Dancing Beyond the Mainstream

The art form of ballet has been stringently associated with classical music for as long as ballet has existed – and for good reason. This association has been firmly established over the course of roughly 500 years. So why have so many popular artists been branching out into ballet lately?

A brief overview of that history: ballet originated in Italy and France during the Renaissance as an extension of court pageantry and entertainment for royalty. In the 1600s, the art form was more thoroughly codified and formalized under dance fanatic King Louis XIV of France, with assistance from violinist, dancer, choreographer, and court composer Jean-Baptiste Lully. Through the Enlightenment of the 1700s, ballet continued to exist as a feature both in opera scores (like Mozart’s Ideomeneo) and as a stand-alone art form, with troupes beginning to form and travel abroad solely for the purpose of performing ballet.

But in the Romantic era of the 1800s, ballet became cemented as a cultural fixture, due to increased accessibility for entertainment beyond high society. Though its popularity waned in France by 1850, it found new life in Russia. In fact, the most commonly performed ballets today, and arguably the most developmental in the popularity of the art form, were composed in this time by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky; namely, Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, and The Nutcracker. While Swan Lake and The Nutcracker were not immediate hits, Sleeping Beauty was, and subsequently propelled Russian ballet to the international stage, with Swan Lake and The Nutcracker picking up steam later.

In the 20th century, ballet soared to increasingly adventurous heights, with more avant-garde choreography and music to match it. Impresario Sergei Diaghilev, by way of his Ballets Russes (a Parisian ballet troupe composed mostly of former dancers of the Imperial Ballet of St. Petersberg), originated some of the most iconic and iconoclastic ballets of the repertory, from Igor Stravinsky’s Firebird, Petrushka, and infamous Rite of Spring, which allegedly caused a riot at its premiere, to Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and Maurice Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, with each challenging the conventions of ballet musically, thematically, and choreographically.

In 1925, a young upstart in the ballet world named George Balanchine, known then for his edgy and experimental choreography, was invited by Diaghilev to choreograph some works for the Ballets Russes. Diaghilev was thoroughly impressed with his work, and thus promoted him to be the ballet master at the ripe age of 21. Balanchine would go on to originate many ballets himself, in collaboration with some of the most well-known composers as well as from pre-existing music, and later founded both the School of American Ballet and the New York City Ballet, both of which continue to operate and fuel the world of ballet to this day. Needless to say, the presence of the U.S. on the international stage of ballet owes much to Balanchine (not least of which was the re-introduction of The Nutracker to modern audiences).

It was also Balanchine who began to incorporate non-classical music into ballet. In bringing ballet to Broadway and collaborating with Gunther Schuller through the use of jazz music, he helped expand the scope of the art form even further beyond its origins.

This trend has continued into the present day; ballet companies have staged productions with music ranging from Johnny Cash to Radiohead, The Rolling Stones to Wynton Marsalis, and Bon Iver, to name a few.

Increasingly, however, many mainstream musicians have, at least temporarily, retreated from their typical aesthetic to compose more “conventional” (read: orchestral) ballet scores. What is surprising about these ballets (other than the fact they are composed by “non-classical” artists) is not their quality, but how much they differ from the body of work that these artists hold, and just how many examples there are of artists doing this in the first place.

Take Paul McCartney’s Ocean’s Kingdom from 2011, for example:

You probably know McCartney for hit songs like Hey Jude, Yesterday, and Let it Be — all iconic tunes that nearly anyone could hum on cue. Touching lyrics accompany fairly straightforward chord progressions with unmistakable melodies. Ocean’s Kingdom has none of that, and instead utilizes flashy orchestration, jarring rhythmic gesticulations, and sudden changes in musical character. This is not your dad’s Paul McCartney (though he might hear echoes of Live and Let Die).

The work exists as a result of a commission from New York City ballet, though it isn’t McCartney’s first time writing for orchestra, with four previous classical albums under his belt. McCartney had this to say about the project:

“The sheer athleticism is the most astounding thing, it's like a meeting of the Olympic games and art, and I find that fascinating and challenging for me, to see what can be done."

Contrastingly, former Daft Punk member Thomas Bangalter’s Mythologies can be seen as something of a musical retrogression:

There is nothing of Daft Punk's highly-produced, rhythmic electronic music here. In its place lie cinematic gestures aplenty, with moments that could just as easily be Mozart or Schumann, though twinges of harmonic disarray and the occasionally quirky orchestration proves that this is Bangalter’s voice alone.

Born from a commission by the Opéra National de Bordeaux, Bangalter appreciated the newfound playing ground of the orchestra, saying,

"There's somehow a fixed palette with the orchestral music, but there is still an infinity of things you can do with that fixed palette… In electronic music, there's some kind of infinity of sounds available to you. And somehow that infinity of sounds becomes a little bit troubling and disconcerting, and you don't even know anymore where to start in some sense."

I talked about Sufjan Stevens’s most recent ballet score Reflections before, but his first original ballet score Everywhere We Go treads similar water:

Like the later Reflections, Stevens is unafraid to make full use of the expressive forces at his disposal, but crucially disposes of what he is most widely known for: song. There is no plot in this ballet, but the score (orchestrated by Michael P. Atkinson) is adventurous, textural, and quirky, with moments of humor and melancholy interwoven carefully throughout as only Stevens could.

While initially apprehensive about ballet as an art form he could contribute to, following his first collaboration with choreographer Justin Peck of the New York City Ballet, Stevens changed his tune:

“I think there’s a lot that I can create that isn’t affiliated with songwriting or narrative, that can reside in its own abstract world, just tones and sounds and textures. So dancing’s really appropriate for it. It’s nice to have that kind of platform, because unlike modern dance or contemporary dance or downtown dance, ballet is formalized, and there’s something orthodox about it that I like. I like that there’s less emphasis on subversion and innovation. I actually think that my musical vernacular or my musical voice is also less inclined toward innovation and subversion. I think I’m a traditionalist.”

Other ballets in this vein include Solange Knowles’s Play Time, described as a “free jazz score.” This is the R&B artist’s first orchestral composition, and only the second ballet commissioned from a woman of color by The New York City Ballet. While there are no publicly available recordings of the ballet available, Jeff Ihaza of The Rolling Stone writes:

“Solange’s ‘Play Time’ score managed to expand on the sonic textures that have come to define her music, all while retaining hints of the modern sensibilities that come with the last name Knowles.”

And A Ballet Through Mud, the latest from Wu Tang Clan’s RZA, was inspired by lyrics sketched in an old journal:

After initially attempting to incorporate the lyrics into some form of a “rap opera,” RZA was eventually convinced that they weren’t necessary, and that ballet might make a better format for the music that was taking on a life of its own.

"The inspiration was there,” he said, “but then I realized that the music I was creating didn't need any lyrics. The music itself would tell the story."

While ballet companies may have been driven to commission these artists based on their ability to put butts in seats, in doing so they are able to yield an entirely new aural window into the minds of artists better known for other music. Each of these artists reach out of their comfort zone and into a world previously unknown to them to create something entirely new. By extension, these artists also bring an entirely new audience to the ballet with them, and bring listeners from across the aisle together. That’s pretty remarkable, if you ask me.