Music

We Asked, You Created: Your 'Rite Of Spring' Videos

By Anastasia Tsioulcas

Published May 29, 2013 at 2:46 PM EDT

A few weeks ago, we asked you to take the last minute of Stravinsky's famous music for The Rite of Spring, transform it into something new and post your creations to YouTube. And boy, did you guys deliver, just in time to mark the ballet's 100th anniversary — it premiered May 29, 1913 — in brilliant fashion.

We can't say enough how much fun these have been to watch, and we hope you've had a lot of enjoyment making them. Your collective creativity and love of music are amazing. We've put together a handful of our favorites: They're beautiful, goofy, clever, thought-provoking and just plain funny — and more often than not, a combination of all of those things.

If you'd like to see the full versions of the videos we've clipped, check these out on YouTube:

Ann Robideaux' shadow play with dancers

Garrett Ott and friends' hilarious poolside paganism

Dan Fu's clever commentary on a common springtime rite of passage

James Kearney's amazing/creepy/amazing bacon-rind "choreography" (talk about primordial ooze!)

Seth Boyden Demonstration School's lovely tribute to vernal colors (which my colleagues felt was a clear favorite; I abstained on this one, since I shot it and my child is one of the participants)

Youth Arts in Action's contribution, featuring the incredibly graceful Maria Sascha Khan

A trio of dancers moving in an urban streetscape choreographed by Alexandra Pinel

Alas, some entries arrived too late for inclusion in our montage, but we heartily recommend you spend some time with them, including an intriguing narrative short filmed in San Francisco's Stern Grove Park, an extremely cool painted film by Fredecie Mageia and a pair of videos from music critic Will Robin, starring his cats Igor and Coco — yes, really — in which one of the felines may or may not be sporting a banana costume. (I can't beat New Yorker critic Alex Ross' insta-analysis of Will's oeuvre: "These dancers abjure the clichés of mimetic gesture and capture the score's interplay of tense stasis and predatory motion.")

And be sure to take a look at some of the other incredibly creative submissions we've received — including another smart little California vignette called "The Cyborg Express"; the beautiful dancers of Geeksdanz; a funny take on a familiar springtime battle from Steve Emahiser; exuberant classes at the Friends Seminary School in New York City; a "world-famous" air drummer rocking out; a loopy, one-take living room horror show; and primordial, muddy glory (of very different kinds) from Brian Schmidt and the duo of Mina Lawton and Kimberly Thompson. To find even more, try searching #ritenpr at YouTube.

Thanks again to Boosey & Hawkes and Universal Music Group for making this project possible, and to all of you for contributing! What should we all dance to next?