Balanchine Ballet

On Saturday I caught a production called Best of Balanchine by Charleston Ballet Theatre and I was reminded how long ballet intermissions are.

There were three short dances in the show - Serenade, Rubies and Who Cares?, all choreographed by the late great George Balanchine. But there was an intermission between each dance and some of them lasted longer than the dances themselves!

Okay, so the ballerinas need to go wipe the sweat of their backs and the male dancers need to adjust their packages. But surely ballet isn't all about the inter-dance drinking and schmoozing?



Thanks to a late start and the two intermissions, a show that should have been 90 minutes long was strung out to 2 hours 20 minutes. Why do ballet intermissions have to be so long? I think we should be told.