Pointe magazine – How it's Done: Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux

Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux comes and goes like a summer love affair: It’s romantic, adrenaline-filled and all too brief. The bravura showstopper is set to music that Tchaikovsky originally wrote for Swan Lake, but Petipa never used. After learning that the music had been rediscovered in the Bolshoi archives, George Balanchine used it to create a duet on New York City Ballet principals Violette Verdy and Conrad Ludlow in 1960.

The scintillating 40-second female variation is a showcase for precision and a chance for the dancer to demonstrate an effervescent individuality. Verdy notes that Balanchine added certain touches especially for her. “There are witty things in it—little retards, little changes of return,” she says. “He loved my gargouillades. So in the développé-échappé combination, he put in a retard with the développé a la seconde, which meant I had to make the gargouillades quick; they had to be electric.”

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