For Whom the Tutus Toss

It was a great season for the tossing tutus.* Last week's box offices at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House, where the Ballet Theatre closed a four weeks' engagement with standing room only, topped even last year's high. The art of choreography had never had such lavishly enthusiastic U.S. audiences.

Choreography is the actual designing of the ballet in motion. The choreographer decides what dancers shall execute what steps and where & when. If he is good, he produces a subtle, varied, striking composition in motion, as individual as a fine composer's music. Experienced balletomanes, glancing at their programs, look first for the name of the choreographer.

When a choreographer has achieved a really distinguished design, ballet dancers hand it down for generations. Choreographers have often experimented with systems of notation (like musical notes) which would allow them to preserve their designs in writing. But, thus far, the preservation of great pieces of choreography has depended on word-of-mouth precept and bodily example passed on from dancer to dancer.

In the U.S. six choreographers (four Russian, one British, one U.S.) are currently outstanding:

George Balanchine (real name Georgei Melitonovitch Balinchinvadze), St. Petersburg-born alumnus of the Russian Imperial Ballet and the late great Diaghilev troupe, husband of Ballerina Vera Zorina. He has recently divided his time between

Hollywood and Broadway, lending his deft, poetic touch to a half-dozen top-flight musicals (On Your Toes, Louisiana Purchase, Rosalinda, Merry Widow, etc.).

Leonide Massine. Diaghilev alumnus, specialist in grotesque character dancing, creator of some 40 successful ballets, now with the Ballet Theatre. A decade ago Massine churned an esthetic storm with his ambitious, often impenetrably symbolic ballets. Since then he has reverted to the bumptious, exuberant, satirical style of his most admired works (Gaite Parisienne, Three-Cornered Hat, La Boutique Fantasque, Mademoiselle Angot, etc.).

Bronislava Nijinska, Diaghilev alumna, sister of the great Vaslav Nijinsky, and currently No. 1 choreographer for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.

Agnes de Mille, pert, energetic niece of Hollywood Producer Cecil B. De Mille, who has brilliantly mixed classical ballet patterns with the horsy folk-dancing of the Wild West. Her most fetching job is perhaps the dancing in the Broadway musical smash, Oklahoma.

David Lichine, Rostov-born, Paris-trained alumnus of Ida Rubinstein's troupe and one of the few choreographers who is equally famed as a dancer of male leads. A rival of Massine, Lichine resembles him in his love for flamboyant spectacle (Fair at Sorochinsk, Francesca da Rimini) and sophisticated satire (Helen of Troy, Graduation Ball).

Antony Tudor, 35-year-old Englishman, now with the Ballet Theatre. Unlike Massine, Tudor specializes in simplicity and understatement. He rarely puts more than a dozen dancers on the stage at a time, gets his effects by suggestive abstract movement rather than realistic pantomime. His ballets (Lilac Garden, Pillar of Fire, Dim Lustre) have a characteristically dreamlike, nostalgic, heavily perfumed quality. Born in London, Antony Tudor studied ballet in his teens while acting as cashier in his father's butcher shop. Finding at 19 that he had started too late to develop into a first-rate dancer, he turned to choreography instead. He did musical shows in London's West End, coached Vivien Leigh for a dancing part in The Happy Hypocrite, choreographed ballets for Marie Rambert's famed Ballet Club. In 1939 he got his call to the U.S. and the Ballet Theatre.

*Pronounced two twos--the classical "powder puff" ballet skirts.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.