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MAY - JUN 2022

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Hi everyone! Welcome to the fourth issue of En avant. For this issue, our theme is ‘See the music, hear the dance’ - one of George Balanchine's famous sayings. We hope this issue gives you a glimpse into some of the musical aspects of dance.

Yes! As many of you know, we asked some of the students here at TLFCB who learn music to talk about their experience learning both music and dance. And you can try your hand at identifying some of the styles of music we hear in ballet class with our listening quiz.

Then we have a feature on Tchaikovsky - the most well known composer in ballet history. Discover his life and work and listen to some of his key pieces with this article.

We also have a feature with our very own TLFCB teachers Ms Yana, Ms Elina and Ms Sushmitha - where they discuss how they select music for class, as well as how students can improve their musicality in ballet.

As always, we have some jokes and fun facts about ballet. To inspire you, we have selected a wide range of music that ballet is choreographed to, and you can hear them all here.

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This issue is really a multisensory experience. Read, see and for the first time, listen!

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Mother's Day Did you join us for TLFCB's Mother's Day class?

Viviana Durante's birthday Click here to watch a performance by this former principal dancer of The Royal Ballet

Margot Fonteyn's birthday Click here to watch a performance by this former prima ballerina

Carlos Acosta's birthday Click here to watch an interview of this former principal dancer of The Royal Ballet

JUNE

International Yoga Day Click here to find out more about the significance of this day

Miss Yana's 60th birthday Click here to read her interview on being a student of dance

JUNE

Agrippina Vaganova's birthday Click here to get a glimpse at her book on the basic principles of ballet

Imperial Ballet Awards Results Stay tuned to hear the results of the Imperial Ballet Awards 2022!

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STUDENT SCOOP CLE IS PART O ISERIES RT F A STUDENT SCOOP Send your own articles/ideas to enavant@tlfcb.org SERIES

and you can be featured Send your own articles/ideas here too! to enavant@tlfcb.org and you can be featured here too!

WE ASKED OUR STUDENTS THAT DO BALLET AS WELL AS MUSIC A FEW QUESTIONS ABOUT HOW THEIR MUSICAL AND BALLET EDUCATION HAVE IMPACTED EACH OTHER, HERE’S WHAT THEY HAD TO SAY!

In what way has your musical education benefited your dance journey? "My musical training has helped me gain a sense of rhythm and by playing and listening to music, I have grown to enjoy and love music as an integral part of dancing as well. Being around music a lot lets you into the colours and emotions of the music while dancing as well, feeding into how you convey the emotions and message of the dance." - Jiya, Grade 3 Trained in playing the drums and guitar

"Music has always been very powerful for me, and I think my musical education has a big part to play in that. It is easy for me to feel music, so when there's music playing it makes performance so much easier and more natural, like it's flowing with all the different parts of my body as I dance. Even the same barre work with music like Moon River from Breakfast at Tiffany's is made so much more extraordinary and beautiful." - Leanna, Grade 3 Trained in Western vocals "Dance and music are both two elements that are always interconnected with each other. My musical education has allowed me to improve my timings, energy control, and rhythmic sense in my dancing. Understanding the different beats, identifying where I should be giving a lot of power and where I should be soft, swaying my body to the rhythm - all these components are how music has helped me develop my dancing skills." - Atira, Grade 2 Trained in Western music and the keyboard continued on the next page.

In what way has your dance education benefited your music journey? "Ballet is the basics of dance. Musical theatre requires a lot of movement and core training. Ballet has helped me improve basic movements of dance which are essential in musical theatre and has made it a lot easier for me." - Megna, Grade 5 Trained in musical theatre

"My experience in dance has taught me how to express emotions through movement, and that knowledge, in a certain way, brings more life to my singing or any musical endeavour that I do because I know how it would feel to express the same feeling through movement in ballet." - Annanya, Grade 1 Trained in Hindustani vocals, flute and piano

Do you think it is important to have some musical background for ballet? "Understanding music can help a dancer in showing the right mood which matches the music. It is very important to understand music in ballet since the emotion showcased by the dance should be the same emotion displayed in the music." - Atira, Grade 2 Trained in Western music and the keyboard

"Dancing helps you learn how to be more creative with musical abilities with skills such as choreography (composition) and improvisation. Dancing is also rhythm centric and teaches you how to stay on beat which helps with playing musical pieces. Learning and performing dance recitals in groups also teaches you how to coordinate with other dancers/musicians, which can be quite helpful to jam sessions, being in a band, etc..." - Jiya, Grade 3 Trained in playing the drums and guitar

How different do you think your dance journey would have been without any musical experience? "I can't imagine my life without music. My music and ballet teachers have played a major role in my journey so far and I am grateful to them for that!" - Leanna, Grade 3 Trained in Western vocals

"Without music, my dance education would have been different on a whole new level. Knowing music helps you feel dance in a certain way. When I am dancing, I feel not just the movements but the music too, and having that knowledge helps me give a better performance as a whole." - Annanya, Grade 1 Trained in Hindustani vocals, flute and piano "I feel there would be huge differences in the way my dance would be because without my musical journey my timings and other elements wouldn't have been right. Learning music while being a dancer is always an advantage since it would be easier to analyse the music to make it connected with the dance." - Atira, Grade 2 Trained in Western music and the keyboard "My dance journey would have certainly taken longer if I hadn't started being trained musically... Students tend to find it easier to excel and enjoy dance when they already have experience with music and I think my journey wouldn't have been impossible without musical training, but it certainly would have been more difficult." - Jiya, Grade 3 Trained in playing the drums and guitar "If I hadn't had any musical training, I think my expressions wouldn’t have stood out as much. By learning music, I could extend my range of expression while dancing." - Megna, Grade 5 Trained in musical theatre

Jokes & fun facts Why was the dancer late? She was wearing a leo-tardy!

The most curtain calls ever for a ballet performance is 89, for Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn performing Swan Lake in Vienna in 1964.

Who is the undersea monster who comes out in the winter and eats innocent almonds and pistachios? The NutKRAKEN!

The record for most fouettés en tournant performed in 30 seconds was set by Elena Glurjidze in 2009; she hit 36.

Who was the genius inventor who solved all dancers’ hair problems? Bob E. Pinns!

The Sleeping Beauty was Tchaikovsky’s longest ballet. Including intermissions, it clocked in at nearly four hours! Today, ballet companies around the world generally edit the score.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is probably the most famous ballet composer of all time, and possibly the most well-known Russian composer. He has written eleven operas and a number of concert pieces. In ballet, he is remembered for composing the scores for three of the best-known ballets in the classical repertoire: Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker. Tchaikovsky wrote the music for these three ballets as they were being choreographed. He worked with the choreographers and dancers who originated the roles in these ballets. After his death, many of his orchestra and piano pieces have been used by choreographers to create new works. Most famous among them is George Balanchine. Here we will explore Tchaikovsky’s musical career in relation to ballet, his work with choreographers, and how some of his music unintended for ballet has been used by choreographers. Tchaikovsky was born in Kamsko-Votkinsk, a small Russian village. At a young age, he was sent to the Imperial School of Jurisprudence in St Petersburg to train to become a civil servant. He learnt to play the piano, and by the age of eight, was very skilled at reading and playing music. When he was growing up, there was no formal public music education, and so a career in music was not even considered. As soon as the opportunity presented itself, Tchaikovsky enrolled in the newly formed Saint Petersburg Conservatory where he learnt Western European styles of music. This was completely at odds with the music he had been exposed to growing up, and his musical style reflects an attempt to reconcile these two conflicting genres of music. As a result of working with two conflicting musical styles, Tchaikovsky is both a composer typical of the Romantic period and a quintessentially Russian music-maker.

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The first ballet that Tchaikovsky composed was Swan Lake. The original choreography was by Julius Reisinger, a Czech dancer who directed the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. When the ballet was first performed, it was not much appreciated by the audience. The score was written really quickly by Tchaikovsky - all four acts were composed in one year. As he was composing the ballet, Tchaikovsky had only a very loose outline for each of the dances that Reisinger wanted, and so he was relatively free to write the music as he chose. Tchaikovsky wrote several pieces in different styles of music that he had learnt from studying European national dances. He composed pieces in the styles of the mazurka, the waltz and the czardas, to name a few. These pieces were intended as divertissements that were not central to the plot of the ballet. However, Reisinger rejected many of the pieces that Tchaikovsky wrote, calling them ‘undanceable’. Instead, he started using pieces by other composers. Tchaikovsky protested this, and so his pieces were reinstated in the ballet. In the original production of Swan Lake, the composer

Bill Cooper

Corps de ballet of The Royal Ballet in Swan Lake

and choreographer were unable to collaborate and only worked together because they were commissioned to do so. Despite this struggle to work together, the Swan Theme that Tchaikovsky wrote remains famous. It is one of the most easily recognised pieces of ballet music, and it appears as a symbol of moods and characters in many places in the ballet.

Click here to listen to the final scene of Swan Lake, which includes the Swan Theme and some very dramatic moments.

Petipa was actively involved in the creation of the score for this new ballet. Tchaikovsky would go to Petipa’s house, play sketches of the score, and based on Petipa’s feedback, would make changes and orchestrate it. Through this back and forth, music for variations was switched around and scenes were shortened. Most notably, the Wedding Pas de Deux in Act III was shortened. As the ballet was being created and rehearsed, many of the dancers complained that the music was needlessly complex because they were used to the simpler tunes that were composed for ballets.

It was only later, when Swan Lake was revived by Marius Petipa, that it would gain the popularity that it still has today.

After Swan Lake, despite its cold reception, Tchaikovsky was commissioned to write another score for a ballet, this time about the water nymph Undina. This, however, was quickly abandoned in favour of the French fairytale by Charles Perrault, La Belle au Bois Dormant, or The Sleeping Beauty. And so began the partnership of two of the giants of classical ballet: Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa.

Bill Cooper

©Tristram Kenton

Tchaikovsky cut out some of the subtleties that he had worked into the rhythm, but retained the grand orchestration. This elaborate, rich style became his signature. Later, when Tchaikovsky was to look back on his career, he would consider The Sleeping Beauty one of his finest works.

Click here to listen to the Rose Adagio, one of the most technically challenging sequences in ballet repertoire. You might remember hearing it in our rehearsals for Sleeping Beauty in 2019!

Click here to listen to Reed Flutes, one of the divertissements in Act II that was part of The Nutcracker Suite that Tchaikovsky excerpted.

As a ballet, it would only be through George Balanchine’s revival that The Nutcracker would become the beloved Christmas classic that it is today.

Like Swan Lake, The Nutcracker was initially unsuccessful as a ballet. Petipa and Tchaikovsky collaborated on this ballet as well. By the time that they worked on this ballet, they had already established a rapport, and so they were able to work on this ballet quickly and smoothly. Petipa gave Tchaikovsky extremely detailed instructions about the music he wanted for each dance, down to the number of bars and the tempo of each piece. This left Tchaikovsky with less freedom to compose his pieces. Nevertheless, it was the music of The Nutcracker that won audiences’ hearts. Tchaikovsky excerpted eight musical numbers (including the March in Act I, the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy and the Waltz of the Flowers) from the ballet, lasting about 20 minutes. These eight pieces were meant to be performed as a concert, The Nutcracker Suite. At the premiere of The Nutcracker Suite, most of the pieces were given encores, and audiences thoroughly enjoyed the sweet fantasy land that it transported them to.

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George Balanchine was a dancer and choreographer born in St Petersburg, ten years after Tchaikovsky’s death. He made his dancing debut at the age of 10 as a cupid in The Sleeping Beauty at the Mariinsky Theatre and fell in love with the score. He then joined the corps de ballet and continued to dance and choreograph while he was a member of the company. Later on, when he moved to the United States and formed his own ballet company there, he would continue to be inspired by and use Tchaikovsky’s music for his choreography. The first piece that Balanchine choreographed for his company, Ballet Society (today New York City Ballet), was set to Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings. The piece, titled Serenade, remains one of Balanchine’s most celebrated and frequently performed works. After Serenade, Balanchine went on to choreograph a number of other pieces for his newly formed company, and among them are at least fourteen pieces set to music by Tchaikovsky. Many of these works have strong influences of Russian virtuosic technique, and they evoke the splendour of Russian ballet.

Some of his other well-known pieces set to Tchaikovsky scores are Ballet Imperial (to Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 2), Diamonds, Theme and Variations and Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux (to an additional piece of music that was quickly composed for the fourth ever performance of Swan Lake at the Bolshoi Theatre, to enhance Odile’s character). Balanchine also restaged Swan Lake in the United States. But the Balanchine - Tchaikovsky pairing that is most familiar and most easily recognised is Balanchine’s revival and popularisation of The Nutcracker. Tchaikovsky will always be remembered for the music that he has composed. His symphonies and other orchestral pieces, such as the 1812 Overture remain constant in classical music repertoire and continue to be played frequently in concerts. But it is his three enduring ballets, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker that Tchaikovsky will be best loved and remembered for.

Kansas City Ballet in George Balanchine's Serenade

Styles of Music Every ballet class, we hear different styles of music from all over the world. How many of the different kinds of music that we hear in ballet class can you find here?

BOLERO WALTZ

MAZURKA

GALOP POLKA

REEL

TRIPLE JIG B L U E S

P O L O N A I S E

G A V O T T E HAB ANE RA ME I T RAG

TARANTELLA

GO N A D FAN

CALY PSO Click here to play this online

What's the Music? Click here to listen to the music, and decide what style it is!

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What kind of music is this? a) Waltz b) Bolero c) Galop

What kind of music is this? a) Calypso b) March c) Habanera

What kind of music is this? a) Zingarese b) Ragtime c) Polka

What kind of music is this? a) Tarantella b) Tango c) Triple jig

What kind of music is this? a) Schottische b) Paso Doble c) Minuet

1a | 2b | 3c | 4b | 5c |

Answers

TEACHER FEATURE

JUST SIT ON

Spotify AND

listen

THE TEACHERS OF TLFCB ON MUSIC ..................

How do you choose which playlists you use for ballet class?

Miss Sushmitha I like to have a set playlist for each week, one for the younger classes and one for the older ones. Of course, it might change. If something is not working then I might change the playlist in the middle of the class or at the end of class when I want the students to get through 5 more minutes of jumps, I might opt for something more upbeat. Or if I feel the students are really struggling with the timing of an exercise, I will then change to something easier musically. So yes, I try to find something new every week or every two weeks. ..................

What I choose depends on what classes I am teaching. For the younger classes I will play things that are jazzy, not necessarily classical ballet music. If we have jumps then upbeat music, if it is a class with a lot of chassés and port des bras then something light and floaty. ..................

Miss Yana I have lots and lots of music for the younger classes on my iPad, music from the past, music that I had bought on cassette tapes and CDs. I’ve kept them all, so I have endless music for going to the seashore, animals and birds and so on to choose from. Sometimes I want something new and then I just search on Spotify. ..................

Miss Elina As we get closer to assessments and exams we will also start using more and more of the set ISTD music. ..................

How do you choose the music that you use for summer intensives and shows?

Miss Yana

MISS ELINA'S

Search Keywords BALLET CLASS MUSIC POP MUSIC FOR BALLET CLASS

I tell Miss Elina what I want and make her find it. That’s it. I’ll say I need something that goes like this or like that and she’ll go, "What about this" and I will say, "No, no, I only want this section, and that section, and I don’t want these 16 counts but I want those 32," and I make her put it together. Normally she gives me choices for what I want. She understands what is needed at once, she is really excellent at it. ..................

Miss Elina It just means a lot of listening to music! I even have music playing while I am doing other things at home or while I’m driving. Sometimes I’ll find an album with really nice pieces in it, and it works well for a show or parts of a show because you find a common theme running through the pieces because they are from the same composer. Miss Yana and Miss Sushmitha will often find their own pieces and then I will see what goes with that. This year we did Encanto, which was very easy to search. I mean it was predetermined. The children all knew the songs already and we did not want to use anything else as that could lead to disappointment! So this year was a very straightforward search, while other years it is not always like that. ..................

KIDS BALLET PRESCHOOL BALLET PRESCHOOL DANCE ..................

Miss Sushmitha Last year for the online shows, the kids played Disney princesses and villains. We wanted familiar music for them while avoiding vocals, so in a couple of the dances we used the karaoke tracks of the characters’ songs; that actually worked quite well! ..................

Did/do you train in a musical instrument/vocals?

Miss Sushmitha Yes, I used to learn the violin. I started around the same time I started ballet, but it came to a point where I had to choose one or the other. I chose ballet and this was a very natural decision for me. In an ideal world I would have wanted to do both, but there were a lot of things going on. I really struggled with violin though, I mean I did not exactly pick the easiest instrument to learn, did I? ..................

I used to practise for hours at home and still struggle at my lesson, but my violin actually helped my ballet. I took my ballet teaching exams and found that I would have to know a lot of music theory as well to instruct a pianist on what to play. I was like “Oh! I have never done anything like this before!” but I found that my violin training had set me up for this, I was familiar with most of the theory already. ..................

Miss Yana When I was in a regular non ballet school music was part of the curriculum. All the way through my school life we would always have one lesson of music every week. In Europe these are not cocurricular activities, they are in the curriculum. There would be music and drama every week at school. ..................

Miss Elina

I did play the piano when I was younger. I didn’t play for long enough to be good at it, and it is something that, for the last 20 years or so, I have regretted not continuing. I want to start again. There are so many amazing piano compositions and I would love to be able to play some of those myself. ..................

Miss Sushmitha

I do feel that a musical training helps in ballet. In fact I see it in students who learn music. Their awareness, understanding and musicality stands out. ..................

What were you listening to as a teenager?

Miss Sushmitha When I was a teenager I was just into whatever was popular then, like the top 20 hits would be my playlist. I listened to pop, soft-rock, etc. I listened to a lot of Bon Jovi. I also listened to 80’s music because I had an older sister. Then I got left behind a bit - I still listen to 80’s and 90’s music which I am able to sing out loud to. As I got interested in ballet I began to listen to more and more classical music. I trained in bharatnatyam too, so I was exposed to and still enjoy Indian classical music. ..................

Miss Yana

Click to listen

My brother was a DJ; from when he was young he was always DJing around the house. I never had the option to listen to anything I liked, he really dominated the music at home, so I would have to listen to all his music choices. He had a very varied spectrum of music. He would go and DJ at someone’s wedding and they would like a certain style so he would play that at home. He had this huge record collection, so big that it would fill up the studio, stacked in crates at home! I don’t think I ever had my own music until I started teaching, it was always his music. ..................

Miss Elina I grew up listening to a really wide range of music. My mum would listen to a lot of classical music, and my paternal grandmother had a vast, labelled, alphabetised library of hundreds of CDs of classical music. This influenced my choices. At the same time my dad listened to The Beatles and similar genres of music, while my sister listened to something else. They all had an influence on me, and I still listen to those genres. My mum also listened to old Finnish music from the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and a lot of Second World War era music. I know all those old war songs by heart because that is what we were singing when we were travelling in the car! .................. What do you listen to for leisure now?

Miss Sushmitha For leisure I actually listen to a lot of ballet class music! It is different from when I am teaching, then I am not really focused on enjoying the music myself. At home, I listen, I dance to, I start setting exercises for classes… I will have a set of playlists that I just have playing around the house through the week. ..................

I don’t think I have that association of leisure to music. I do listen to music though, I run to house rave music. Sometimes I will do ballet to pop music. I listen to spiritual music, nature music. Sometimes I even listen to awful Kpop, because these girls seem to like it! My spectrum is still super varied. ..................

Miss Elina It depends on my mood really, I don’t have a favourite style. When I am in the car on the way to teaching a class then I often listen to something upbeat; if I am at home then I listen to classical music or something with softer beats when I want to relax. Right now, and some people will laugh when they hear me say this, I am listening to a 60’s soft-rock playlist on Spotify. ..................

TEACHER TIPS -

Improving Musicality Listen ACTIVELY, don’t just switch off. Find as many instrument sounds as you can!

Miss Yana Music is not really leisure for me! If I listen to a piece of music I am thinking “Who would like this music, which class should I play it for? Should I use it in SBB? Should I use it in BarreFit? Should I look for a ballet version of it?”

Lying down with headphones on and just listening to the music is really important before you try to dance to it. If you stand up and listen to it you are not really absorbing it. You are only listening to movement. Ask friends, ask your parents, ask your grandparents! "What were you listening to when you were my age? Can you play me something?"

Are you ready to get your art supplies out? Draw your dream ballet costume for a chance to win this year’s drawing competition. The most creative, fun and original drawings will be made into TLFCB greeting cards and will be featured on our social media. Who knows maybe your design will also be one of the costumes in our next show. Last day of submission is July 4th, 2022. Click here for competition guidelines: https://www.thelewisfoundation.org/drawing-competition-2022/ Get creative and have fun!

o i n t a r i p s In

ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND PROLOGUE Music recently composed for a modern full-length ballet

GISELLE ACT I VARIATION From the classical French ballet composed by Adolphe Adam

I GOT RHYTHM from WHO CARES Quintessentially American music by George Gershwin, used by George Balanchine

DANCE OF THE KNIGHTS Sergei Prokofiev's powerful score at the Capulet's banquet

ENIGMA VARIATIONS MUSIC STAFF of THE ROYAL BALLET Discover the different roles that musicians play in a performing ballet company

The complete score of Enigma Variations, composed by Edward Elgar, used by Sir Frederick Ashton

The Loopy Living Library Show in 2017