It was created on Natalia Makarova and Mikhail Baryshnikov, and premiered on May 9, 1976, at a gala benefitting the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, held at Metropolitan Opera House.
Other Dances was made as a pièce d'occasion for James Lipton's "The Star Spangled Gala", which benefited the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
Robbins had previously donated part of his profits from the musical Fiddler on the Roof to the library's dance collection.
[4] It is set to Frédéric Chopin's music, including four mazurkas and one waltz, the latter previously used in Fokine's Les Sylphides.
Robbins had previously used Chopin's works in The Concert, Dances at a Gathering, and its follow-up, In the Night.
[4] Santo Loquasto, the costume designer, found that Robbins "was on his best behavior" due to his admiration for Baryshnikov.
[3] In her memoir, Makarova wrote, "In Other Dances, the body seems to be weaving a shawl of valenciennes lace ... the hesitations, the subtle nuances, that fine understatement of movement that for me is the most precious feature of the romantic – and for that matter, of any – ballet.
[6] In a 2008 interview, Baryshnikov described Other Dances as "utterly Slavic" because both he and Makarova are Russians, and because of the way she moved her arms, which fascinated Robbins.
[2] In 2012, when Makarova received the Kennedy Center Honors, an excerpt of Other Dances was performed by Tiler Peck, a New York City Ballet principal dancer.
It has precisely the original ballet's sense of place and style, of Slavic forms growing in an alien soil, of transposed dance images, character motions and national glints, into an oddly pure form of classic dance.