Adding Chrome to Classics
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
The act of rechoreographing a great piece of ballet music can be seen as an attempt to imagine what the piece must have sounded like to virgin ears. This is inevitably a quixotic endeavor: By virtue of the associations that a hallowed score accrues, the first statement is almost always the definitive one, and therefore a revisionist choreographer is forced to at least acknowledge the themes of the original ballet.This need not, however, preclude the creation of a successful new work, as Paul Taylor’s “Le Sacre du Printemps” or Jerome Robbins’s “Afternoon of a Faun” demonstrate conclusively.
A login link has been sent to
Enter your email to read this article.
Get 2 free articles when you subscribe.
