About the work
Serenade is a plotless ballet by George Balanchine to Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings, premiered in 1935 (workshop performance 1934). It was the first ballet Balanchine created in the United States and is regarded as one of his most beautiful and beloved works.
Plot
Serenade tells no concrete story but unfolds a sequence of mood pictures for a predominantly female ensemble in moonlight-blue tulle skirts. From the famous opening pose—dancers with raised hands in the moonlight—formations of floating elegance develop, shifting between pure dance and intimated poetry. Individual moments—a fall, a dancer arriving late, a veiled closing figure—condense into an abstract meditation on fate, community, and transience.
Cultural significance
Serenade marks the beginning of Balanchine's American work and his school of neoclassical ballet. Arising from an exercise with students, Balanchine even integrated chance occurrences from rehearsal into the choreography. The work became the signature piece of New York City Ballet and is regarded worldwide as one of the most perfect plotless ballets—an epitome of how dance can make pure music visible.