When you are doing all of these really extreme and fast movements with your legs, the top has to be almost seductive, a little bit like a castanet dancer. I like the end of the solo because there is a drastic change in the music. At that moment, the mandoline starts playing, and you get this very Spanish influence there. 

In her opinion, Balanchine explored the limits of the dancer's bodies in this ballet. The male and female bodies are different and have different characteristics. For that reason, the movements are personalized to each gender’s body.

Stravinsky’s music was never intended to be complete in itself, and for that reason, the music has some low-intensity parts to make the dance more important. This could be explained with the ‘gapping’ process of Nicholas Cook I mentioned in Chapter 2.0. However, that doesn't mean that the relation between music and dance is less interesting. In “Bransle Gay” solo, two male dancers are also on stage. They stay in the background, each one on one side. In the beginning, they recreate the castanet rhythm with the hands, pretending to clap.

It is also very interesting to see how Balanchine deconstructs the human body. In one part of the solo, the orchestra is totally in silence except for castanets and flute. The percussionist continues playing the castanet with that rhythmic ostinato. In contrast, the flute makes a beautiful melodic phrase. The legs of the female dancer move according to the rhythm pattern, creating strict and precise steps. However, the arms and torso move equally to the flute melody, smooth and polite.

After this excerpt, the clarinet starts a conversation with the flute, evoking imitation or echoes. At that moment, the dancer’s body split in two. The right part and the left part, embracing the whole body, start a dance that simulates that conversation. The polyphonic section of the instruments is visualized as a conversation of the right and the left part of the body.  Later, when the entire orchestra starts playing, the dancers continue imitating the rhythm with the whole body.

The solo finishes with the rhythmic pattern of the castanets. The dancer stand still in the middle of the stage, with the torso up. This attitude is very typical in Spanish dance, when the music stops and the dancer is waiting for the claps of the audience. This last time, the female dancer and the other two male dancers recreate the rhythm pattern with the arms.

In this ballet, the body moves very fast and stuck usually. However, this last time, the arms move in a very easy and smooth way, imitating the typical style of Sevillanas and flamenco.

CHAPTER 2.2

ANALYSIS OF “BRANSLE GAY” SOLO FROM STRAVINSKY'S AGON

Agon is a neoclassical ballet for twelve dancers. It was performed for the first time in June of 1957, without the ballet. Six months later, Robert Craft conducted the first stage performance by the New York City Ballet. The ballet has no story, and it has little dance movements by pairs, trios and quartets. The movements are based on 17th-century French court dances.

Agon is known as a major work in terms of the creative collaboration between composer and choreographer. In this work, Stravinsky explored serialism, and the choreographer Balanchine developed a neoclassical style, with references to jazz. In this chapter I will speak about the “Bransle Gay” solo from Agon ballet.

The relation between dance and music is very close in this movement of the piece. The audience could have the impression that dance is copying the musical rhythm. However, its rhythmical pattern is different every time. According to Duerden (2007), the human eye and ear are deceived into perceiving a close similarity, a closer similarity than what is technically there.

Megan LeCrone is an American ballet dancer and soloist with the New York City Ballet. In the summer 2008 season, she danced the Bransle Gay solo. This was Balanchine’s first ballet she ever learned. According to her, Stravinsky wrote the music thinking of the ballet. The score is very clear with the movements and it doesn’t have a lot of space for subjective movements. In her opinion, the impersonal style of the music, the dancers and the choreography is what makes this piece special, without any personal or sentimental view.