A New Idea For a Ballet

[Guest Spawn66]

Hi all,

I haven't seen much ballet. But what I've seen I've enjoyed. The other day I was listening to Kraftwerks and thought that the music would work great in a ballet. It would be pretty cool if there could be a live band playing Kraftwerk while the dancers danced.

I feel it's important to open the arts (like ballet) to people like myself who would not normally go expierence them.

[Leigh Witchel]

Welcome to BalletAlert Spawn -

Glad you've enjoyed ballet. I recall Kraftwerk from college days - for those not familiar (and from what I recall) they were one of the earliest of the disco bands from the 70's - part of the "Munich Machine" sound - a familiar example would be Donna Summer's "I Feel Love"

It's certainly exciting music; it would take an intelligent touch to make a good ballet out of it. Also, it would be hard to have a live band play Kraftwerk; it's mostly electronic music which probably sounds most like itself in a studio recording. I'm also not sure how Kraftwerk is about having other people play their music!

Stuff like this (ballet to pop music) is actually done very frequently, and unfortunately, the results are usually not so great. What usually happens is neither ballet nor pop music come of the better from the deal; both look cheaper. If you'll look in the links forum, you'll see some recent reviews of Pittsburgh Ballet's new work to Sting, that are apropos.

I hope you'll see more ballet, Spawn, both stuff to pop and classical music!

[Guest Spawn66]

One correction. Kraftwerks is nothing like Donna Sommers (Not that Donna Summers is bad or anything). KraftWerks is one of first Electronic Groups. There more experimental. They make all there own instruments. For those whose have never heard of them think Radio Head's Kid A or Amnesiac.

For more Information on Kraftwerk click on the link below

http://www.mtv.com/bands/az/kraftwerk/bio.jhtml

[Leigh Witchel]

Spawn, I realize that Kraftwerk and Donna Summers are different but Summer's "I Feel Love" was produced in '77 by Giorgio Moroder and was strongly influenced by Kraftwerk. It's probably one of the most popular examples of that sound, which is why I chose it.

But we're wandering off the topic of ballet now.

[carabosse]

Also slightly off-topic, since this was a modern dance performance, not ballet. But you did bring up Radiohead....

Merce Cunningham did a performance last year with live music by Radiohead and Sigur Ros. Tickets were nearly impossible to get. There is a thread about it here, with links to some reviews: http://balletalert.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=13998

I think you will find more modern dance companies using different kinds of music than ballet companies. This is probably for several reasons - tradition, smaller productions, more push to innovate rather than recreate. However, the line between contemporary ballet and modern dance is not always clear.

Advertisements don't always include what music will be used in a performance, you only find out afterwards in the reviews. Maybe some marketing could be done to target the music audience?

Awhile back the Joffrey Ballet did an evening of dances to music by Prince, called Billboards. Boris Eifman used music by the Future Sound of London in one of his ballets. These are just the first examples that come to mind, of contemporary music that I like used in ballets.

[Mel Johnson]

This is an old, old, idea. When was "Astarte"? 1968? Robert Joffrey had Crome Syrcus do the music. They were a period analogue of techno-pop.