Finale of EL SALON MEXICO (Music; Copland / Choreo. Clifford)

Some scores are really difficult, this El Salon Mexico is one of them. look at how the dancers are keeping up! You’d think they were a company that had been together for years instead of just a couple weeks, and put together by Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux for his summer seasons at the Chautauqua Institute. This section starts right after the Pas de Trois I just posted, and goes to the end of the first half of the ballet, the El Salon Mexico section. Copland greatly influenced Leonard Bernstein, and it’s evident here. Just like Rimsky-Korsakov influenced the young Stravinsky, (and Balanchine influenced me), it’s normal to get inspiration from those that came before. As Mr. B once said, “You must learn all you can from the past (paraphrasing) before you can make something “new“. And, “What is modern or contemporary? Tomorrow it will already be old-fashioned.“ When I was making my first new ballets for the New York City Ballet, I wanted to be “original.“ Ba