Dance

All significant choreographers have their own distinctive style. Few have ever had so many successful strings to their bow than George Balanchine and this opening programme proves what diversity he was able to embrace. Here it's the dreamy beauty of 'Serenade' (Tchaikovsky), the brash energy of 'Agon' (Stravinsky) and the imperial grandeur of 'Symphony in C' (Bizet).

'Serenade' opens in moonlight: a tableau of women each with one arm raised towards the moon. In unison their arms curve in, curl around their heads and glide down to resting. Then, suddenly, their feet shoot out into first position. This movement has the effect of an electric shock. In that one simple gesture (the primal principle on which all ballet is based) a world is born. The stage switches from waiting to being, from passive to active. The first link in the chain has been forged, a corps de ballet created.

The dancing that follows is light and elegant, youthful and frolicking. Balanchine orchestrates the entire stage with sweeping cascades of unaffected lyricism. Then, unexpectedly, the dancers are back in their opening position. Another woman enters and wanders through this garden of statues. She finds, takes, accepts her place and, looking over her shoulder to make certain she has the correct stance, raises her arm. She too is a dancer.

As the rest of the corps leaves the stage, a man enters. Walking up behind the single remaining woman, he touches her gently on the shoulder and they begin to waltz. Another transformation is taking place: the woman who became a dancer is now turning into a ballerina. When the corps re-enters to join the waltz, this storybook romance melts of its own accord.

Another metamorphosis is needed to complete the cycle. When the other dancers rush away again, the woman collapses onto the floor. Behind her, a different man is brought on, guided by a woman who walks behind with one of her hands covering his eyes. She leads him forward, and as he takes the fallen woman's hands, rises into an arabesque. Slowly she spins over their heads – a goddess, a muse, a fate, a guardian angel.

The three dance together, but the mood darkens. The guide, her arms like swooping black wings, recaptures the man and leads him away. The ballerina is left behind in solitary anguish. The final change has been accomplished. She is once again a woman, but now with a fuller, deeper experience of life. Members of the corps return and the woman is lifted above their heads; as the curtain falls, she is being carried off, as if in a cortège. The cycle is now complete. She has been transformed into a goddess, a Balanchine ballerina.

This interpretation is, of course, subjective. Balanchine was not intent on telling stories; instead he saw himself as an illustrator of music, a conduit between composer and audience. Yet, throughout his long career, he returned again and again to the theme of the glorification of woman as ballerina.

The creation of 'Serenade' reveals Balanchine's practical attitude towards the job of choreography. The ballet was made with whichever dancers happened to turn up each day at his new School of American Ballet (whose students gave the first performance in 1934). His quick sensitivity to music was such that he even incorporated their mistakes into the finished piece. The initial entrance of the solitary woman, for instance, was derived from the fact that the dancer actually arrived late at rehearsal. Similarly, her collapse stems from an accidental slip which Balanchine then transformed into art.