Finding Balanchine's Lost Ballets

Finding Balanchine’s Lost Ballets: Exploring the Early Choreography of a Master allows the reader to learn about one of the twentieth century’s greatest artists in a way that has not before been possible. Balanchine’s Russian ballets did not survive in the repertory, but this book demonstrates how some of these lost works need not be relegated to the pages of history but can and should be reconstructed, giving us a vision of our past as artists, scholars, and audiences. The book details the work of setting Balanchine’s first group ballet, Funeral March (Choreography by George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust), on the dancers of the Grand Rapids Ballet. It follows this project from archival studies to studio research with the dancers to a final performance. Through careful research on Balanchine’s earliest ballets, traditional research is brought from the archive into the studio, and finally, onto the stage. This visceral approach enables dance history to be studied in its most natural state, kinesthetically, through movement, allowing us to explore, examine, and above all, experience the earliest works of this master.