balanchine influence

Balanchine took classic ballet movements and combined them with many flashy American moves of the time. Born in 1904, Balanchine was fortunate enough to grow up in a time lavish with beautiful jazz music. He choreographed a few Russian ballets with limited success, but in 1933 he came to America and his career took off. Balanchine was fascinated with the American culture. He loved how so many people, all of different races, could come together and live happily. Balanchine also fell in love with African-American culture, specifically their jazz and dance moves. Balanchine knew that he wanted to incorporate African-American dancers, jazz music, and a jazz choreography into his ballet routines. Balanchine wanted his dances to be like the American culture: a diverse ethnicity of dancers dancing in part to this “jazzy” new music. Besides jazz, Balanchine also had a love for tap dancing. He enjoyed tap dancer’s quick, precise steps, and the complexity of the dance moves. He loved the series of intricate and complicated steps that had to be executed to perfection to create music. Balanchine made sure to inject his ballets with many tap dance moves, and many jazz dance moves. When watched a Balanchine ballet, you can notice how quick many of the steps are, and how intricate the dance is. This is Balanchine’s love for tap dance coming out. You also see his dances rich with jazz dance moves. The dancers are often crouched down and waved their hands up and down. This is a “very American” move and classic jazz dancing. You also see the dancers using lots of flat hands while they dance. This is another classic jazz move. Balanchine pulled many things from the African American culture to shape his neo-classical form of ballet. Tap steps, jazz steps, and American culture all had great influence on his works over the years.