Dance Analysis
Apollo ( Apollo Musagete)
Choreographed by: George Balanchine
January 22, 1904 - April 30, 1983
“Movement must be self explanatory. If it isn’t, it has failed”
1. BIOGRAPHY
• A Russian dancer, choreographer and teacher named “ the father of American Ballet”.
• George Balanchine’s real name was Georgi Melitonovitch Balanchivadze.
• He was born on 22 January 1904 in St. Petersburg, Russia.
• The son of a composer, Balanchine studied piano from the age of five and had a robust understanding of music.
• In 1914 he was accepted by the Imperial Ballet School in St. Petersburg at the age of 9.
• Later while still continuing to dance he studied at the Petrograd Conservatory of Music.
• His extensive music taining enabled
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Music:
• Music was composed by Igor Stravinsky
• The composer contributed to the libretto.
• Violinist was Marcel Darrieux
• The score of Apollon Musagète is written for strings only and is consistently classical in style: dry harmonies, an abundance of perfect chords, rare polytonal superimposition. Those are borrowed from the past (from Lully and Delibes), but divested of all historical reference to achieve an abstract purity.
• Stravinsky began Apollo on 16 July 1927, and completed the score on 9 January 1928. He chose to make a ballet blanc, which he composed for a refined instrumental force, manifested as a string orchestra of 34 instrumentalists: 8 first violins, 8 second violins, 6 violas, 4 first cellos, 4 second cellos and 4 double basses
• Stravinsky had centered Apollo music in Greek mythology.
• The prologue begins with dotted rhythms in the style of a French overture.
• 1st Celliopes is a dramatic piece( muse of poetry – tablet)
• 2nd polhymnia is a playful piece ( muse of acting and mime – mask)
• 3rd Terpsichore is suble( muse of singing and dancing –lyre)
• Apollo has got strong accentuations like a god power
Lightning:
• Original lighting designed by Ronald Bates
• White light is equally distributed across the