Theatre/Performance Historiography for the 2020s: A Review Essay - The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance Historiography Edited by Tracy C. Davis and Peter W. Marx. London and New York: Routledge, 2021; pp. xxi + 495, 63 illustrations. $250 cloth, $52.95 e-book.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
David Wiles
Author(s):  
Andrea Harris

Making Ballet 3 provides a choreographic analysis of the ballet Western Symphony, produced by the New York City Ballet in 1954 with choreography by George Balanchine, music by Hershy Kay, scenery by John Boyt, and costumes by Karinska. It brings to light the multitude of intertextual allusions that occur throughout the ballet, playfully intermingling references of “America” with an entire lineage of nineteenth-century European classicism. Although Western Symphony has no story line, it crafts a deliberate message: a long, transatlantic genealogy of Western classicism that, in the twentieth century, has come to rest in America. Drawing on archival sources and movement analysis, this interchapter argues that Western Symphony incorporates parody to present a revisionist ballet history in which the high cultural lineages of Europe and America are intimately entwined. Ultimately, this message reinforced the Atlanticist politics of private and state anticommunist groups in the cultural Cold War, the historical setting for its production and performance.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document