360. Metastaseis & Pithoprakta 1968
Iannis Xenakis (Metastaseis, 1953-54; Pithoprakta, 1955-56)
George Balanchine
Lighting by Ronald Bates
January 18, 1968, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater. Conductor: Robert Irving
METASTASEIS: 22 women, 6 men;
PITHOPRAKTA: Suzanne Farrell, Arthur Mitchell, 7 women, 5 men
Performance Type
Ballet
Note
The music of both brief pieces by the modern Greek composer-architect is based on a calculus of sound, the orchestra of sixty-one instruments playing sixty-one different parts. In the ballet METASTASEIS (Greek, meaning ‘[action] after stillness’) the dancers, in white, form a mass in the shape of a giant wheel that moves and changes, ending as it began. In PITHOPRAKTA ( ‘aleatory acts’), the two leading dancers, dressed in white and gold, perform a pas de deux during which they simulate partnering but seldom touch; the corps is in black.

2007   Suzanne Farrell Ballet
2011   Suzanne Farrell Ballet