Hello my name is Stravinsky, and you are watching Disney Channel!

Stravinksy’s Rite Of Spring has been a heavily famous piece, so much even Disney needed a little bit of that. On November 13, 1940, Disney released a film called “Fantasia”, Disney’s longest animated film. A masterpiece in which famous classical pieces were chosen to be portrayed by cartoon animations. After watching, listening, and learning about Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, I thought that the cartoon animation created by Disney to portray the piece was actually somewhat similar to the original performance. The original performance is mainly about ancient pagan Russia, a virgin sacrifice. A virgin that dances until she dies. Quite weird and creepy right? Considering that Paganism and Shamans probably did not use such dark music for their rituals. But I believe that maybe Stravinsky made it a dark piece and a dark performance, maybe because he thought the whole idea to be dark and twisted as heck! I do not blame him!

In the animated portrayal, it is mainly about the beginning of life here on planet Earth. How evolution took place from one small microscopic bacteria to dinosaurs. During the close-to-end of the scenes, there is a massive confrontation between two dinosaurs in which one kills another while the rest of the dinosaurs watch. This could maybe be a tribute to that sacrifice in the original performance.

After the sacrifice takes place, you start seeing the dinosaurs struggling to find basic resources to stay alive. The creek has now dried, the tree didn’t have a leaf on it. After seeing them struggle to stay alive the next scene is that of fossils on a desert, giving the impression that they have now become extinct. Earthquakes take place and split the earth into various pieces and water flows. This made it seem like planet Earth was now turning into the way we know it today.

It is very interesting, that Disney decided to do this. I remember watching it as a kid, but not really knowing what was going on. Now as an adult, I JUST HAD to revisit that and analyze. I hope that Disney ends up doing more Fantasia works to incorporate more pieces from different composers around the world. This film, really helped me envision things when listening to music, it allowed me to imagine scenarios, see certain colors, as well as feel the level of intensity of the piece I am listening to.