Sabre Dance

The "Sabre Dance" is a movement in the final act of the Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian's ballet "Gayane", completed in 1942. It evokes a whirling war dance in an Armenian dance, where the dancers display their skill with sabres. Due to its exceptionally exciting rhythm, the "Sabre Dance" established a place for itself in common concert practice, leading also to various adaptations in popular music. In its middle section it uses an Armenian folk song from Gyumri, Armenia.

The Music

The orchestra version is written in G major. It starts out with a recognizable motif ostinato with the timpani and strings that can be heard throughout much of the piece. The upper woodwinds and keyboard percussion take an exciting dance melody, later accompanied by the low brass. Then the strings come in with a folk song melody. The first melody is then briefly recapitulated. Descending chromatic eighth notes bring the piece down to straight eighth notes on the note G in the low strings. The piece ends on ascending quarter notes.

It's recognizable ostinato and popular melodies have made Sabre Dance a popular concert band piece.

Usage in Modern Pop Culture

Plate spinners and other human tricks innovators highly contributed to the movement's popularization in the United States, such as on "The Ed Sullivan Show", where it was played while plate spinners performed their act. The "Sabre Dance" was also covered by performers such as jazz musician Woody Herman, vocal trio The Andrews Sisters, rock and roll musician Dave Edmunds with the band Love Sculpture, heavy metal guitarist Wolf Hoffmann, German progressive thrash metal band Mekong Delta, British heavy metal band Skyclad, prog rock group Ekseption, Tony Levin, and British punk rock bands The Boys, UK Subs and Toy Dolls. The band Cake has this piece played over the house speakers following their concerts, while the audience leaves the venue.

"Sabre Dance" has traditionally been used by traveling circuses around the world, to musically accompany acrobats, dog acts, etc.

Usage in Television/Movies

The piece reinforces James Cagney's energetic performance in the final act of the 1961 comedy "One, Two, Three" as he plays a troubled executive making snap decisions to save his career.The tune is frequently featured on the TV series "The Simpsons", usually to emphasise the fast pace of some situation (e.g. Bye Bye Nerdie) or during an activity containing sort of acrobatic skills (as in Tennis the Menace). The National Hockey League's Buffalo Sabres use Sabre Dance as their theme song. The 1985 film "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" makes extensive use of Danny Elfman's The Breakfast Machine, a piece very similar to this piece. Sabre Dance is also the music played while "Late Night with Conan O'Brien"'s recurring character the Masturbating Bear masturbates on stage. The MSNBC TV program, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, features the music during "Oddball", a nightly news feature of bizarre stories, often referring to the tune as "this strange music". The Coen brothers' 1994 film "The Hudsucker Proxy" also makes use of the music, in a scene in which a newly-invented hula hoop is picked up and used by a young boy for the first time. The piece was arranged and integrated into the wider score by Carter Burwell, who also made use of Khachaturian's other well-known piece, the adagio from "Spartacus", as the movie's main theme.

In The Blues Brothers 2000, when main heroes encounter Russians in the grave and run, "Sabre Dance" may be heard for some seconds.

External Links

* [http://www.imeem.com/pieboyrules/music/hGdOaBPA/classical_sabre_dance/ Recording on Imeem]