83. Aleko and Polka Grotesque 1928
George Balanchine
Performance Type
Concert Works
Note
Probably in the spring of 1928, when both the Pavlova and Diaghilev companies were in Paris, Balanchine choreographed Aleko (a gypsy dance to music by Sergei Rachmaninoff) and Polka Grotesque (music unknown) for Nina Kirsanova and Thadée Slavinsky, at the request of Anna Pavlova, for her company’s tour to South America in the fall of that year. A Balanchine work for Pavlova herself, possibly to Scarlatti, was discussed but not choreographed.
Keith Money (Pavlova’s biographer), corroborated by Balanchine.