Pillar of Fire (ballet)

Pillar of Fire is a 30-minute dramatic ballet choreographed in the 1940s by Antony Tudor to Arnold Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), Op. 4. The music was inspired by a nineteenth century German poem, "Weib und die Welt" (Woman and the World), that is set in a time when a child born out of wedlock was not condoned in polite society. The poem deals with a pregnant woman who is afraid that her fiancé will not marry her. However, he is truly in love with her and accepts the fact of her pregnancy. He tells her that the child will be considered his.

The ballet was Tudor's first piece choreographed in the United States after moving from his home in London. It follows a similar story to that of the music's inspiration. A young woman named Hagar faces great emotional and physical anguish that forms the core story of the ballet.