Included in the Tchaikovsky Festival. Sixteen couples dance, each couple holding aloft a garland of flowers in the form of an arch; a chain of little girls enters, weaving under the garlands, and is joined by nine older girls. In addition to the GARLAND DANCE, the short works presented under the general title Tempo di Valse during the Tchaikovsky Festival (and later in the season) were the WALTZ OF THE FLOWERS from The Nutcracker [302] by Balanchine, VALSE-SCHERZO by d’Amboise, and VARIATION VI FROM TRIO IN A MINOR and WALTZ FROM EUGENE ONEGIN, ACT II by Taras. (See FESTIVALS DIRECTED BY BALANCHINE.)

In the summer of 1951, at Jacob’s Pillow, Diana Adams performed a variation from Aurora’s Wedding (divertissements from Act III of The Sleeping Beauty [Tchaikovsky]), with choreography credited to Balanchine.

The printed program indicates that this selection of excerpts from The Sleeping Beauty included the FAIRY VARIATIONS from the PROLOGUE and divertissements from Act III. Balanchine staged Petipa’s choreography of the BLUEBIRD pas de deux, but altered much of the rest. A duet (presumably for two fairies, which would have given each of the six Fairies a variation) is mentioned in a review by Lillian Moore (Dancing Times, June 1949, p. 497); printed programs list only five solo variations.

In 1955, Balanchine interpolated this music in its original form as a violin cadenza into Act I of his production of The Nutcracker for the New York City Ballet.

In 1926 or 1927 Balanchine replaced the pas de trois for a man and two women in Aurora’s Wedding (divertissements from Act III of Petipa’s The Sleeping Beauty [Tchaikovsky]) known as ‘Florestan and His Sisters’ with a pas de trois for a woman and two men called ‘Ariadne and Her Brothers.’ The earliest program found is for the January 10, 1927, performance of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes at La Scala, Milan. Throughout his tenure as ballet master to Diaghilev, Balanchine made frequent adjustments to repertory pieces, from minor alterations to entire new variations; most of these changes are not noted on printed programs. During the frequent periods between the seasons of the Ballets Russes, Balanchine is also known to have created choreography for productions in provincial opera houses in France; these are no longer possible to document.