Western Symphony

[cubanmiamiboy]

I've read some stuff on this ballet here and there, but you know...nothing like the first class info of BT'rs.

What's going on with the cowboys...?

[Mel Johnson]

Balanchine went through an "Americana" period in his life, mostly during the 1950s, when McCarthyism made it difficult to be from Russia in America. "Square Dance" and "Stars and Stripes" come from this period, too. A partial metaphoric explanation for "Western Symphony" is that the legendary ballet characters of Europe (Prince Siegfried, Princess Aurora, et al.) were drawn from stories which made them royalty or at least nobility. American legend presents cowboys and dance-hall girls in the same sort of light. The ballet, although plotless, exploits this parallel.

[kfw]

Balanchine went through an "Americana" period in his life, mostly during the 1950s, when McCarthyism made it difficult to be from Russia in America.

Wow, that's the first time I've seen anyone suggest a causal link there. Very interesting. Are you just speculating, Mel, or can you elaborate?

[bart]

Balanchine himself had a fascination with the iconography of the "American West" and often wore western-style shirts as well as variants of the cowboy tie or bandana. Here's one photo of a tie he often wore:

http://auricomous.fi...jpg?w=372&h=280

Every suburban kid I knew in the 50s played cowboys and had some type of garish cowboy shirt (Balanchine's in the photo is quite elegant, even, though I have seen him in wilder versions ), cowboy hat, holster, and toy pistol. We had few if any Indians in our games because few children from that pre-rebelliious mileiu any were willing to play the part of outsiders and, inevitably, losers. (N.b. Native Americans do not participate in Western Symphony either.)

Many people in those days, looking for a way to define "us" as distinct from all the Others in the world, perceived this inauthentic cowboy fantasy to be quintessentially "American."

i see Western Symphony as a tribute to a world view very rooted in its time and place -- to the boundless optimism and self-centeredness ofwhite middle-class culture in the 50s -- and, most especially, as a tribute to the enduring value and adaptability of the academic classical ballet vocabulary. Dance hall girls on point !! Cowboys as their cavaliers !!! This was perceived as imaginative and witty in its day. Some still find it so.

As you probably can tell, Western Symphony is not my favorite Balanchine work by a long shot, though there is a lot of marvelous dancing (when the casting is right).

[Mel Johnson]

"By their works shall you know them." I haven't seen any writing on the matter myself, but I have to conclude that just from Balanchine's output during the time. Add it to his sudden motivation actively and vigorously to pursue American citizenship which culminated with his taking the oath of naturalization in 1958. NYCB publicity made much of this pairing at the time. The period "Jones Beach" (with Jerome Robbins) - "Stars and Stripes" (1950-1958) was viewed as Balanchine's celebration of his new citizenship. along with the wearing of Western-style fashion, including string ties, silver concho belt buckles, and shooting-style shoulder treatments on his sport jackets. At least his Stetson hat period didn't last very long. Balanchine had been in the US since 1933, so after contributions to opera and ballet stages, Broadway, and even Hollywood, what was the big rush to citizenship in the 50s? One answer was to satisfy residual suspicions that show people were "soft on Communism". Even Balanchine's friend and co-ballet master at NYCB, Robbins, had been tarred with the HUAC brush. To guard against xenophobia was secondary, but also very necessary, to courting friends at lending and granting institutions; although Henry Ford Sr. was gone, his suspicions were not forgotten in the business and financial quarter. But all that I saw and heard of Balanchine during the 60s, and study thereafter, I have to conclude that he was nothing if not a truly patriotic American, only with a nearly unique backstory.

[kfw]

At least his Stetson hat period didn't last very long.

Hah! Pretty funny. If I've seen a photo of him in a Stetson, I can't bring it to mind.

Balanchine had been in the US since 1933, so after contributions to opera and ballet stages, Broadway, and even Hollywood, what was the big rush to citizenship in the 50s? One answer was to satisfy residual suspicions that show people were "soft on Communism". . . . But all that I saw and heard of Balanchine during the 60s, and study thereafter, I have to conclude that he was nothing if not a truly patriotic American, only with a nearly unique backstory.

Another answer would be that since, as you say, he was a true patriot, and since he'd escaped from communism and was a conservate, McCarthyism made him want to show his patriotism. Or maybe he just felt it more and the ballets proceeded from that.

[cubanmiamiboy]

Here's Villella talking about the ballet.

[bart]

The film is from performances in early 2006. I like the conclusion ...

Balanchine has provided us with a chroeographaic joke, with ingenious invention, and steps tht have lost their European accents.

Nancy Goldner has some interesting comments about the "joke" aspect:

The sight of the New York City Ballet dancing to "Red River Valley" as though it were Mozart was irresistible. By the time the curtain comes down on the entire cast pirouetting like made to "Hail, hail, the gang's all here," Balanchine has you in the thrall of his joke, and of his serious proposition as well, that ballet is versatile and durable.

And then, there's the ballerina's famous hat... ]"The dance with the hat" was critic P.W. Manchester's immediate nickname for the last, Rondo, section, becakuse the ballerina sports a bell epoque chapeau designed by Barbara Karinska. It's made of thin black horsehair and a feather or two, which Karinska manipulated into a delicate confection of curlicue lines that soared upward on one side. The hat was a marvelous construction in itself, but it was Tanaquil Le Clerq who justified the Rondo's nickname. She endowed the hat with some of her own qualities as a dancer -- elegance and wit. She turned that upward tilt of the hat into something positively rakish. A half century later, I still see Le Clercq's long taped legs speaking to the curlicued hat in mischievous conversation.

The only photo I could find in a quick look through Google Images was this one .... with a horsehair hat. The more famous image, included in Goldner's book, shows a pert Le Clercq with the same hat but in a kind of see-through material. The copyright is held by the Balanchine Trust, which probably explains why I could not find it accessible for free.

http://pics.livejour...rq/pic/000185wp

MCB uses a hat in the original horsehair material, worn by Michelle Merrell and Andrea Spiridonakos. Here's Spiridonakos in her hat:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4002/4546016444_a820822dbd.jpg

Cristian, did you recoqnize Katia Carranza -- dancing with her husband Luis Serrano -- in the first, Allegro, movement?

[carbro]

Every suburban kid I knew in the 50s played cowboys and had some type of garish cowboy shirt (Balanchine's in the photo is quite elegant, even, though I have seen him in wilder versions ), cowboy hat, holster, and toy pistol.

Not to mention the many, many Westerns on TV. Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Wyatt Earp, yada, yada, yada ... Cowboy lore permeated the culture.

[cubanmiamiboy]

Every suburban kid I knew in the 50s played cowboys and had some type of garish cowboy shirt (Balanchine's in the photo is quite elegant, even, though I have seen him in wilder versions ), cowboy hat, holster, and toy pistol.

Not to mention the many, many Westerns on TV. Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Wyatt Earp, yada, yada, yada ... Cowboy lore permeated the culture.

...which we inherited in Cuba from the American period-(1902-1959). I still have pics in full cowboy regalia, and also had a beautiful playing set of cowboys vs. indians...(how do you call those...the little figurines...?)

In my house there were also tons of Hopalong Cassidy and Buffallo Bill comics...I LOVED them...!

[ViolinConcerto]

"By their works shall you know them." I haven't seen any writing on the matter myself, but I have to conclude that just from Balanchine's output during the time. Add it to his sudden motivation actively and vigorously to pursue American citizenship which culminated with his taking the oath of naturalization in 1958. NYCB publicity made much of this pairing at the time. The period "Jones Beach" (with Jerome Robbins) - "Stars and Stripes" (1950-1958) was viewed as Balanchine's celebration of his new citizenship. along with the wearing of Western-style fashion, including string ties, silver concho belt buckles, and shooting-style shoulder treatments on his sport jackets. At least his Stetson hat period didn't last very long. Balanchine had been in the US since 1933, so after contributions to opera and ballet stages, Broadway, and even Hollywood, what was the big rush to citizenship in the 50s? One answer was to satisfy residual suspicions that show people were "soft on Communism". Even Balanchine's friend and co-ballet master at NYCB, Robbins, had been tarred with the HUAC brush. To guard against xenophobia was secondary, but also very necessary, to courting friends at lending and granting institutions; although Henry Ford Sr. was gone, his suspicions were not forgotten in the business and financial quarter. But all that I saw and heard of Balanchine during the 60s, and study thereafter, I have to conclude that he was nothing if not a truly patriotic American, only with a nearly unique backstory.

Yes, very much so. I recall reading that Balanchine started wearing his Native American silver and turquoise jewelry (including a special bracelet) after he first visited Maria Tallchief's family on a cross-country return from CA.

He also often stated that he was VERY anti-Communist, probably based on the horrors he saw in post-Revolutionary Russia.

I watched a tape of "Western Symphony" a few nights ago, from the 1993 Celebration, with Susan Jaffee doing the Le Clerq role. I started off as a child (I remember seeing it at City Center, soon after its premier) with a very strong pro-"Western Symphony" bias because Hershy Kay had worked for my dad, and you know, I STILL love it. It's just total FUN!

[Jack Reed]

It's just total FUN!

That's "Western" in a word. A dancer's pointe-work may be so "hot" her partner has to fan her feet with his hat - while, Balanchine-woman that she is, she may take no notice of him. Or he may hold his hat in his left hand and "strum" it with his right, like it's a guitar. But - in a fresh version of a familiar ballet gag - he's got to look out, so her long, long leg coming around won't send him sprawling. And if I remember correctly, some of the music is such foot-tapping music, some of the dancers may be seen tapping one foot to it - no, not tap-dancing, just foot-tapping. (Or was that my foot?)