I think that it depends on the specific ballet and what the choreographer had in mind. Did the choreographer of Sleeping Beauty understand dance as something that included the props and the music and all that, or was only the movement enough for him to communicate his message? It's most likely the case, because of the time that he wrote his piece in, that he would have included the props and the costumes etc. You can change his piece by making artistic choices to arrange it for this time, but I doubt if you should leave anything out that he probably thought of as essential, for then that's what you're doing: taking an essential part away, thus touching the integrity and authenticy of it. I do believe (new) dance, ballet, can go very well without music, if you use the movement, and, for example, the character or emotions of the dancers, in such a way that it fills the whole space of what dance can be. Maybe in that way it even benefits the dance by changing the roles of music (or the absence of it) and movement - and the absence of music plays just as important a role as the presence of it does, I think. After all, silence has always been part of music, or it would only be noise. If you make dance without music, you cannot ignore the silence as if it's there only for the sake of creating room for the movement - that would be irresponsible, I think.
Rhoda
