The Cage (ballet)

Among a tribe of female insect that preys on their male counterparts, The Novice, the daughter of The Queen, is born, and her membranous covering is removed. She is confronted by the First Intruder, a male insect, and she reflexively stabs him and cracks his neck until he dies. The tribe celebrates that she has been initiated. The Second Intruder appears, and this time the tribe leave her to kill him. However, the two fall in love and mate. The tribe returns and the couple attempts to hide, but are discovered. The tribe attacks the Second Intruder, and finally, the Novice is overcome by animal instincts and kills him. The Novice is embraced by the Queen, while the rest of the tribe salutes her. ==Original cast==

Two years before Robbins began working on the ballet, he discovered Stravinsky's Concerto in D on the flip side of a recording of Apollon Musagète. The plot of the ballet would be a reversal of the killing of Hippolyta by Hercules, with the woman, rather than the man, to be the killer. The dancers are dressed in nude-colored leotards with black curly lines. The set and lighting was by Jean Rosenthal. The decor features spiderwebs of ropes hanging from the ceiling, which was added by accident, when Rosenthal was lowering an overhead web after a stage rehearsal, and Robbins requested her to add the ropes to the set. ==Performances==

The Cage premiered on June 10, 1951, at the City Center of Music and Drama. Though most audience erupted into cheers after the performance, some of the audience was offended by the ballet, and Robbins' mother walked out of the theatre halfway through the ballet. In 1961, The Cage entered the repertory of Ballets: USA, Robbins company, during what would become the company's last season. In 1972, The Cage was included in the New York City Ballet's Stravinsky Festival, a tribute to the composer a year after his death. ==Critical reception==

Following the premiere, John Martin of the New York Times commented, "It is an angry, sparse, unsparing piece, decadent in its concern with misogyny and its contempt for procreation. It dodges no issues, but cuts to the heart of the matter with sharp and steely thrusts. Its characters are insects, it is without heart or conscience. But in spite of the potency of its negations, it is a tremendous little work, with the mark of genius upon it." ==Videography==

In 1980, The Cage was among several of Robbins' work that was filmed for NBC's series Live from Studio 8H, with Heather Watts as the Novice, Florence Fitzgerald as the Queen, Robert Maiorano as the First Intruder, and Bart Cook as the Second Intruder. ==References==