Horizons, Print. Morris, Gay. Ballet s Challenges. A Game for Dancers. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, Print.