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Our Town: The deep genius of George Balanchine

Dr Tom Ferraro
The arrival of the angels in "Serenade"

I was invited to the New York City Ballet this weekend to review “Serenade” by George Balanchine. This ballet is a milestone in the history of dance and was the first original ballet he created for America.

The ballet is set to Tschaikovsky’s “Serenade for Strings” and was created in 1935 as a lesson in stage technique for his young students. Part of the uniqueness of this piece is that he incorporated a number of unexpected events that occurred during the rehearsal process such as a dancer falling or coming late to rehearsal.

But that does not explain in any way the sheer majesty and profound depth and beauty this piece contains and why it’s considered one of the great balletic masterpieces. I was sitting in the press section during the show and seated immediately in front of me was a well-known choreographer. After the seventh curtain call and all the ovations concluded he remarked to his partner, “This is by far my favorite ballet, so lush, so beautiful, and so perfect.”

He is not alone in his admiration of this ballet. When it first premiered, Martha Graham was seated in the front row. The ballet begins as a dance lesson and when the corps goes into first position it was done so simply and beautifully that Graham immediately began to cry.

I think this ballet is considered a masterpiece for a number of reasons that reach deeply into our culture’s unconscious. It is as if somehow at this moment in history Balanchine was given permission to channel God. The following are six levels of depth that this dance piece possesses.

1. In 1935, Balanchine was already a master choreographer and inspired Lincoln Kirstein to support his vision of dance in America. With Kirstein’s backing, Balanchine developed a world-class ballet company by enlisting Jerome Robbins.

Balanchine remarked that “New York is the only place in the world where we could have built this company.” In time he would inspire Phillip Johnson to create the buildings that are now Lincoln Center and inspire Nelson Rockefeller to back the effort.

2. Balanchine was musically trained in Russia and his selection of “Serenade for Strings” by Tschaikovsky was inspired. The piece is elegiac, mournful and a sorrowful lament. Very few actually know about the history of this ballet’s creation and what the lament is all about. Serenade was created in 1934 and Hitler was on the rise in Nazi Germany.

Balanchine was aware of the evil that was about to unfold there and this ballet was his direct response. He explained to his naïve young American students that there was an “evil man with a moustache in Germany and that his followers would raise their right arm in the Nazi salute”.

And so as the curtain rises on the ballet you hear the mournful strings and you gaze at the 16 beautiful ballerinas standing at attention with their right hand raised stiffly as if in salute.

But then the right hand slowly bends, the arm folds overhead, the heads bow down and they enter first and the second position.

This is when Martha Graham began to weep as do most of the audience when they see this. Balanchine now offers an artistic response to the damage that was unfolding in Germany and throughout Europe.

3. I am certain Balanchine was highly mathematically gifted and if he ever had to take the SATs he would have gotten 800 in the math section. His use of geometric lines like diagonals and circles are exquisite. The math and the music ability is found in the right cortex and I am sure his was full and overflowing.

4. He must have adored women greatly because he managed to pick all these tall, slender beauties with long flowing hair and perfect bodies and he always featured them above the men.

5. This ballet also contains most of Balanchine’s core values including cooperation, inclusion, whimsy, charm and sweetness as well.

Joy, fun and wit always seems to pop up. Many of the movements remind you of nature as if the dancers are flowers opening up or waves falling on the beach.

6. I alluded to Balanchine’s ability to channel the culture’s deepest pain. He did this in “Serenade” at a time when the world was at its darkest. World War II was about to break out and Hitler was in the process of exterminating all those he was most afraid of. He was the most dangerous paranoid that the world had ever witnessed.

Melanie Klein was a famous psychoanalyst who developed the theory that artists do the work of reparation for the culture. They tap into the major pain in the world and then attempt to heal the damaged paranoid parts.

Balanchine was unquestionably a great artist and he did just that in the last two minutes of the piece. You first see one woman who is dying and her blind lover who is led off by the angel of death.

You then see six ballerinas on point, and the three men, lift the dead ballerina into the air and carry her off as she looks heavenward and opens her arms to receive God and his absolution. This end is so sad and so beautiful that the audience first sits there in stunned silence and then gets to its feet and offers a five-minute standing ovation.

This is dance at its very finest and at its deepest and shows why humans need art in order to heal. Balanchine was the man who introduced ballet to America and has kept in alive ever since.

It will be a long time until we see another genius like Balanchine and we are very lucky indeed to be able to see his work right here in New York so close to home. Bravo to New York City Ballet, its beautiful dancers and to Peter Martins for having the courage to step into Balanchine’s shoes.

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