Balanchine Ballet Perspective

Writer: Dancerina Starlight / October 2024

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George Balanchine was a Georgian-American ballet choreographer, recognized as one of the most influential figures in 20th-century dance. Often referred to as the father of American ballet, he co-founded the New York City Ballet and served as its artistic director for over 35 years.

Balanchine's style is described as neo-classical. Training in the Balanchine technique allows dancers to utilize space efficiently, emphasizing speed and spatial expansion. Key characteristics include extreme speed, deep pliés, unconventional and asymmetrical arm and hand placements, and pirouettes taken from a lunge in fourth position instead of the conventional plié. His distinctive arabesque line features an open hip facing the audience, with the side arm pressed back, creating an athletic quality in dance. Balanchine’s choreographic process emphasized precision and clarity, defining dance as “movement of the human body in a limited space relevant to time.” My personal experience with Balanchine-influenced techniques has shaped my understanding of dancers’ accounts of working with him, enriching my knowledge of what the physical practice of the Balanchine technique entails.

In Balanchine’s ballets, the movement, its shape, and its relationship to music serve as tools for creating drama, rather than relying on conventional plots. His works exhibit a unique relationship with linearity and space, evident in both individual dancers and the spatial patterns on stage. Balanchine transformed classical ballet’s rounded shapes into linear and expansive forms. This focus on the body’s lines distinguishes Balanchine’s choreography and has become a defining trait of the neo-classical style. His approach incorporated Africanist movement principles into his European training, pushing the body to its limits and shaping dancers’ relationships with space.

Balanchine’s choreography reflects his translation of the Russian ballet tradition into an American style. He trained dancers to use their legs and feet in specific ways that embodied his aesthetic. His students experienced intense repetition in class, striving for excellence. A distinguishing aspect of a Balanchine class is the simplicity of exercises, which are challenging due to their speed and repetition. Compared to the Imperial Ballet School, where exercises resembled steps performed on stage, Balanchine’s practices focused on perfecting each element through repetition. The culmination of these practices is evident in his choreography, which directly responds to his training.

For onstage preparation, Balanchine’s aesthetic is reflected in his emphasis on leg and foot technique, enhancing the presentation qualities of ballet. He developed his technique by prioritizing essential aspects of the Russian tradition while minimizing others. This focus on the lines of the body is mirrored in daily classwork.

Typically, ballet students have separate pointe classes to build this skill alongside daily technique classes. Professional dancers often start class in ballet slippers and switch to pointe shoes for the second half, preparing for rehearsal and performance. Beyond the physical demands of pointe work, the shoes extend the line of the leg to the tips of the toes, enhancing linearity on stage. Increased training en pointe contributed to Balanchine’s exploration of off-balance movement and opened new possibilities in choreography. As the display of the body became central to Balanchine’s ballets, it also became integral to his technique.

Balanchine had a specific approach to the use of the head and neck. He presented the neck distinctively from other ballet techniques, with the face oriented forward toward the audience. This created a balanced display of the entire body, expressing vulnerability in the upper body as the neck curves open. This curvature positions the head behind the center of the body, further contributing to his exploration of off-balance, asymmetrical movement. While the legs primarily convey linearity, the hands and neck do not. Balanchine sought movement to instigate drama rather than relying on characters or plot. This contrast in the roles of hands and neck compared to the rest of the body illustrates his choreographic values in class work. Performing Balanchine’s choreography and training in his technique both emphasize distinct shapes of linearity and the display of space within the body.

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