Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes – learning projects celebrating the legacy
To recognise and celebrate the incredible legacy of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, English National Ballet’s Department of Learning is collaborating with new partners to inspire students across art forms to develop original work. Following the revival of famous Ballets Russes repertoire for English National Ballet’s Sadler’s Wells season in June 2009, two major learning projects entitled Ballets Russes - Encounters and Ballets Russes - Design Perspectives explore the innovation of Ballets Russes in dance, music and design.

Ballets Russes - Design Perspectives is delivered in partnership with London College of Fashion and the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is exploring the influence of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes on a significant period of design. This exciting partnership is giving over 250 London College of Fashion students the opportunity to realise the fantastical embodiment of fashion and theatre, style and fantasy, couture and limitless design. The project spans seven BA (Hons) courses on offer at London College of Fashion including Fashion Design Technology, Active Sportswear and Fashion Illustration. Participating students have taken inspiration from English National Ballet resources by seeing a performance from the Sadler’s Wells season in June 2009, visiting the storage facility in Marden to see set and costumes and observing a rehearsal at English National Ballet’s studios. Students are currently designing their collections and a limited number will be chosen, by a panel of experts from the fashion and ballet industries, to be showcased in a special event at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The finale event will be in the autumn 2010, complementing and enhancing the Victoria and Albert Museum’s exhibition, ‘Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes 1909-1929’. Live performance, installation and a specially choreographed catwalk show will be performed by fashion models alongside English National Ballet dancers.

Further exploring the influence of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes across art forms, Ballets Russes - Encounters is inspiring students to take inspiration from the music and dance to create original work. It is a partnership project with Sadler’s Wells for the dance element and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea for the music strand of the project. Delivered by English National Ballet dance artists and dance artists from Sadler’s Wells associate companies, Wayne McGregor|Random Dance and Russell Maliphant, the dance strand is an ambitious performance and choreography project. Working with young people aged 14 to 18 years from three schools and a youth dance company, as well as older people from the Company of Elders, each group will create an original piece of choreography and perform it at the Peacock Theatre on 29 March 2010. Participants have had access to a programme of Ballets Russes events and resources to provide inspiration for their group choreographies. This includes opportunities to see archive film footage, authentic reconstructions of works in rehearsal, backcloths and costumes at English National Ballet’s storage facility in Marden and performances at Sadler’s Wells. Parallel to this dance work, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea have funded activity enabling Gifted and Talented music students from six schools to work with composer and music arranger Sally Greaves to create original compositions. These compositions will be performed by English National Ballet orchestra members at the Peacock Theatre on 29 March. The performance at the Peacock Theatre will not only include original choreography and compositions by participants in the learning projects, but also professional excerpts from participating dance companies. Tickets for this performance are priced at £5 and are on sale now, book online here.