Silent Ballet

When the curtain went up, the stage was bare, except for a few pieces of scenery with their brown canvas backs to the audience. The dancers appeared from the wings in their practice clothes: men in dark overalls, girls in black bathing suits. They began to move and gesture. Someone backstage dropped his tools with a loud clatter. In the audience, a small voice asked "Maman, where is the music?"

There wasn't any. But in Paris last week, even without music, Choreographer David Lichine's ballet The Creation, danced by the Ballets des Champs-Elysees, was the kind of new sensation that Parisians save their loudest bravos for.* Part of the cheers were for France's best male dancer, Jean Babilee--and a new star The Creation had created overnight: 17-year-old, almond-eyed Leslie Caron, a half American, half French girl who had never even seen a ballet until after the war. (Leslie's mother, Margaret Petit, once danced in New York.)

What was the point of a ballet without music? Said Lichine, "I have tried to show the public what goes on in my mind when I am creating a new ballet . . . The problems of getting people to dance without music are tantalizingly difficult . . . instead of dancing by ear they have to dance by eye ... I will not create another one ... I love music and I hate silence."

*Serge Lifar's 1935 ballet Icarus had a 20-piece rhythm accompaniment but no music.

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