Monotones is a one-act ballet in two parts choreographed by Frederick Ashton to music by Erik Satie.
Ashton had long been inspired by the Gymnopedies by Erik Satie of 1888 and took orchestrations by Claude Debussy and Roland-Manuel as the basis of a pas de trois for two men and one woman.
Based on Satie's Gnossiennes, it is another pas de trois, but in this case for two women and one man; the premiere was given by Antoinette Sibley, Georgina Parkinson, and Brian Shaw.
Ashton took his cues in choreographing the ballet from the form, structure and inspiration of Satie's music.
[1] The two sections of the work also represent a contrast between the earthiness of the Gnossiennes in Monotones I – where the characters wear green costumes, engage in weighty and accented lunges, and shield their eyes from the sun – and the celestial, infinite and seamless qualities of the Gymnopedies in Monotones II, where the dancers are white-costumed, lit from above, and perform suspended arabesques, the men lifting the woman to "walk on air.