George Balanchine’s Art of Choreographic Musicality in Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux

Abstract

Abstract George Balanchine conceived ballets from music and, arguably, as music. This article uses a music-based notation system for dance to examine one complete piece, Variation 2 from Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux (1960). The transcription facilitates the application of music-analytic tools to choreomusical works. The analysis shows that Balanchine responded to musical features and applied musical techniques to dance, not only at the surface but at higher levels of form, creating choreomusical coherence. Performances by different dancers are compared in light of the analysis. This study offers a way to describe music-dance relationships using the tools and language of music analysis.