Talk:George Balanchine

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The paragraph about getting CJD from animal gland injections is silly to have here: it really doesn't belong in an article about CJD, much less in an article about George Balanchine. If it came from an animal, it wasn't CJD, it was some other (variant) disease.

The speculation was that of Balanchine's UROLOGIST (not a neurologist) Robert D. Wickham, and is unfounded. This mode of transmission is not established. -- Someone else 01:22, 12 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Article seems thin on Balanchine's contributions

I accessed this page hoping to understand more specifics of what Balanchine's impact on ballet was. Aside from the sentence about him being a link between classical and modern dance, there wasn't much there. I've heard that he was somewhat revolutionary, but you wouldn't pick that up from this articule, which is more a catalog of his love-life.

  • I agree. His early history has been restarted. I added most of his choreographies. The Trust will be putting out a complete list soon (400+ choreographies).--tufkaa 05:15, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure if it's of interest, but Balanchine is noted for his use of African American vernacular dance themes in his choreography. His work on the film Cabin in the Sky is a good example. African American dance scholars such as Tommy DeFrantz, Katrina Hazzard Gordon and Brenda Dixon Gottschild discuss Balanchine at length for his use of African American movement and aesthetics, as well as his work _with_ African American dancers. A survey of African American presence in American ballet would reveal Balanchine's important role.

[edit] Nutcracker

The trademarked title of this production is George Balanchine's The Nutcracker (just going by what's official).--tufkaa 21:03, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Slaughter

I re-worded to keep with the format of categorizing his works by which company they were created for.--tufkaa 21:03, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ballets Russes de Monte-Carlo vs, Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo

In his list of choreographed works there are two seperate groups, one spelled in the singular, the other in the plural; they do not overlap by date except for the last ballet in each, La Sonnambula and Raymonda, both from 1946. Should these be merged, or should La Sonnambula join Raymonda in the latter group? They look like this but with the numbers 4.2 ande 4.8:

[edit] for the Ballets Russes de Monte-Carlo

  • Cotillon (1932)
  • Concurrence (1932)
  • Danses Concertantes (1944/1972)
  • La Sonnambula (1946)

[edit] for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo:

  • Song of Norway (1944)
  • Danses Concertantes (1944)
  • Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1944)
  • Pas de Deux (Grand'adagio) (1945)
  • The Night Shadow (1946)
  • Raymonda (1946)

[edit] Ballet titles in general

The titles of ballets need to be reconciled with those on the List of New York City Ballet repertory page, which are listed as they appear on City Ballet's website (with a few minor corrections). Robert Greer (talk) 17:27, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo

Not Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo; but Ballets Russes without the de Monte Carlo is a different albeit related company. Robert Greer (talk) 22:09, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Use of Image:Stravinsky_and_balanchine.jpg

Unfortunately, non-free images of book covers cannot be used for artist identification purposes within infoboxes. See WP:NFC#Images Item 1, Cover art. This photo can only be used in the Balanchine article if it is placed adjacent to a discussion of the book. D7240 (talk) 12:20, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Errors in Article?

I think there might be several errors in this article. According to an April 12th, 2008, article in The Economist, Georgi "moved in 1913 from rural Finland to St. Petersburg." (Was he born in Finland?) Also, according to this article he did not defect in London, rather, "he travelled to East Prussia with the Soviet State Dancers; refusing an order to return home, he defected and fled to Paris, where another Russian exile, Sergei Diaghilev, hired him as a choreographer for the Ballets Russes. After a brief stint in Lond, George Balanchine (as he was by then) moved to America in 1933, where he founded American ballet..."

The source for this is:

  • "America's Performing Arts: Made in Europe. The Economist, April 12, 2008, p. 94. Book review of Artists in Exile: How Refugees from Twentieth-Century War and Revolution Transformed the American Performing Arts. By Joseph Horowitz, HarperCollins, 2008.

If there are no objections I will change the text in the article. Renee (talk) 12:28, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] please

Please do so; Horowitz is the latest word! — Robert Greer 23:33, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Will do. Renee (talk) 00:49, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Nice work! — Robert Greer (talk) 22:21, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Please, no gossip

Terms like "heartbroken" and "talented" and speculation about motives have no place in Wikipedia articles. — J M Rice (talk) 06:18, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely correct! — Robert Greer (talk) 12:10, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tschaikovsky vs. Tchaikovsky

How should the name of the composer of the music for “Serenade” be spelled? Most Westerners now spell it Tchaikovsky, but City Ballet took up, during Balanchine’s lifetime, the spelling Tschaikovsky. Why? Because that’s how the composer spelled it when he was in New York in 1891. (My thanks to the reader who sent me a copy of his Carnegie Hall autograph from the Pierpont Morgan Library.)

NY Times article by Alastair Macaulay, June 1, 2007
— Robert Greer (talk) 12:10, 5 June 2008 (UTC)