Final Project
George Balanchine was born in 1904 on January 22 in Saints Petersburg of the Russian Empire. He was born to Maria Nikolayevna Vasilyeva and Meliton Balanchivadze. His father was of Georgian origin and he sung opera while also being a well known composer. His birth name was Giorgi Melitonovitch Balanchivadze. Balanchine was the mother of his father’s second wife. Growing up, Balanchine did not have much care for ballet. His first experiences with ballet happened after his mother coerced him to him to try out. When Balanchine was nine years old in 1913, he moved to Saint Petersburg and attended the Imperial Ballet School. There, he became Pavel’s student.
Balanchine graduated from the Imperial Ballet School in 1921. After graduating, Balanchine began attending the Petrograd Conservatory, while also being employed at the corps de ballet of the State Academic Theater for Opera and Ballet until 1924. While at the conservatory, Balanchine various musical skills: harmony, counterpoints, piano, etc. In 1923, he finally graduated from the Petrograd Conservatory. As a teenager, George Balanchine created his first work La Nuit, and then Enigma. He then formed the Young Ballet, which was…show more content… He wanted to open up his own school because he wanted to train dancers with the system of dancing that he preferred. Later in 1934, his students performed a dance he choreographed called Serenade. In 1938, Balanchine moved the School of American Ballet to Hollywood. He soon went back to New York and created a new company called the Dance Society. Balanchine suffered from Creutzfeldt-Jakob, a neurodegenerative disease which is almost always fatal. He also underwent a heart bypass surgery a few years before he died due to him having angina. After many years of suffering from the disease, George died in Manhattan on April 30,
