| About Ballets Russes |
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Between 1909 and 1929 Serge Diaghilev brought together leading modern artists, composers and choreographers to collaborate on new ballets for his company Ballets Russes (the Russian Ballet). The result was an integration of art, dance, and music that was unique, and transformed the presentation of dance. Diaghilev is one of the pre-eminent figures of modern art and culture. The lasting importance of the Ballets Russes is due in large part to his acute sense of timing, extraordinary good taste and judgement. The impresario’s productions became a forum for the exchange of new, liberating and often radical ideas. Modern painters found another means of expression: three-dimensional, public, and appealing to new audiences. The history of music in the early 20th Century would be considerably poorer without Diaghilev’s involvement. Through his Ballets Russes he brought the work of the Russian composers Alexander Borodin, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Igor Stravinsky to a wider European audience; indeed Diaghilev’s commissions helped to launch Stravinsky’s career. Diaghilev also embraced progressive Western European composers including Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Manuel de Falla, Eric Satie and Francis Poulenc. Over its 20-year existence, the designers of the Ballets Russes absorbed and revitalised many artistic influences ranging from late 19th Century Symbolism and Art Nouveau to 20th Century Modernism and Art Deco. Diaghilev’s friends, in particular Leon Bakst, Alexandre Benois and Nicholas Roerich, created images of exotic escapism and revived a world of romantic fairy tales. Natalia Goncharova, Michel Larionov and Henri Matisse came to epitomise Modernist experimentation and Parisian sophistication in the productions they designed. English National Ballet (formerly London Festival Ballet) is privileged to have direct lineage to the Ballets Russes; Dame Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin, our founders, were two of the original Ballets Russes’ dancers. It is for this reason that we have many costumes and sets recreated directly from the originals, designed by masters such as Picasso, Benois and Bakst. Ballets Russes is therefore part of the Company’s history and heritage. |
Les Sylphides
Choreography Michel Fokine
Apollo
Choreography George Balanchine
The Dying Swan
Choreography Michel Fokine
Schéhérazade
Choreography Michel Fokine. Restaging Beriozoff
L’après-midi d’un faune
Original Choreography Vaslav Nijinsky
New Choreography, Faun(e) David Dawson
Le Spectre de la Rose
Choreography Michel Fokine
Choreography Michel Fokine
Apollo
Choreography George Balanchine
The Dying Swan
Choreography Michel Fokine
Schéhérazade
Choreography Michel Fokine. Restaging Beriozoff
L’après-midi d’un faune
Original Choreography Vaslav Nijinsky
New Choreography, Faun(e) David Dawson
Le Spectre de la Rose
Choreography Michel Fokine
SpotlightKerry Birkett
Recently choreographed a piece inspired by The Secret Garden at the Wycombe Swan
