03/26/2024
On April 1, the GBF will record a session for our Interpreter’s Archives series that will feature Colleen Neary and Adam Luders coaching the Phlegmatic and Choleric sections of Four Temperaments.
Take a dive into the history of the work, with some images and writing on the first production of the ballet alongside images of our two iconic coaches in the work.
Both coaches had worked extensively with Balanchine while preparing the telecast of the complete work on “Dance in America” in 1977. Todd Bolender, originator of the Phlegmatic title role (and the subject of a GBF archive video recorded September 15, 1997) told Luders that Balanchine had put back some of his original choreography, discarded for later dancers, when Luders performed it.
Immediately after The Four Temperaments premiere, the noted critic Edwin Denby was moved to write, “no choreography was ever more serious, more vigorous, more wide in scope or penetrating in imagination” (Dance News, December, 1946).
Images:
1. Colleen Neary and Daniel Duell in Choleric, being coached by Balanchine for the WNET recording of Dance in America, 1977.
2. Adam Luders in Phlegmatic, by Martha Swope, 1981.
3. Kurt Seligmann, Oil sketch for the ballet The Four Temperaments (stage set), The Mayor Gallery, London, 1946.
4. The Four Temperaments, Ballet Society, 1946.
5. Kurt Seligmann, Costume study for Four Temperaments, gouache, watercolor, pencil brush and gray wash on paper.
6. Elise Reiman and Herbert Bliss in The Four Temperaments, by George Platt Lynes, 1946.
Choreography
Video Archives Director
Video Archives Founder .reynolds.56232
