Masters Theses

Date of Award

12-1981

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Music

Major

Music

Major Professor

Allen E. Johnson

Committee Members

Donald Pederson

Abstract

Designs of Separation and Convergence is a ballet of approximately fifteen minutes duration for six dancers and four instrumental ensembles. The ballet attempts to demonstrate, through both abstract design and programmatic plot, several types of separation and convergence.

The abstract designs are expressed primarily through a concern for the relationship between the location of dancers and the location of music. Other parameters used to express design are the number of dancers and instruments, the number and relationship of different keys in a polytonal texture, and the number and relationship of distinctly different musics in a texture composed of these motorically related strata.

The programmatic expression of separateness is most visibly provided by the conflicts between a male and a female soloist. The romantic implications of their situation are paralleled by similar conflicts between the male soloist and the entire ensemble; this could be seen as an "angry young man" period of hyperactive scrutiny and objectification.

There is no acting out of the plot; the program is implied in the sequence of choreographic designs which act as symbols. The audience is free to interpret details of a plot within this abstract framework. It is, in fact, this symbolic representation of dramatic events which is the basis for the successful presentation of a ballet which is simultaneously programmatic and abstract,

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