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Agon: A Musical/Choreographic Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

Stephanie Jordan
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Extract

Agon has often been cited as a key composer/choreographer collaboration, and its choreographer, George Balanchine, himself considered it “the most perfect work” to come out of his creative relationship with composer Igor Stravinsky (I). It is surprising, therefore, that so little has been written regarding the details of the interaction of music and dance. Most writers have concentrated on the dance or on the musical aspects of Agon, or have made only broad generalizations about its musical/choreographic structure.

In this article, I begin the analysis of structural relationships between music and dance with the main focus on rhythm. This is perhaps an obvious starting point for analysis, but it seems an especially important one, given the rhythmic complexity of the musical score and Balanchine's acknowledgement of the rhythmic lead that music provided forhim (2). It was Stravinsky's rhythmic style that Balanchine so often referred to when admiring the composer's work (3). In Agon, Balanchine seems to have been far less concerned with responding to pitch structure than to the rhythmic content of the music.

Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , Fall 1993 , pp. 1 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 1993

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References

Notes

1. In Maynard, Olga, “Balanchine and Stravinsky: The Glorious Undertaking,” Dance Magazine (June, 1972), p. 49.Google Scholar

2. Balanchine, , “Marginal notes on the dance,” (1951) in Sorell, Walter, The Dance Has Many Faces (2nd edition, New York: Columbia University Press, 1966), p. 102.Google Scholar

3. Balanchine, in interview by Botto, Louis in Intellectual Digest (June, 1972) reprinted in Cohen, Selma J., ed. Dance as a Theatre Art (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1974), p. 190.Google Scholar Balanchine, discusses Stravinsky's rhythmic style in “The Dance Element in Stravinsky's music” (1947) in Lederman, Minna ed., Stravinsky in the Theatre (New York: Pelegrini & Cudahy, 1949), pp. 75–76.Google Scholar

4. The rhythmic categories introduced here are drawn from the author's dissertation Music as Structural Basis in the Choreography of Doris Humphrey, with Reference to Humphrey's Use of Music Visualization Techniques and Musical/Choreographic Counterpoint and to the Historical Context of Her Work (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of London, Goldsmiths' College, 1986), pp. 65–66.Google Scholar

5. The four video recordings are the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation broadcast, 1960; the Zweiter Deutsche Fernsehen broadcast, 1973; New York City Ballet company video, 1982; and the Public Broadcasting Station broadcast, 1983. The 1957 Labanotation score was written by a team from the Dance Notation Bureau. Ann Hutchinson Guest led the team and was assisted by Muriel Topaz, Billie Mahoney, Margaret Abbie, Myrna Shedlin, and Allan Miles. The 1987 score was written by Virginia Doris, as taught by New York City Ballet dancer Sara Leland to Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in 1985.Google Scholar

6. Denby, Edwin, “Three Sides of Agon” (1959) in Dance Writings (London: Dance Books, 1986), p. 461.Google Scholar

7. Balanchine, Stravinsky and the Dance (New York: The Dance Collection of the New York Public Library, 1962), p. 58.Google Scholar

8. St. Denis, Ruth coined the term “music visualization” c. 1917; see“Music Visualization,” The Denishawn Magazine, 1/3 (Spring, 1925), pp. 1–7.Google Scholar

9. This is a passage that did change several times over the years. The version described here is Balanchine's final solution.Google Scholar

10. Balanchine, , “The Dance Element in Stravinsky's Music,” p. 76.Google Scholar

11. Denby, p. 460.

12. Van den Toorn, Pieter, The Music of Igor Stravinsky (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), pp. 497–498.Google Scholar

13 Significantly, Hutchinson, Ann Guest recalls that Balanchine's rhythms were simple to notate (interview with the author, May 29, 1992).Google Scholar

14. Stravinsky, noted jazz elements in the music too, “traces of blues and boogie-woogie” in the Bransles de Poitou and Simple (see Stravinsky, Igor and Craft, Robert, Dialogues and a Diary [London: Faber & Faber, 1968], p. 54).Google Scholar

15. Mitchell, Arthur in Taylor, Burton, “Dancing Balanchine,” Dance Magazine (July, 1983), p. 87.Google Scholar

16. The 1987 Labanotation score records the organization of the walks differently. All other sources used (see note 5) agree with the analysis here.Google Scholar

17. Mitchell, Arthur in Reynolds, Nancy. Repertory in Review (New York: The Dial Press, 1977), p. 183. Denby, too, noted the “breath” of “crescendo and decrescendo within the thrust of a move,” in “Three Sides of Agon” p. 462.Google Scholar

18. Ann Hutchinson Guest recalls that Balanchine would experiment with maneuvers here to see where they would lead, unbounded by musical structure in these circumstances, while he still established points of connection between music and dance as the Pas de Deux evolved (in interview with the author, May 29, 1992).

19 Denby, p. 463.

20 Evidence is from the two Labanotation scores consulted and from a 1979 Benesh score (notated by Peter Boyes as staged by Brigitte Thorn for the Dutch National Ballet); also from the author's interviews (November 15 and August 16, 1991, respectively) with dancers Patricia Neary and Victoria Simon, who now stage Agon.Google Scholar

21 Craft, Robert, “Ein Ballett fr zwölf Tänzer,” Melos 24/10 (October, 1957), pp. 284–288. Also Craft's notes accompanying the recording of Agon, CBS 72438, 1966.Google Scholar

22 Denby, p. 462.

23 Balanchine, in Lincoln Kirstein, , “Balanchine and Stravinsky: The Glorious Undertaking,” Dance Magazine (June 1972), p. 45 Google Scholar; Balanchine, in Harris, Dale, “Balanchine: Working with Stravinsky,” Ballet Review (Summer, 1982), p. 22.Google Scholar

24. The video captures one performance. Farrell has stressed how, in performance, she always wanted to respond afresh to music (interview with the author, September 21, 1991).Google Scholar

25 Croce, Arlene, “Other Verdi Variations,” (1979) in Going to the Dance (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), p. 153.Google Scholar

26 Bussell, Darcey of the Royal Ballet moved her back similarly in performances viewed by this author in 1991.Google Scholar

27 The author would like to thank Rachel Richardson for her helpful comments on the manuscript, and Howard Friend, Jonathan Thrift, and Terry Butcher for their assistance in preparing the music and Labanotation examples.Google Scholar