Music You'd Like to See as a Dance Options

[fendrock]

If you had free reign to choreograph something, which music would you choose?

I’d choose Josef Suk’s Scherzo.

[citibob]

* Dave Brubreck's "Take Five"
* Mozart's 21st Piano Concerto, 1st movement

[Leigh Witchel]

The Suk Scherzo Fantastique, Fendrock?

Been there, done that. (IMG:http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Twice actually! In 1995 I used it as a work for three couples, but that ballet has been supplanted by a female trio made in '99.

[Calliope]

The music from the old DeBeers Diamond commercials

by Karl Jenkins.

[Ari]

Copland's Appalachian Spring.

Songs by Berlin, Porter and Rodgers (separate ballets).

[citibob]

I believe Appalachain Spring was originally written by Copland for Martha Graham.

[Juliet]

The music from the old DeBeers Diamond commercials

by Karl Jenkins.


Calliope, I like this too--
Christopher d'Amboise just did a piece with this and it was very well received--(IMG:http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I'd like Mozart's Div. #11.....

[Ari]

I know about the Graham dance, citibob. I've even seen it. (IMG:http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) But that's modern dance, not ballet. I don't see any reason it can't be used again.

[fendrock]

Yes, Leigh, that is the music to which I was referring.

Interesting that you reduced the number of dancers the second time around -- I'd make it with a corps of at least eight or so...maybe I'm thinking big because the music seems big?

[Leigh Witchel]

It's huge music, isn't it Fendrock?

For what it's worth - here's the genesis of the second version. The first time around, I thought I had caught the sweep of the music, but missed some of its strangeness. My entry into the music is its denouement, that weird subject that enters at the end with almost no thematic warning. In 1999, I started with that point in mind and built to it; in '95 I felt like I never got there. Amusingly enough, although the first work had three couples and the second three women, there are actually the same number of people in both casts. ;) In '98 I had such hell with the male dancers I worked with that I decided in '99 to make a dance where the male partners in it were invisible. (IMG:http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) They gave us less trouble.

If you're curious to read more about this dance, go to "A Choreographer's Diary" on this site. The first 8-10 days describe the creation of this work.

[fendrock]

I'd very much like to read the Diary, but have been unable to find it on my own.

Could you provide a link?

Thanks!

[Leigh Witchel]

A Choreographer's Diary

[PK]

The Faure Requiem-but it's already been done!

[Leigh Witchel]

Hmm- this might be my fault by mentioning I had worked to the Suk, so apologies.

Just about very piece of music has been used already by someone, somewhere. About the only way to use a piece of music first is to commission it.

So if you would like to see a piece of music as a ballet, go ahead and mention it. Someone else will probably tell you of a ballet they saw to it, and that's OK, too, but it doesn't mean that's the ballet you wanted to see to that music!

[PK]

Here's something a bit wild but truely I'd love to see a huge chorus with the dance telling a story to something like Honneger's King David.I've seen Carmina Burana with chorus and it stuck in my mind.For me the melding of ballet and a choir is joy!