Piano-Rag-Music is a short ballet Todd Bolender set to Stravinsky's 1919 solo-piano piece of the same name. It premiered on June 23, 1972, at the New York State Theater, Lincoln Center, as part of New York City Ballet's Stravinsky Festival, danced by Gloria Govrin and John Clifford.
What is danced
The article gives no synopsis, cast breakdown by role, or description of steps, holds or vocabulary, so nothing about the actual movement can be stated as sourced fact. What we can say from the record is structural: the piece was made for two dancers (Govrin and Clifford) and set to a single Stravinsky piano work rather than an orchestral score, which by itself tells us it was conceived as a compact, non-narrative piece rather than a large ensemble ballet. Beyond that, any description of technique, partnering or musical response would be invention, not reporting, and is withheld.
Context
The article situates the premiere inside New York City Ballet's 1972 Stravinsky Festival, a company-wide event built entirely around the composer's music. Recalled from outside the article: this festival, mounted the year after Stravinsky's death, commissioned dozens of new works from the company's choreographers (including Balanchine and Robbins) in a short span, and is generally treated as a landmark moment for plotless, score-driven ballet-making at NYCB — this framing is my own knowledge, not stated in the source, and is flagged accordingly.
Staging history
The article documents only the June 23, 1972 premiere and its cast. A second cited review, dated February 4, 1973, is not explained in the text, but its existence suggests the work may have returned to the NYCB repertory into the following season — this is an inference from the presence of the link, not a stated fact, and should be treated as a lead rather than a confirmed staging history.
How to watch it
With only a title, composer credit and two original names to go on, there is no sourced guidance on what to watch for in performance; a viewer would need to judge the piece on its own terms rather than against any convention asserted here. Anyone encountering a revival or archival footage should note whether the piece plays as a duet keyed closely to the piano score's ragtime syncopation, since that relationship between a solo-piano source and stage movement is the one concrete fact the record supports.
Credits
- composer: Igor Stravinsky