A Saraband is a slow, static, court dance of the 17th and 18th centuries set to music in triple time, with the accent on the second beat. Many of Seligmann's paintings of the 1940s are based on dance forms and indeed, the artist was active in ballet theatre. In 1941 he provided effective costumes for Hanya Holm's ballet The Golden Fleece; the complex headgear worn by the dancers is directly related to the forms in his paintings. In 1946 he designed costumes for George Balanchine's ballet The Four Temperaments, based on music by ex-patriote German composer Paul Hindemith.