Brandenburg is a neoclassical ballet choreographed by Jerome Robbins to compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach.
Danced by a cast of twenty, the plotless ballet is set to Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No.
"[3] Dance critics Anna Kisselgoff and Deborah Jowitt both compared the patterns in the ballet to a kaleidoscope.
[1][4] Author Terry Teachout commented, "A large-scale ensemble piece structured along classical lines, it contains no implied relationships, and the dancers are not individually characterized.
[3] With his poor health, Robbins worked on and off for two years to complete the ballet,[4] during which he had mitral valve replacement surgery,[6] shown symptoms of Parkinson's disease, and had issues with balancing as a result of a fall.
Though Robbins usually inform the dancers the synopsis of the ballet from the outset, he did not tell the pair whether the pas de deux was an experiment or part of a bigger piece.
[7] He then brought in another pair of principal dancers, Wendy Whelan and Peter Boal, along with the corps de ballet.
[a][7] Robbins described working with the young cast, "I can't show them what I want them to do so they all move around with stiff-legged movements imitating me and not my intentions...
[1] Robbins gave many directions to her, such as "green with a little bit of yellow and not too close to blue", resulting in her re-dyeing the fabrics many times.
[8] Critic Anna Kisselgoff of The New York Times opined, "Never has Mr. Robbins moved bodies in space with such dazzling speed and density.