The Puzzle’s Picture

This chapter discusses the idea that a lost dance can be approached like a puzzle with missing pieces. A picture can be created with the parts we know, and the reconstructor in charge of dance reconstruction fills in the blanks. The sections of Funeral March for which there are the most textual and photographic information are set on dancers. The studio research on the first Tragic section of the ballet with the dance artists of the Grand Rapids Ballet, as well as the performance of this section are detailed.

The Scholar’s Conundrum

This chapter considers the controversy surrounding dance reconstruction. It begins by defining terms such as reconstruction, revival, and restaging. The method used in reconstructing Funeral March is explained, as are issues such as the myth of the original, maintaining the authenticity of dances from other eras, and the ethereal nature of all dances, whether remaining in the repertory or lost. Dance reconstruction, when correctly approached, is a vital part of dance history.

The Missing Pieces

This chapter covers the second part of Funeral March, the Lyrical section. For this part of the ballet, we have only partial information, but it creates an outline as to how the dance might have looked. Using the dance vocabulary from other dances that George Balanchine created during this era, the process of filling in the holes in a lost dance to create a stage-worthy dance is explained. Choreographic ideas from the following Balanchine ballets are discussed: Apollo, La Nuit, Étude, Enigma, Valse Triste, and Waltz and Adagio.

One Final Note

This final chapter discusses the merits of the project, showing how examining George Balanchine’s earliest ballets allows us a better understanding of his mature works. Comparisons are drawn between his lost ballets and those that are in the repertory: Prodigal Son, Apollo, Serenade, Jewels, Stravinsky Violin Concerto, and others. This conclusion shows the merits of a dance reconstruction project like Funeral March and demonstrates how it enables historians, dance artists, and audiences to gain greater depth in their understanding of ballet as an art form.

Envisioning Funeral March

This chapter introduces the reader to the ballets that George Balanchine created in Russian. It contains a literature review of both English-language primary sources by dancers Alexandra Danilova, Tamara Geva, and Yuri Slonimsky and Russian-language primary sources by Vera Kostrovitskaya and Yuri Slonimsky, as well as other primary and secondary sources. The idea of the possibility of reconstructing lost Balanchine works is addressed and the project, Envisioning Funeral March, is discussed. The steps for reconstructing a lost dance, including traditional archival research, studio research, and finally staging the completed dance in the context of Balanchine’s early choreography is discussed.

The Dancer’s Discovery

In this chapter, the transition from studying George Balanchine’s early ballets using traditional archival research to initial studio research is discussed. It demonstrates how photographs in conjunction with the musical score and textual descriptions of the dance can be used to create combinations that, while not perfect, can represent dances that are otherwise lost. The first Tragic section of Funeral March is discussed, and the idea that there is enough material about this first third of the dance to accurately be restaged is presented.