[19/50] "Balanchine’s pas de deux is one of the greatest of all time, so elegant, so fluid. Dance on this level is intellect without words. Tchaikovsky’s music for the adagio is tragic in some high sense that transcends tragedy. Balanchine expresses it in the choreography, and it’s pure genius. There’s a certain moment in that pas de deux where, within the pathos of the music, the choreography allows sadness and happiness to intermingle. The border is crossed in some spiritual sense. It transports you to a place no other art can take you to.”
—Robert Weiss in I Remember Balanchine (affiliate link)
Conrad Ludlow and Allegra Kent in the Grande Pas de Deux.
Photo by Martha Swope, 1965.
New York Public Libary
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