This glorious Balanchine work Chaconne has captured my heart and being.So this evening I wrote this response.
Chaconne-(to Suzanne Farell and Peter Martins)
Beyond this world, under azure sky,
The dancers have attained Paradise.
Not for them sweat and aching limbs
Or stern balletmasters demanding ever-more:
They have escaped earth's orbital pull,
They have reached Elysium.
Exalted in their airy realm-
Beyond cares and trials and woes,
Moving their sweet sweet limbs.
To dulcet flute and strings
They dance their heavenly choreography.
To mortal beings weighted
With history's freight and mass,
Bound by time and Newton's laws,
Imagination cannot conceive
Their radiance and joy.
So we strain to join that place,
The starry vault of their abode.
Waiting for the snap of gravity
And resurrection from our sleep.
Perichoresis May 19 2008