George Balanchine, born Georgi Melitonovitch Balanchivadze in St. Petersburg, Russia, is regarded as the foremost contemporary choreographer in the world of ballet.
At the age of nine, he was accepted into the ballet section of St. Petersburg's rigorous Imperial Theater School, and, with other young students, was soon appearing on the stage of the famed Maryinsky Theater in such spectacles as The Sleeping Beauty (his favorite). He graduated with honors in 1921 and joined the corps de ballet of the Maryinsky.
The son of a composer, Balanchine gained a knowledge of music early in life that far exceeded that of most of his fellow choreographers. He began piano lessons at five, and at some point between 1919 and 1921, while continuing to dance, he enrolled in the Petrograd Conservatory of Music. There he studied piano and music theory, including composition, harmony, and counterpoint, for three years, and he began to compose music.
"Watching Balanchine choreography a ballet was like watching light pass through a prism. the misc passes through him, and in the same natural yet marvelous way that prism refracts light, he refracts music into dance."
-Martha Graham
Diaghilev had his eye on Balanchine as a choreographer as well and, with the departure of Bronislava Nijinska, hired him as ballet master (principal choreographer). Balanchine's first substantive effort was Ravel'sL'Enfant et les Sortilèges (1925), the first of four treatments he would make of this wondrous score over the years.
The young American arts patron Lincoln Kirstein harbored a dream: To establish a ballet company in America, filled with American dancers and not dependent on repertory from Europe. He met Balanchine after a Les Ballets 1933 performance and outlined his vision. Balanchine was essential to it. Deciding quickly in favor of a new start, Balanchine agreed to come to the United States and arrived in New York in October 1933.
"But first, a school," he is famously reported to have said.
The first product of their collaboration was indeed a school, the School of American Ballet, founded in 1934 The School remains in operation to this day, training dancers for the New York City Ballet and companies worldwide.
The first ballet Balanchine choreographed in America--Serenade, to Tschaikovsky. Within a year, Balanchine and Kirstein had created a professional company, the American Ballet, which made its debut at the Adelphi Theater, New York City, in March 1935.
Until his death in 1983, Balanchine served as ballet master for the New York City Ballet, choreographing the majority of the productions the Company has introduced from its inception to the present day. An authoritative catalogue of Balanchine's output lists 465 works, beginning with La Nuit and ending with Variations for Orchestra (1982), a solo for Suzanne Farrell. In between, he created a body of work as extensive as it was diverse.
Among his notable ballets were Firebird and Bourrée Fantasque (1949; Firebird restaged with Jerome Robbins in 1970); La Valse (1951); Scotch Symphony (1952); The Nutcracker(his first full-length work for the company), Western Symphony, and Ivesiana (1954);Allegro Brillante (1956); Agon (1957); Stars and Stripes and The Seven Deadly Sins(1958); Episodes (1959, choreographed with Martha Graham); Tschaikovsky Pas de Deuxand Liebeslieder Walzer (1960); A Midsummer Night's Dream (1962); Bugaku and Movements for Piano and Orchestra (1963); Don Quixote (in three acts) and Harlequinade (in two acts, both 1965); Jewels (called the first full-length plotless ballet,1967); and Who Cares? (1970).
Although it is for ballet choreography that he is most noted, Balanchine also worked in musical theater and movies. On Broadway, he created dances for Ziegfeld Follies of 1936 and On Your Toes, including the groundbreaking "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" ballet (1936); Babes in Arms (1937); I Married an Angel and The Boys from Syracuse (1938);Louisiana Purchase and Cabin in the Sky, co-choreographed with Katherine Dunham (1940); The Merry Widow (1943); and Where's Charley? (1948), among others. His movie credits include The Goldwyn Follies, with its famous "water nymph" ballet (1938); I Was an Adventuress (1940); and Star Spangled Rhythm (1942).
Embracing television, Balanchine staged many of his ballets (or excerpts) and created new work especially for the medium
Often working with modern music and the simplest of themes, he has created ballets that are celebrated for their imagination and originality.
Balanchine himself wrote, "We must first realize that dancing is an absolutely independent art, not merely a secondary accompanying one. I believe that it is one of the great arts. . . . The important thing in ballet is the movement itself. A ballet may contain a story, but the visual spectacle . . . is the essential element. The choreographer and the dancer must remember that they reach the audience through the eye. It's the illusion created which convinces the audience, much as it is with the work of a magician."
The George Balanchine Foundation was incorporated in 1983, five months after the death of Mr. Balanchine, and embarked almost immediately upon the first of its major projects, The Balanchine Essays. In the latter part of his life, Balanchine talked about creating a "dictionary" of his technique, a visual reference for students of ballet.
George Balanchine in 1958, when he was ballet master of the New York City Ballet, working with Maria Tallchief.
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