Page 36 - Disney
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segment as well as The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
What are we saying? There is no mention of
God in creating the world in this. It's totally
and completely based upon evolution with
classical music put to it, the music of
Stravinsky, "The Rite of Spring." It's a
Russian title meaning “sacred spring” that is
used for this film, and that music is based
upon the pagan sacrifice of a young maiden
to appease the gods of the spring. She
danced herself to death. In the original “Rite
of Spring,” the complex music and violent
dance steps depicting fertility rites drew
criticism from the crowd when it was first
performed, and the writer of this song,
Stravinsky, said that he wrote it to express
the primitive life. So Walt Disney, instead
of presenting it in its original form as a
simple series of tribal dances, visualized it as
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