The Rite Riot: The Ballets Russes and The Rite of Spring

By Linda Besant

On May 9, 1909, dancers who would come to be known as Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes gave their first performance at the Théatre du Chatelet in Paris. By the time the company dissolved upon Diaghilev’s death in 1929, the “Russian Ballet” had given work to Europe’s best dancers, choreographers, composers and artists, revitalized ballet throughout the Western world, and amassed an astonishing avant garde repertoire.

Diaghilev himself was an impresario. He created through others, bringing together artists of all disciplines to produce integrated, revolutionary works of art. “A list of his collaborators,” wrote Arnold Haskell, “reads like an index to the cultural history of the first three decades of the century.” The list encompasses composers such as Debussy, Prokofiev and Ravel; choreographers from Fokine to Nijinsky and Balanchine; and artists like Picasso, Matisse and Dali.


Le Sacre du Printemps, known in English as The Rite of Spring, was the landmark work of the Ballets Russes season in 1913. Composer Igor Stravinsky and Nicholas Roerich, the painter and amateur archeologist who designed the scenery, set forth an ancient tale of the ritual sacrifice of a chosen maiden to the spring gods of fertility.
Stravinsky had composed Firebird for Diaghilev in 1910, and Petrushka in 1911, but he broke all bounds with Le Sacre du Printemps. “I tried,” he said, to evoke “the mystery and surge of the creative power of spring . . . like the whole earth cracking.” Lydia Sokolova, who danced in the first production, wrote, “To express the dread, hope and frenzy of these brutish folk, Stravinsky made a music whose rhythms, trembling, pulsing, flickering, thudding and crashing with a maniac piston beat, registered their animal emotions.”

Diaghilev assigned Le Sacre du Printemps to his favored choreographer for the 1913 season, Vaslav Nijinsky, the 24-year-old classical dancer worshipped across the continent for his magnetic presence and sensational jumps. Nijinsky had created L’Apres-midi d’un faune, the scandalous success of the Ballets Russes 1912 season, a dreamlike and erotic meditation that bore no resemblance to classical ballet. With Sacre, Nijinsky ran even further from ballet’s balance and symmetry. “Really,” he said, “I begin to have horror of the very word ‘grace’; ‘grace’ and ‘charm’ make me feel seasick . . . my own inclinations are ‘Primitive’.

Here's a clip from The Joffrey Ballet's recreation of the original 1913 choreography:



As the video above shows, Nijinsky’s choreography was raw and weighted to the earth. “The dancers trembled, shook, shivered, stamped; jumped crudely and ferociously, circled the stage in wild khorovods,” wrote Lynn Garafola. It took 120 rehearsals for the dancers to encompass the utterly foreign demands of Nijinsky’s movement and Stravinsky’s polyrhythms. “The girls used to be running round with little bits of paper in their hands, in a panic, quarrelling with each other about whose count was right and whose wrong,” Sokolova remembered.

The public response to Le Sacre du Printemps “was exactly what I wanted,” Diaghilev told Stravinsky after the premiere on May 29, 1913—the audience at the Théatre des Champs-Elysées rioted. Valentine Gross, who was present that night, described the melee: “The theatre seemed to be shaken by an earthquake. It seemed to shudder. People shouted insults, howled and whistled, drowning the music. There was slapping and even punching.” Stravinsky escaped backstage, where Nijinsky was screaming counts wildly from the wings. Conductor Pierre Monteux continued the performance as if nothing were happening. Years later, Stravinsky wrote about Sacre, “A method is replaced; a tradition is carried forward to produce something new.”

Critical response at the time ranged from “epileptic fits, absurd dancing,” to “oddly impressive.” One paper defended the artists’ right to experiment. Looking back, historian Lynn Garafola wrote that in Sacre, Nijinsky showed “that ballet could generate styles of expression as powerfully imagined, deeply personal, and vitally contemporary as those of the other arts.” For the rest of its existence, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes continued to generate forward-thinking ballets, circling back to its roots in 1928 with George Balanchine’s newly classical Apollo.
Nijinsky’s choreography for Le Sacre du printemps was reconstructed by Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer in the 1980s for the Joffrey Ballet. Since 1913, choreographers across the spectrum of dance have created more than 60 interpretations of Stravinsky’s score, serving as a potent symbol of Diaghilev’s legacy.

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Notes:

Dancing for Diaghilev: The memoirs of Lydia Sokolova, ed. Richard Buckle. John
Murray Publishers, 1960. p. 42

Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes, Lynn Garafola. Oxford University Press, 1989. pgs. 68-75
International Dictionary of Ballet, Le Sacre du Printemps, Jody Leader. St. James Press, 1993. pgs 1231-1233

Nijinsky, Richard Buckle. Simon and Schuster, 1971. p. 300

Nijinsky: God of the Dance, Derek Parker. Equation, 1988. pgs 143-147

wikipedia

Your Daily Dance Break: Paul DeStrooper interprets Firebird

Paul Destrooper, who is quoted in our post about the creation of OBT's Firebird and was Prince Ivan in the premiere of OBT's version, retired from OBT at the end of the 2006-07 season to become artistic director of Ballet Victoria in Canada. He has choreographed his own Firebird. See what he's been up to in this excerpt:

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"It's Exhilarating to be Someone's Creative Instrument" : The Creation of OBT's Firebird

From the very beginning of his time with OBT, Artistic Director Christopher Stowell intended that the company would develop a repertoire of works “to scores written specifically for ballet. For the initial effort in that direction,” he says, “I asked Yuri Possokhov to choreograph Stravinsky’s Firebird in 2004. He felt a bit confined at first. He had never thought of attempting it, and didn’t even like the music much at that point.”

“Yes,” Yuri elaborates, “I want to say I never liked the music before. Now I love it. When you listen to music and say immediately you don’t like it, it doesn’t mean anything. When you know it well, you have the right to say you love it or hate it.” As Yuri’s Firebird developed, he enjoyed having the foundation of the narrative for his choreography.

Says Christopher, “External restrictions can provide helpful parameters.”

During the 2003-04 season, Yuri was still a principal dancer with San Francisco Ballet. He had to choreograph Firebird in December of 2003, when he wasn’t performing. Rather than being able to choose his own schedule, he had to work with the dancers he could get on any given day, structured around OBT’s Nutcracker performances. Like many ballet situations, they had to work when they had small windows of opportunity. (As the great choreographer George Balanchine said, “…inspiration, it’s not anything that’s all of a sudden, like a stomach ache. There’s no such thing as inspiration. You have to work.”)

Yuri didn’t have the luxury of being able to show up unprepared; he created the entire Firebird in three weeks. He had gone over and over the music before coming to the studio.

Historian Lynn Garafola has observed that, “Between choreographer and dancers exists a special kind of intimacy. Each gives to the other; each reveals the other; each needs the other to complete himself as an artist.” That special intimacy developed as Firebird evolved.

Susan Gladstone, who was ballet master at the time, described “Yuri’s larger-than-life personality and infectious enthusiasm. He certainly cultivated an environment in which the dancers wanted to push beyond their limits. In turn, inspired by OBT’s dancers, Yuri came up with seemingly impossible steps that, after a few days’ work, became not only possible, but beautiful.”

Paul DeStrooper, who was Ivan in one of the 2004 casts, said “Yuri demands a lot—he’s a dancer and he knows what’s possible. He would say, ‘I want you to do something like this,’ then demonstrate loosely and let you work it out. He gave you time to get it in a comfort zone that’s in the aesthetic he wanted. He’s attuned to the musicality, so you can go with the melody and phrasing of the piece, not only the counts.”

Said Alison Roper, who danced the Firebird in one cast in 2004, “It’s exhilarating to be someone’s creative instrument. Some of Yuri’s movement is narrative of what’s happening in the story, without being mime. In the pas de deux between the Firebird and Ivan, there are ‘toss-lifts,’ like she’s trying to fly away. Yuri would give us something like that and say, ‘Just do, enjoy yourself. Oh, I love that.’”

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It's a bird, it's a plane...

No, it's Stravinsky superheroes!



Yesterday we had a rehearsal in costume for The Stravinsky Project. Much work still needs to be done in all areas, but it is definitely starting to come together.

We had the pianists in the studio for Rite of Spring yesterday which was a lot of fun. I've have worked with both Susan and Carol (aka The Good Doctor, who has incidentally written a book titled "Untethered" available on the Amazon Kindle store) many times in the past and always enjoy their skill and artistry. It's mind-boggling to me that any individual(s) can make such intentionally chaotic sounds come out of any instrument. If you haven't heard the double-piano score I highly recommend you listen to it; It somehow feels even more complex than the orchestral version.

That's all the news from me today. I've got to go be a tall couple in Rite.

- Steven

*Photo Credit: Thyra Hartshorn.

Location:SE Morrison St,Portland,United States

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LOOKING BACK AT THE FIRST FIREBIRD

by OBT Historian Linda Besant

The original Firebird premiered in 1910 for Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in Paris. For nearly twenty years, from 1909 to 1929, Diaghilev’s company of primarily Russian-trained dancers performed radical new ballets that gave equal expression to all the arts involved.

Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes were among the greatest fruits of an extraordinary era. Historian Nina Lederman described “a great diaspora of intellectuals” to Paris in the early 1900s. A “generous portion of the world’s great artists” swirled through, and Diaghilev showered them with opportunities to collaborate in creating exciting dance, productions called ballets that actually had more in common with what we now term “modern dance.”



(For example, the original Firebird princesses danced in bare feet and Ivan walked naturally, not like a danseur noble; the Firebird herself did not use turnout, and Kachei’s monsters cavorted with grotesque jumps and squats.)

Firebird was among the first creations of the Ballets Russes. Michel Fokine was Diaghilev’s chosen choreographer during this period, but Stravinsky was Diaghilev’s second choice to compose Firebird. (First choice Liadov did not deliver in time.) Stravinsky was paid 100 rubles for the score, about the price of a Diet Coke in St. Petersburg these days.

Stravinsky and Fokine worked closely together on the ballet, weaving together elements from several Russian folk tales into a story with old symbols but a new outcome—total liberation from evil. Fokine described their process, improvising and refining toward the finished score and choreography:

“Stravinsky visited me with his first sketches and basic ideas, he played them for me, I demonstrated the scenes to him . . . When Ivan appears at the garden wall . . .
Stravinsky played, and I interpreted the role . . . substituting the piano for the wall.
I climbed over it, jumped down from it, and crawled, fear-struck, looking around my living room . . . Stravinsky, watching, accompanied me with patches of the melodies . . .
playing mysterious tremolos as background.”

For his part, in the autobiography Chronicles of My Life, Stravinsky wrote how his musical ideas “worked themselves loose” by improvisation at the piano. He likened improvising composers to a restless animals—“they feel the desire to seek for something.”

Of his choreography for Firebird, Fokine wrote,

“I completely excluded the stereotyped hand pantomime and ballet gesticulations for the development of the plot on the stage and expressed the story with actions and dance.”

Monsters crawled and rolled rather than advancing in symmetrical lines; the Firebird twisted and fluttered to escape from Ivan. (Fokine said her “arms would now open up like wings, now hug the torso and head, in complete contradiction of all ballet arm positions.")

Firebird was told non-stop—not once did the story pause for displays of virtuoso dancing.

Tamara Karsavina danced the first Firebird. Anna Pavlova was slated for the role, but found the music incomprehensible and refused to dance it. The great Vaslav Nijinsky wanted to premiere the Firebird role en pointe, but Diaghilev did not permit it. Fokine himself was the first Ivan.

Critic John Martin wrote that the original Firebird “ . . . was a magical work in its day, unlike anything we had ever seen.”

The Ballets Russes premiered Firebird, Petrouchka and The Rite of Spring in almost yearly succession between 1910 and 1913, all composed by Stravinsky. As Lederman wrote,

“They established the one-act ballet as an important new form in music theater. Stravinsky… is the age … a force of utmost immediacy that has pierced our ears, extended their range, re-formed our appetites.”

Oregon Ballet Theatre is pleased to have generated its own Firebird and The Rite of Spring with acclaimed choreographers Yuri Possokhov and Christopher Stowell. With the commission of Nicolo Fonte to create a new Petrouchka for OBT’s 2011-12 season, the company will complete an historic trilogy.

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Notes:

Stravinsky in the Theatre, Ed. Nina Lederman. Pellegrini and Cudahy, 1949.
Lecture: Stravinsky’s Firebird, Joni Steshko. Portland State University, 2003.
Fokine: memoirs of a ballet master, Michel Fokine. Trans. Vitale Fokine. 1969
Stravinsky, Frank Onnen. Continental Books Company, Stockholm, 1958.
Dance Classics: A Viewers Guide to the Best-Loved Ballets and Modern Dances, Nancy
Reynolds and Susan Reimer-Torn, a capella books, 1991.
Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, Boris Kochno. Harper and Row, 1970.

Your Daily Dance Break: A Vintage Firebird

In honor of our upcoming production of Firebird, check out this video of the Royal Ballet's Margot Fonteyn and Michael Somes, who was said to have been unsurpassed by any living dancer. This is an excerpt of the end of the ballet. It is based on Fokine's original choreography from 1910.



Our historian, Linda Besant, remarks that you can see from this video "how formal and
patterned Fokine's choreography was, though it was revolutionary at
the time." You can see "how Yuri Possokhov remained faithful to the
Essence in the Firebird he made for OBT, but has so much more choreographic
range and freedom in this day and age."

Got your tickets yet? Opening night is nearly sold out, but there are great seats available for the other performances here.

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Surprise!

Nap time in studio 1.

Just kidding, it's Firebird rehearsal.

I bet you all weren't expecting to hear from me again... But lo and behold, here I am.

Much has been going on here at 818 SE 6th. We're deep into rehearsals for our Stravinsky rep, and speaking for myself, it's such a nice change from all the classical ballet we did in the first half of the season.

Two highlights for me this rep are getting to revisit one of my favorite roles, Katschei, and being a part of The Stravinsky Project.

I first learned Firebird as a student in the school when Yuri created it, so coming back to this ballet a 3rd time definitely has a homey feel to it. Although, look for some big changes, most notably the replacement of children spiders with adult male dancers. The inferno is even more action packed this time around.

I feel very fortunate to have been involved with the creation on The Stravinsky Project from the beginning of the choreographic process last June in Caldera. It's been great to see collaboration take shape among the diverse group of choreographers. The piece started out with having each choreographer (or group of choreographers in the case of BodyVox's Jamie and Ashley) create their own section with some space at the beginning and end for blending. But now I have seen people add blending into the mix of their existing sections as choreographic changes, or even adding entire sections of dance that they would have otherwise never made.

Yesterday was our first time with all the choreographers and musicians in the room and one of the choreographers made a suggestion about someone else's section and I was really taken aback because that always seems like a boundary not to be crossed in the normal creation process, so even as a dancer this has been a growing experience in watching artists interact with each other in a new way. Very cool.

On a final note, I know my biggest hurdle to overcome in blogging is deciding what to write about, so if you have ANY questions please send them in. Who knows, it may inspire a great blog.

See you in the theater,
Steven

PS - Be sure to come to Dance Talks this Sunday at PNCA, most of the artists involved in The Stravinsky Project will be there and I'm sure it will be very interesting. More info is on the website here.

Location:SE Morrison St,Portland,United States

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