George Balanchine: The Man Who Remade Ballet

“Nutcracker,” that ubiquitous Christmastide ballet even now readying to launch its annual conquest of American ballet audiences, was originally a magnificent Russian flop. It became an American—and global—success because of one man: George Balanchine.
But Vaganova was Russian, while Balanchine became thoroughly American. From the moment he slipped out of the Soviet Union and into the West, Balanchine started making changes to traditional style. These were not rejections of basic ballet principals, but developments of them along already given lines. For example, extension—the ballet principal of raising the leg and holding it extended from the torso—became exaggerated in Balanchine, whose dancers trained to exhibit maximum extension of all limbs.
In addition, Vaganova’s emphasis on pose required a certain reservation of tempo; one couldn’t rush into an arabesque if one wished to hold it. Balanchine, on the other hand, thrived on the fast pace of his newfound home in America. With the establishment of Balanchine’s School of American Ballet in 1934 and the founding of his New York City Ballet in 1948, ballet picked up its pace.
This new emphasis on speed led to yet another new twist: Because his dancers moved so quickly, they barely had time to touch down on stage. In many Balanchine ballets, the dancers seem perpetually airborne.
Most popular is New York City Ballet’s “Nutcracker,” which Balanchine restaged in 1954, restoring it to repertoire status after decades of obscurity. It was Balanchine’s production that launched the popularity of “Nutcrackers” all over the country. It is widely available on video.
A river flows through many changes along its banks, yet it is always the same river. So it is with Western arts, which change yet stay themselves. Richard Wagner’s operas seem barely related to Gregorian chant, yet they belong at different ends of the same tradition. One feels certain that a dancer from the court of Louis XIV, transported to a performance of Balanchine’s “Mozartiana,” wouldn’t begin to connect his courtly experience from the 17th century with what he’s seeing in the present, yet connected they are. Innovation, it would seem, is the crown of tradition.