The premiere of the ballet Rhapsody, staged by Frederick Ashton, took place in 1980 on the occasion of the Queen Mother’s eightieth birthday. The ballet was set to the music of Rhapsody on Themes of Paganini by Sergei Rachmaninov and was created especially for Mikhail Baryshnikov. The performance is a plotless opus, based compositionally on a musical structure. The presence of two contrasting symbolic themes opened up an abundance of possibilities for contrast for the choreographer. Ashton contrasted the soloist with the ensemble, the Russian school of classical ballet with the English system. The first is associated in the world with an unshakable tradition, the second personifies the birth of the new, experimental. In 1960, the Soviet choreographer Leonid Lavrovsky staged the ballet «Paganini», a program work, close in form to a choreosymphony, to the same music. While working on the image of Paganini, Leonid Lavrovsky turned to an earlier production of this ballet — Mikhail Fokine, created on the initiative of the composer himself. Mikhail Fokin staged his ballet «Paganini» on 1939 in the tradition of the prewar Dyagilev’s Russian ballet. The article presents an overview of productions to the music of Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, as well as an analysis of the expressive means and Frederick Ashton’s compositional techniques in his ballet «Rhapsody».

The article is devoted to the performing career of Christian Johansson. The author describes the dancer’s artistic path; analyses the most important roles: of Valentine in Faust and Edgar in Aeolian; and recreates Johansson’s creative image. The article is written on the basis of periodicals and the dancer’s personal file (kept in RGIA).

The study of historical ballroom dances is relevant today in connection with the organization and conduct of cultural and leisure events and historical reconstructions. Ballroom dancing is used in theatrical productions, feature films and television series, and is an important aspect of preserving cultural traditions and values. The article examines the problem of choreographic reconstruction of the mazurka as one of the most popular dances of Russian balls of the first half of the 19th century and the production of an original dance, taking into account modern technical capabilities and special training of performers. The author traces the origins of the mazurka as a historical ballroom dance, analyzes its characteristic means of expression in the direct synthesis of music and choreography, focuses on the ethno-social and cultural meanings of the dance; shares with students of art schools, secondary vocational and higher professional educational organizations in the cultural sphere practical recommendations for the proper performance of the mazurka, developed independently and taking into account the opinions of the best dance masters and teachers in Russia and Europe. The article presents the author’s version of the Aerial mazurka.

The article is devoted to the study of aspects of the musical work of the outstanding choreographer of the twentieth century Leonid Yakobson related to the selection and editing of musical works for the production of choreographic miniatures. The criteria for selecting music and Yakobson’s composer preferences are determined, revealing the reasons for the choreographer to turn to a particular work, to the music of a certain era, style. The personalities of the musicians who guided Yakobson in the search, selection and editing of music for choreographic performances are determined. The issues of collaboration between Jacobson and his musical assistant, composer Timur Kogan, who held the position of musical director of the Choreographic Miniatures troupe, are explored. Jacobson’s fundamental attitude is revealed, which determines the techniques and principles of musical work: with all his enthusiastic interest and love for music, the choreographer in his work was always guided by the primacy of the plastic concept. This determined both the features of musical editing work (the creation and use of orchestrations instrumental pieces, making cuts and other edits, the use of phonograms) and the principles of production work. They were manifested in the emphasized musicality of the plastic language, sensitivity in following the intonation pattern of the musical fabric. The role of musical dramaturgy in the process of creating the artistic image of a choreographic miniature is noted.

The subject of the article is the phenomenon of gesture, combining music and plastic in the genre of danceopera, created by the German choreographer Pina Bausch. The choreographers Sasha Waltz and Anna Teresa de Keersmaeker continued the traditions of the genre. The growth of plastic expressiveness in the modern theater has created prerequisites for its application as a specific artistic form in new types of performances, one of which was the danceopera. Pina Bausch’s goals and innovative aspirations were preserved the traditions of German musical theater by incorporating specific theatrical techniques into the space of a choreographic performance to express individual experience. The danceoperas Orpheus and Eurydice and Iphigenia in Taurida revealed the possibilities of interaction between music and choreography through the forms of the contemporary theatre. The idea of the danceopera as a synthesis of music and gesture has been continued in the works of other choreographers. The technique of dividing the characters between dancers and singers was used by Sasha Waltz in the production of Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas and Anna Theresa de Keersmaeker in her version of Mozart’s opera Everyone Does This. Continuing the traditions of Pina Bausch, the choreographers expanded and transformed the boundaries of the opera genre by turning it into a dance performance.

This study represents an analysis of the influence of steppe culture on the formation and development of a unique dance style in the Inner Mongolia region. It demonstrates how the rich tradition and history of steppe culture have significantly impacted the vocabulary and aesthetics of the region’s dance art. A comparison is drawn between traditional cultural elements, such as the nomadic way of life and its connection to nature, and the choreographic representation of these features. The analysis delves into rituals, ceremonies, and historical factors that define the specificity of Mongolian dance as part of the ethnic artistic code. Two types of traditional dance are identified: Eastern and Western regions of Inner Mongolia. The research aims to discover and describe the unique characteristics and roots of Mongolian choreography, as well as its connection to the rich cultural and historical environment of the steppes. This should contribute to the preservation and promotion of ethnic arts within the framework of contemporary cultural experience.

The ballet production of Maurice Bejart “Mozart-Tango” is considered in the aspect of the figurative and semantic content of its music: the works of W. A. Mozart and the melodies of the Argentine tango. The creative and personal prerequisites for a choreographer’s work with this musical material are outlined. Artistic projections of music onto the choreographic and scenographic solutions of the production have been identified. The musical and dramatic role of Mozart and tango episodes is determined.

The article is devoted to the consideration of the method of pedagogical work of the professor of the Moscow Conservatory, Italian Giacomo Galvani. This method was outlined in 1882 in the treatise “Practical observations of the vocal apparatus” (“Observations pratiques sur lʹorgane de la voix”). The method is noticeable in the European vocal treatises of the 30-40s of the 19th century towards the convergence of related sciences, including physiology, acoustics, and the history of singing art. It is they who are reflected in the formation of the maestro’s views on the path to improving the technique of staging the singing voice, where the latest knowledge about the anatomy and physiology of the vocal and respiratory organs becomes the basis. Thanks to the synthesis of new knowledge stimulated by the spirit of the times, Galvani integrates into his singing method the works of phoniatrist Francesco Bennati and historian Gabriel Fantoni. Thus, Maestro Galvani finds himself at the beginning of an important historical stage in the development of Russian vocal pedagogy, which focused attention on the counter- movement of the science of voice and empirics. The new methods of pedagogical work highlighted in Giacomo Galvani’s treatise, which pay attention to the position of the tongue during singing, its functions in sound formation, and the functions of the diaphragm, give reason to talk about the serious intellectual work of the maestro, built by him on the basis of the principles of physiological expediency.

The focus of the study is the work of the French nondance choreographer Xavier Leroy, one of the most original masters, who in his productions relied on alternative forms of working with the body and movement, presented in the context of the relationship of sound and choreographic gesture. His performances are aimed at gaining specific forms of audience attention, determined by the specific relationship between music and choreography. Leroy’s productions do not fit into the genre system of choreographic forms and form individual trajectories. The presentation of “choreography” in a conceptual way is based on ideas not associated with subjectivist bodily expression or a specific style. Choreography is emancipated from dance as such, and is involved in a living process of communication between music, its physical representation and the viewer/listener. Xavier Leroy, who has a doctorate in molecular biology, also approaches his choreographic work from a scientific perspective. On an aesthetic level, Leroy consciously rejects established ideas about dance with its strong associations with conventional categories of skill and craft, offering instead autonomous discourses that reject the cause-and-effect relationship between the conceptualization and expressiveness of dance. The article analyzes the creative trajectories connecting the conceptual choreography of Xavier Leroy with works from the field of concrete instrumental music by Helmut Lachenmann. The analysis focuses on the production of the performance “Salute to Caudwell”, carried out by the choreographer to the music of the German composer. In the process of working with a musical text, specific instrumental music is subject to gestural deconstruction: it is divided into fragments that are displayed at different levels of perception. These factors related to the sphere of aesthetic experience find themselves at the center of the transformation of the role of the viewer - an emancipated one, developing his relationship with the work in a pendulum form in an oscillatory relationship between the visible and the audible. The conclusion from the study is the idea of alienation of the instrumental gesture in relation to its choreographic imitation, which manifests itself at the moment of disruption of the cause-and-effect relationships of sound occurrence. The contours of the body cease to exist for the viewer, blurring between the performing gesture and Leroy’s conceptual choreography. At this point, the principles of Lachenmann’s “silent eloquence” are combined with the idea of conceptual choreography of nondance – Leroy’s movements.

The use of folklore in genres related to musical theater is an important trend for the Belarusian musical art of the 20th century. In connection with the formation of the national school of composition, folklorism has become a natural way for the presentation of national identity in a work. The dependence of the processes of change in art on the socio-political context has led to a change in the functions of folklorism throughout the century. The article attempts to trace its evolution in this period. The author analyzes changes in folklorism on the example of opera and ballet genres. Reveals the importance of folklore in the formation of a musical performance as a system of artistic images at all stages of periodization. The interpretation of authentic traditions in classical genres is considered at the level of means of musical expression, choreographic vocabulary, the correlation of folklore and academic forms.