But it's also true that the Kirov dancing almost any Balanchine ballet will show how deep the chasm is between these two ballet cultures.
It's striking how unalike these three ballets are.
Although none of these four ballets are masterpieces, all are very watchable and skillfully made.
With these three ballets, you have this rhythm that is created by movement — that is really important.
True, these three ballets are now aspects of Balanchine very familiar to British dancegoers.
These notes about overall construction overlook the dance rhythm of these three ballets, the single aspect of musicality in which Balanchine's skill was supreme.
Between the two ballets is a short transitional dance set to "Neige," a piece of piano music by the French composer Louis Durey, that shows Ms. Mearns being drawn into the world of art as the other side of life disappears.
Between 1873 and 1875 he wrote two ballets and four operas.
"Bell" is not a synthesis of Kabuki and ballet, but instead a conversation between these two moral and aesthetic worlds, as seen by a contemporary artist of keen intelligence.
Between these two, though, all is darkness.
