Ballet Russes
Description
Ballet Russes inluences on Art Deco:
- Léon Bakst's sets and costumes for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.
- The exotic appeal of the Ballets Russes had an effect on Fauvist painters and the nascent Art Deco style.
The Ballets Russes was a ballet company established in 1909 by the Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev and resident first in Paris and then in Monte Carlo. It created a sensation in Western Europe because of the great vitality of Russian ballet compared to what was current in France at the time. It became the most influential ballet company in 20th century, and that influence, in one form or another, has lasted to this day.
The dancers and choreographers associated with it included George Balanchine, Mathilde Kschessinska, Michel Fokine, Tamara Karsavina, Serge Lifar, Alicia Markova, Leonide Massine, Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, Ida Rubinstein and Lydia Lopokova.
Designers included Bakst, Benois, Braque, Picasso, Bilibin, Tchelitchev, and Utrillo.
Composers included Debussy, Milhaud, Poulenc, Prokofiev, Ravel, Satie, Respighi, Richard Strauss, and, most notably, Igor Stravinsky, whom Diaghilev spotted when he was virtually unknown and whose career he launched.
After Diaghilev's death in 1929 the company's property was claimed by creditors, and the dancers were scattered. In the subsequent years, the company (in name only) was revived as the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (with which the names of George Balanchine and Tamara Toumanova are associated) and as the Original Ballet Russe. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballets_Russes [Mar 2006]
See also: Art Deco - fashion - ballet
The Ballets Russes and Its World (1999) - Lynn Garafola
The Ballets Russes and Its World (1999) - Lynn Garafola [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
The Art of Ballets Russes : The Serge Lifar Collection of Theater Designs, Costumes, and Paintings at the Wadsworth Atheneum (1998) - Alexander Schouvaloff
The Art of Ballets Russes : The Serge Lifar Collection of Theater Designs, Costumes, and Paintings at the Wadsworth Atheneum (1998) - Alexander Schouvaloff [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
your Amazon recommendations