Stravinsky: Sadly Nobody Riots Over Ballet These Days
Mar 06, 2018
My name is Igor Stravinsky. In 1913 I debuted The Rite of Spring. It was at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris...
My dancers dressed in whimsical costumes, performing odd and violent moves, choosing convulsive jerks over traditional graceful fluidity. My avant-garde pulsating rhythms came to define the height of modernism while telling a tale of pagan sacrifice.
A single bassoon starts all by itself on that now famous high note. Other instruments gradually join to create sounds of swarming insects and cacophonous noises of the primordial force of spring. They called it the work of a madman. The work of a madman, I tell you!
Angry spectators threw vegetables on stage. Dozens were ejected. There were riots in the streets. Riots! This, my friends, this is music! This is ballet!
But now you people just yawn. The only ones who buy tickets and go are there for the selfies. What about you, the common man? It is written for you!
What gets you stirred these days? Shall I direct everyone to strip naked on stage, eclipsing in an orgy of sex and murder? No! I shan't! Because you won’t bat an eye. “I’ve seen better on PornHub” you’d say.
How can symphony and theater compete against the maddening Tweets of Donald Trump? The mystical macho of Vladimir Putin? The fantasies of Fake News? Is there not room these days for the archetypal powers of primal song and dance?
Alas, seems that a man like me in this day and age is better off blogging or making memes in social media. The Rite of Meme.
Hmmm. Has a nice ring to it actually....
The Rite of Meme.