Jewels

Jewels is a plotless, three-part ballet in which each section evokes a different national school of dance and a different chapter of Balanchine's own career, unified only by Karinska's jewel-toned costumes rather than any narrative. Emeralds conjures Romantic-era France with restrained, intimate partnering; Rubies channels Jazz Age America through syncopated, angular energy led by a principal couple and a solo "Tall Girl"; Diamonds closes the evening with the pageantry and grandeur of Imperial Russian classicism, built around a stately central pas de deux and a full-cast polonaise. Balanchine himself insisted the ballet "had nothing to do with jewels" — the dancers are simply "dressed like jewels" — with the true subject being the diversity and history of classical dance itself.