Balanchine’s Jewels & Stravinsky Violin Concerto
After watching a video of Emeralds and Diamonds from Balanchine’s Jewels ballet, several thematic premises permeate. Even though the two dances are very different in style, vision, aim, origin, and music the two pieces were both designed around the concept of gems. Allowing the performers to shine individually like precious stones and also reflecting Balanchine’s personal history and experience of dance. “Emeralds” was more of a romantic piece, set around the theme of emeralds. Their color, an intense green, was reflected in the green lighting and costumes and in the jewels that incrusted the costumes. Green is the color of beauty, love, and harmony and Balanchine manifested those notions in the choreography. The dances whether they were pas de deux’s or with all the dancers were moving in unison, flowing together beautifully. At the same time emeralds are also sophisticated gems with lots of patterns and edges. An idea also reflected in the style of dance with the performers forming numerous patterns on stage as they came together, like the facets of the stone would. For instance at one point some of the female dancers were in arabesques around the kneeling male dancers, all were in a circle which formed linear movements that looked like shapes from the audience’s point of view, making the entire thing look like the edges of an emerald. And the sophisticated dance coming together to actually look like a gem, very symmetrical and geometric. At the same time the whole piece also had this delicate aspect to it, a trait also shared by the emerald.
Whereas “diamonds” on the other hand had more of an aspect of grandeur and hard quality to the piece, which are characteristics shared with the actual stone. Diamonds are very cubic, hard, and disperse light which are all things Balanchine successfully incorporated in the piece. These are reflected in the white lighting and white costumes, a white tutu for the woman, very sharp and classical, pure in a sense to the traditional ballet Russian style. A style also reflected in the choreography of the piece. The number had a certain edge to it with very precise moves. The grandness of the choreography and the two dancers on stage made it look like the couple owned to stage, they covered the entire space. Tchaikovsky’s music also contributed to this overall feeling. Here again, the performers get to shine individually like a diamond would in real life, their costumes are glittering with (fake) jewels, and purity of the ballet style is reflective of an authentic diamond.
The last piece we saw on the Stravinsky violin concerto on the other hand was far more abstract and contemporary in style. Stravinsky in this piece expressed a stylistic assortment of music which Balanchine was able to reflect through his own choreography. There was a lot of slower movements each followed by quick, rhythmic steps full of energy. There were many sharp, elongated moves, also heard in the music, but at the same time very fluid with intertwining of bodies. The couples performing were following each others movements, complimenting each other. As seen in the several movements, the male would align his legs or his body to the shape the female was making, blending behind her in a way and becoming one. Matching her movements at times while near the end we could observe a switch and the female was the one complementing the male dancers’ movements. The shapes the bodies were making were reminiscent of the choreography and style in jewels. In the sense that Balanchine used the dancers’ bodies to form shapes and silhouettes that came in unison with the music to form the overall theme.
