The George Balanchine Foundation
News & Events

Contact: Mel Schierman
[email protected]
917-817-2354

MUSIC DANCES: BALANCHINE CHOREOGRAPHS STRAVINSKY now on DVD

The George Balanchine Foundation is pleased to announce the DVD release of MUSIC DANCES: BALANCHINE CHOREOGRAPHS STRAVINSKY by Stephanie Jordan. The acclaimed video was originally issued in VHS format in 2003.

Stephanie Jordan, Research Professor in Dance, Roehampton University London, holds degrees in both music and dance. In MUSIC DANCES she examines the extraordinary range of Balanchine's approach to Stravinsky's music across the years. The major focus is Agon, with additional examples from Apollo, Duo Concertant, Divertimento from 'Le Baiser de la Fée, Movements for Piano and Orchestra, and Danses Concertantes. Such elements as rhythm, pitch, structure, and meter, and their relationship to the choreography, are analyzed in detail.

Featured in the video are performance excerpts by Dutch National Ballet and the School of American Ballet, studio demonstrations with piano and violin accompaniment by New York City Ballet dancers, archival footage of Violette Verdy, George Balanchine, and Suzanne Farrell, and interviews with New York City Ballet principals Wendy Whelan and Albert Evans, as well as with Farrell today.

The video is NTSC and region-free and is available for purchase by non-profit institutions only. Orders should be directed to [email protected]. Information about other videos issued by the Foundation may be found at www.balanchine.org.

From reviews of the 2003 VHS edition:

"A superb educational primer and an engaging theoretical treatise, one that touches on the ontological frailty of ballet both as a performed and recorded medium."-Simon Morrison, Princeton University (Echo)

"A guided tour of the inner workings of rhythm and pulse in some of the most sophisticated manifestations of dance-music combinations. . . . In the Violin Concerto example, we see the whole ensemble with soloists, each individual, pair, or group articulating its own rhythmic pattern in counterpoint with all the others and with the music. . . . Jordan leads us to this step by step, dissecting the whole and showing us the detail of each contributing element, then layering them one on the other, until it is complete once more."- Rachel Duerden, Manchester Metropolitan University (Dance Research)

"Jordan's rigorous parsing of music and dance relationships is one Balanchine himself would have respected."- Jennifer Fisher, UCal/Irvine (Newsletter, Society of Dance History Scholars).