15 January 2010
By Anna Sutton
filed under Ballets Russes, Costume, Fashion
When the Ballets Russes boarded Le Train Bleu (The Blue Train) in 1924, the quintessentially modern Coco Chanel was the perfect choice as costumier. Her simple, spirited designs provided a carefree invocation of seaside, active chic at a time when sportswear was a relatively new category of clothing. Le Train’s cast of wayfaring sporting champions (including a golfer inspired by the Princes of Wales) and ladies of leisure spun a seaside pantomime out of a gymnastic-classical ballet tightrope. Their costumes – black tank bathing tops, striped wool jerseys, culottes and muted tunic dresses accessorised with bathing caps like nubile petals – reflected the spirit of a libertarian age. The influence of Coco Chanel’s designs in her penultimate production for Russes are echoed today in Chanel’s 2010 Resort collection.
Le Train Bleu takes place amidst the French Riviera circa 1920s, an era where populist visions of a modernist utopia gave rise to the cult of the body beautiful. Choreographer Bronislava Nijinska satirised this shift towards shallower lifestyles using Chanel’s sporting ensembles as a fashion conduit. Indeed legend has it that Coco was credited with making suntans fashionable in Europe, following a run-in with the sun while yachting on the Riviera.
Le Train was a definitively Russes collaboration, with Jean Cocteau as librettist and Pablo Picasso fulfilling the rather specific role of curtain painter. Jean Cocteau envisaged the ballet as a series of vignettes filled with all the things you might see on the front of a postcard sent from France circa 1924 (jets falling out of the sky, maillots, chorus lines, movie cameras). When I think of Le Train Bleu I imagine rosy women and men with shoulders like boulders racing seaside together, trying to catch the first wave of salacious gossip as it crashes and breaks onto the shore…
In 2009 Karl Lagerfield kept the Ballet-Fashion dream alive by designing the costume for English National Ballet’s Elena Glurdjidze’s performance of The Dying Swan.
28 October 2009
By Isabel Dunstan
filed under Ballets Russes
In her latest film, award-winning documentary maker Mandy Chang has captured the magic and extraordinary past of one of the greatest performing arts companies of the 20th century. A Thousand Encores: The Ballets Russes in Australia follows the Ballets Russes, the company that changed ballet, and the face of performing arts in Australia, forever. The Ballets Russes awoke a nation, transformed the cultural landscape of conservative ‘30s-Australia, leaving a rich legacy that lasts to this day. The film includes footage of Graeme Murphy and Janet Vernon working with The Australian Ballet to create their Ballets Russes tribute Firebird.
A Thousand Encores: The Ballets Russes in Australia premieres Tuesday 3 November at 8.30pm on ABC1.
What is it about the Ballets Russes era that sends your heart racing?
For me it’s the incredible combination of design, dance, choreography and music, all fused into one sublime art form. The sheer cutting-edge nature of it and that it was created by the greatest artists, composers, dancers and choreographers of the time. The idea of fusing these disciplines equally was first dreamed up by Wagner, who called it Gesumstkunstwerk. It inspired and drove Sergei Diaghilev to achieve the incredible.
You spoke to some ex-Ballets Russes dancers. Could you name just one who was particularly inspiring to you?
I found them all inspiring, but I loved the vitality, enthusiasm and outspokenness of Anna Volkova. She had a treasure trove of incredible stories about the Ballets Russes. Only a tiny fraction of them made it into the film. When she talked about ballet and the music, her whole being would come alive. Her hands, and then her whole body (totally unconsciously), began to move as a way of communicating. Even at the age of ninety-something, dance is still in her. Read the rest of this entry »
27 August 2009
By admin
filed under Ballets Russes
An exotic temple dancer, a magical firebird and a love-sick puppet — what do they have in common? They are among the many colourful characters associated with Sergei Diaghilev’s legendary company, the Ballets Russes. Coinciding with the Ballets Russes’ centenary, the Creative Australia and the Ballets Russes exhibition now showing at the Arts Centre highlights the contribution of the company to Australia’s artistic landscape.
Keep an eye out for the ‘Ballets Russes’ memorabilia display. Though Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes never visited Australia, Colonel de Basil’s version of the company made three visits in the 1930s. Posters, sketches and photographs such as those in the exhibition were an important part of the company’s glamorous image, and impart a sense of the troupe’s appeal. Read the rest of this entry »
26 August 2009
By Isabel Dunstan
filed under Ballets Russes, The Sleeping Beauty
The Sleeping Beauty is a perfect example of how ballet, despite its centuries-long history, has experienced countless rebirths. Companies worldwide have performed this fairytale since the late 1800s, and it’s still adored by contemporary audiences. It all began in the dining room of Marius Petipa. Here Tchaikovsky and Petipa shared ideas, furiously took notes and watched their ballet about a sleeping princess grow. Petipa’s ballet won hearts, Tchaikovsky’s score won musical minds and the role of Aurora became a dream for ballerinas all over.
The brain behind the Ballets Russes, Sergei Diaghilev, was 18 years old when he saw his first ballet performance. It was Petipa’s The Sleeping Beauty. His love for the ballet was unwavering and years later – in 1921 – Diaghilev rounded up his creative legion to stage the ballet himself. But Diaghilev’s interpretation was not just an homage, it was the most influential disaster in ballet history. Read the rest of this entry »
31 July 2009
By Anna Sutton
filed under Ballets Russes, Concord, From the studio
It is Monday morning and I am sitting in on rehearsals for Wayne McGregor’s Dyad 1929. The experience is like watching creatures learn how to walk on another planet. I have always been fascinated with dance en pointe, that uncompromising rising of the feet in contrast with the soft pink satin and delicate ribbons of the shoes. Kinetics and gravity appear to be ungoverned by the laws of physics and there is a noticeable absence of real-world referents. Most of the time.
The dancers are still workshopping their roles so the main stylistic difference between them is in the way they learn new steps. Dana Stephensen tears through the air like she is turning from cat to human. Juliet Burnett possesses the steely supremacy of a soloist. And Lana Jones is mesmerising to watch as she relates McGregor’s unique style to her own body with intense focus. As Stephenson sees it, McGregor is very helpful with this process. “He is good at articulating both through his own demonstrations and physically helping us to isolate our bodies in the correct order to achieve the movements. At times it feels like a new language because the movement is so textural.” Read the rest of this entry »
14 July 2009
By admin
filed under Ballets Russes
One of the many astonishing works now on display at the National Gallery of Victoria’s Salvador Dali retrospective is a rare clip from Bacchanale, a Dali-designed ballet. By Margot Anderson.
Presented by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, Bacchanale received its world premiere at New York’s Metropolitan Opera on November 9, 1939. With the set, costumes and libretto created by Spanish-born Surrealist artist Salvador Dali, Bacchanale caused a sensation in the New York dance world. It also marked the beginning of Dali’s 30-year association with dance and the debut of his collaboration with choreographer Leonide Massine.
The story line traced the mounting delirium of King Ludwig II and was Dali’s attempt at a psychoanalytical ballet. Audiences were confronted by an assortment of bizarre images including dancing umbrellas, a corps de ballet on crutches, dancers with giant fish heads, and Lola Montez in harem pants and a hoop skirt trimmed with false teeth. Dali’s set was dominated by an enormous swan, with a large hole in its breast through which the dancers made their entrances.
The weeks leading up to Bacchanale’s debut read like a Hollywood screenplay, and for those involved must have seemed just as nightmarish as the scenes Dali created on stage. The work had originally been scheduled to open on September 4, 1939 at Covent Garden, but the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo was forced to leave London when England declared war on Germany on September 3. The company arrived in New York having left the costumes for Bacchanale behind in Paris, where they had been constructed over many weeks by the famous French fashion designer Coco Chanel.
The task of constructing a new set of costumes fell to the legendary Russian costumer Barbara Karinska. With only copies of Dali’s original sketches to guide her, she re-created 60 costumes in just one week. The performance itself was famously delayed while Karinska worked feverishly to complete the costumes amidst chaotic scenes backstage.
Margot Anderson is a Curator working with the Arts Centre’s Performing Arts Collection in Melbourne
Image: Bacchanale, Salvador Dalí
24 June 2009
By Isabel Dunstan
filed under Ballets Russes, Concord
Wayne McGregor relishes the process of watching an idea transpire through different points of view. As one of today’s great collaborators, and most forward-thinking choreographers, he has worked with Joby Talbot of The Divine Comedy, Jim Henson’s Creature Workshop, The White Stripes, and prolific English artist Julian Opie. But for McGregor, collaboration is far from simply brand association – it’s a matter of beginning with a question, and finding the answer via collaboration with professionals from entirely different fields to dance.
Lately, in preparation for his new work with The Australian Ballet, McGregor has been working with neuroscientists, researching the psychological theory of distributive cognition. “I thought it would be very interesting to find out what was the nature of collaboration from a cognitive point of view,” McGregor says. “We did a whole research program in the States in preparedness for this piece. It was about how an idea distributes between a group.” McGregor’s work for the upcoming Concord programme, Dyad 1929, is the partner piece for his London-based work Dyad 1909. The works bookend the period of between the birth of the Ballets Russes and the death of its mastermind Sergei Diaghilev. Read the rest of this entry »
1 May 2009
By Juliet Burnett
filed under Ballets Russes, From the studio
Soloist Juliet Burnett remembers her late, great mentor, Valrene Tweedie
As The Australian Ballet revels in the pinnacle of a four-year long celebration of the Ballets Russes, having just closed the final curtain on the Firebird and other legends programme and reopening it for Graeme Murphy’s Nutcracker: The Story of Clara, I have fortunately been busied with some challenging work in both programmes, but also with thoughts and memories of the lady who instilled in me the passion for the provenance of these works, Valrene Tweedie.
Throughout my ballet training with Valerie Jenkins, Miss Tweedie was an omnipresent figure, forever a bounteous fount of wisdom and fierce wit. I held her on a pedestal, and wouldn’t ever cease to do so, as I was awed by stories of her joining Colonel de Basil’s Ballets Russes on their 1936-1940 tour, and dancing all over the world under the stage name of Irina Lavrova. Her matter-of-fact, call-a-spade-a-spade demeanour was something very important in reigning in my acute case of stars-in-the-eyes syndrome as a young student. I used to pore over countless dance magazines and books and closely watch the more senior girls in eisteddfods, then go to great lengths to emulate their shapes and movements. Read the rest of this entry »
10 April 2009
By Martyn Pedler
filed under Ballets Russes
Sergei Diaghilev’s direct influence on contemporary dance is undeniable – but there are also echoes of Diaghilev’s style, ambition, influences, and ego in some of today’s most intriguing artists.
Andy Warhol
Diaghilev refused to be constrained to the world of ballet, just as Andy Warhol’s career began in advertising, moved into painting, and soon involved almost every art practice imaginable. Both men acted as large-scale creative masterminds, though Diaghilev was known by the classier ‘impresario’ instead; it’s easy to see Diaghilev’s choreographer, Mikhail Fokine, as occupying the same difficult position as Paul Morrissey, the director who actually directed films labelled with titles like Andy Warhol’s Blood for Dracula. There’s a reason Warhol’s space was nicknamed ‘The Factory’, after all, and while Warhol and Diaghilev possessed a powerful vision, it was other artists who often fulfilled it.
Read the rest of this entry »
8 April 2009
By Jasmin Tulk
filed under Ballets Russes
