Neoclassicism (ballet)

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The neoclassicism in ballet is a reform movement since the 1930s, mainly by the choreographer George Balanchine was founded.

Neoclassicism in ballet touches upon musical neoclassicism insofar as it was connected in its early days with the music of Igor Stravinsky and the Ballets Russes . Balanchine's Apollon musagète (1928) is often referred to as the first neoclassical ballet.

In ballet history, the period from the middle to the end of the 19th century is considered classical. This classic has nothing to do with antique fabrics and figures, rather with the fairy tale fabrics and mythical creatures of Giselle or Swan Lake . The rediscovery of antiquity has been possible since around 1900 because it was no longer necessarily associated with the allegorical dance in the (exclusive and anti-bourgeois) court theater of the 16th to 18th centuries, from which the dance of the 19th century had renounced.

The artistic intentions of neoclassical ballet are different from those of the musical style of the same name: It saw itself as a reform of the “classical” ballet techniques and action ballet. In neoclassicism, the stylistic devices of court dance were by no means refreshed, but rather the tradition of romantic action ballet was revived. Such a reform seemed necessary to some dancers and choreographers because the innovations in expressive dance and modern dance were gaining increasing influence over the repertoire . Compared to the fairy tale stories and the magic of the classical repertoire ballets, neoclassicism relied, at least initially, on a sober, puristic, more abstract aesthetic .

Other important representatives besides Balanchine are Frederick Ashton , Bronislava Nijinska and Jerome Robbins . Sergei Sergejewitsch Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet (1936), which found numerous choreographic implementations, has a special position within neoclassical ballet music .

After the antipodes Balanchine and Martha Graham , who had developed modern dance, came together again in a joint production ( Episodes , 1959), a new generation of neoclassicism followed, including John Cranko , Maurice Béjart and Kenneth MacMillan . To this day there are movements of neoclassicism as a counterbalance to the modernization efforts of dance theater .

literature

  • Horst Koegler : Balanchine and the modern ballet , Hanover: Friedrich 1964.
  • Volker Scherliess : Neoclassicism: Dialogue with History , Kassel: Bärenreiter 1998.
  • Jochen Schmidt: Dance History of the 20th Century in One Volume , Berlin: Henschel 2002.