Although his Danses concertantes was commissioned for a concert performance and follows no specific plot, Stravinsky cast the work as an abstract ballet; two years after the premiere, it was in fact choreographed by George Balanchine, who mounted a production with the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo in New York in 1944.

Danses concertantes finds Stravinsky in a particularly playful mood and shares a harmonic language with the composer's great Symphony in C, while the concertante writing for 24 solo instruments recalls his Dumbarton Oaks Concerto. The work begins and ends with a march (a device Stravinsky often used as a means of ushering dancers on and off stage); in between a set of theme and variations is bracketed by two dance sequences, a Pas d'action and a Pas de deux.