The 20th-century ballet revolution

20th century ballet was born in St Petersburg, from a group of artists who were disenchanted with the arts scene in Russia. They included the painters Leon Bakst and Alexandre Benois, Serge Diaghilev, who had won fame for organising exhibitions of Russian paintings in Paris, and the choreographer Michael Fokine, who had become disaffected with the conservative, traditional ballets of Petipa.

The new ballet

By 1905 a new generation of dancers was in revolt against the conservatism of the Imperial Ballet. Their new ballet combined movement, music and design in a fusion that was to distinguish 20th century ballet. The subject matter of each ballet dictated the style of the choreography, music and design.

A dance programme was now of three or four short contrasted works rather than a full evening’s performance. Choreography became more expressive without formal mime movements and the corps de ballet became an integral part of the ballet instead of just a decorative background.

Michael Fokinev

Overnight European ideas about ballet were overturned and ballet became an important art form. The success of Vaslav Nijinsky and Adolph Bolm restored the male dancer to popularity, the dancers became household names, and the designers the rage of Paris.

In 1912 Michael Fokine’s Ballet Scheherazade, designed by Leon Bakst, inspired a fashion for harem pants, turbans and floor cushions.

Although Michel Fokine was a famous dancer and teacher with the Maryinsky ballet in St Petersburg from 1898, his real vocation was for choreography.

He rejected formal classical ballets like The Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. He felt that dancing should be a truly expressive medium and not mere gymnastics, and that the type of movement, music and design should reflect the time and place of the subject.

To the conservative Russian theatres of his day, such ideas were dangerously revolutionary. So, in 1909, Diaghilev arranged for Fokine's ballets to be seen in Paris. Overnight ballet in Europe changed for ever.

Fokine was a demanding taskmaster. His dancers became used to his sudden rages, to chairs being thrown about the studio. But as one dancer said, 'He gets the best out of everyone. Anyone who has anything to give he enhances and makes still finer'.

Serge Diaghilev gathered dancers from the Imperial Russian theatres and in May 1909 they appeared in Paris. No one had seen ballet or dancers like this before and they were a great success.

Les Sylphides was Michael Fokine’s tribute to the Romantic ballet. It used the corps de ballet in a new and expressive way. The rhythms of the Polovtsian Dances and Fokine’s uninhibited choreography, performed by Adolph Bolm, had the audience in a frenzy. It was Fokine who developed exciting new choreography for men and rekindled an interest in the male dancer.

The sensation of the first night of the Diaghilev Ballets Russes in Paris in 1909 was The Polovtsian Dances.

The wild savagery of Fokine's choreography, the pounding rhythms of the music and the chanting chorus whipped the audience into a frenzy. In Europe, the male dancer had become a figure of ridicule. No one could have imagined men dancing with such virile power and attack. Almost overnight the male dancer was restored to his place at the centre of dance.

Much of that credit must go to Bolm, whose performance as the Warrior Chief was at the centre of Fokine's highly choreographed chaos.

Dancing as if possessed, his performance evoked all the passion and proud freedom of the nomadic tribes. As one critic wrote: 'he is the Germ of destruction, the Spirit of Unrest … terrible but magnificent'.

Michel Fokine's 1910 ballet The Firebird was based on Russian fairy tales. The music was the first score commissioned by Diaghilev from the brilliant young composer Igor Stravinsky. The Firebird has magical powers. In order to escape capture by the young Prince Ivan, she gives him an enchanted feather that will summon her if he is in trouble. She later frees him from an attack by the wizard Kostchei and his monstrous followers. Ivan then marries the enchanted Princess who has been Kostchei's prisoner.

In this photograph of the Royal Ballet's production, taken in 1959, Margot Fonteyn is the Firebird. It shows the scene where she forces Kostchei's followers into a frenzied dance and then into an enchanted sleep. The ballet was one of the finest of The Royal Ballet's revivals from the Diaghilev Ballet repertory. Fonteyn was taught the role by Tamara Karsavina, who had been the original Firebird in 1910.

This image illustrates Michel Fokine's ballet Schéhérazade, designed by Leon Bakst, which created a sensation when it was first produced by the Diaghilev Ballets Russes in 1910. This was partly due to the lush decadence and bold use of colour in the design but also because of its orgy scene of the Shah's wives with the Negro slaves.

The role of the Favourite Slave was created by Vaslav Nijinsky, and the Shah’s favourite wife, Zobeide, by Ida Rubinstein. Barbier's print evokes the decadent sensuality of their performances.

In its draughtsmanship and erotic overtones, it recalls the style of the English artist  Aubrey Beardsley. Beardsley had also been a great influence on Bakst.

This shows one of Leon Bakst's superb designs for Michel Fokine's ballet Le Dieu Bleu in 1912. While the ballet itself was not a success, it was a magnificent example of Bakst design. He provided dozens of costumes, many of which were only seen for a few minutes – priests, princes, merchants, temple servants, temple dancers, girls carrying peacocks on their shoulders, whirling dervishes – all arrayed in sumptuous costumes.

A theatrical costume design is not a work of art. It is a working drawing for the costumiers, who translate the two-dimensional line and colour into fabric and texture.

This costume was made in the most vibrant purple and carmine silk, all encrusted with silver braid, sequins and pearls. All the costumes were equally richly patterned. It is a tribute to Bakst's eye that they formed a harmonious stage effect.

One of the ironies of theatre is that the costumes which survive are often from unsuccessful productions. Success means that the costumes soon deteriorate due to the heat of the lights, and the constant sweating and cleaning. The failure of Le Dieu Bleu meant that many costumes still exist to demonstrate Bakst's theatrical vision.

Diaghilev Ballet

Diaghilev split with the Imperial theatres in 1911 and formed his own company, which toured extensively in Europe.

Until 1911 all the ballets were choreographed by Michael Fokine. In 1911 Nijinsky was dismissed from the Maryinsky Theatre for a breach of discipline, which many believe Diaghilev (who was Nijinsky’s lover and mentor) deliberately engineered.

Diaghilev formed the Diaghilev Ballet from dancers trained in Russian Imperial theatres, with Nijinsky as his star. They never returned to Russia and for the next 20 years the company was an itinerant group touring throughout Europe and, occasionally, America.

The company first visited London in June 1911 when they performed Fokine’s Le Pavilion d’Armide at Covent Garden.

Aware of the need to sustain public interest, and the need for constant change, Diaghilev dispensed with Fokine and began to train Nijinsky as a choreographer.

On the first night of The Rite of Spring in Paris, there was a full-scale riot by the audience. In 1914, whilst on tour in South America, Nijinsky married fellow dancer Romola de Pulsky. In a jealous rage, Diaghilev dismissed him from the company.

Within months he had found a replacement for Nijinsky, the 16 year old student Leonide Massine, and turned him into a major choreographer and charismatic performer.

In the 1920s, Diaghilev's companions on his summer breaks to Venice included the glamorous young Serge Lifar, the last star of the Diaghilev Ballet and his last protégé.

Throughout his life Diaghilev had been afraid to cross the sea, as a fortune teller had told him that he would die by water. On the occasions that he had to cross the English Channel, his servant was ordered to pray for him throughout the crossing.

But it was beside the sea, in Venice, that Diaghilev died in 1929, with Lifar at his bedside. And his last journey was over the water, across the Lido to the cemetery of San Michele, where he is buried beside another of his great protégés, the composer Igor Stravinsky.

Design after 1918

Cut off from Russia by World War I and the 1917 Russian Revolution, Diaghilev turned to European artists and subjects. He commissioned major European painters and composers from the countries in which they performed.

Picasso designed The Three Cornered Hat and Parade, a surreal ballet. For the design of Parade, Picasso mixed popular art and Cubism. The musical score was written by Erik Satie and included the sounds of typewriters, aeroplanes and hooters.

Impressed by the financial success of the long-running British musical Chu-Chin-Chow. Diaghilev looked for a similar spectacular that might give his company financial stability. He turned back to Petipa’s The Sleeping Beauty, and mounted a production at the Alhambra Theatre in London, designed by Leon Bakst. He lost a fortune.

Ballets Russes in the 1920s

The company survived and throughout the 1920s kept the interest of its audiences with a succession of new and topical works. Nijinsky’s sister Bronislava Nijinska created Les Biches and Le Train Bleu, about the smart social set and the fashionable Riviera. After Nijinska came George Balanchine.

Diaghilev commissioned composers Igor Stravinsky and Serge Prokofiev, designers Marie Laurencin and Georges Braque, and couturiers like Coco Chanel to design costumes. Throughout the 1920s the company was still at the forefront of everything new in dance and theatre.

Diaghilev died in 1929. His company broke up but his dancers and choreographers continued to influence the world of dance. In England Marie Rambert and Ninette de Valois established companies of international importance. George Balanchine founded the first major classical dance company in America.

In the 1930s Fokine and Massine worked with the De Basil Ballet, reviving many of the works created for Diaghilev as well as creating new masterpieces.

Diaghilev’s legacy is the explosion of world dance in the 20th century.

Les Biches

Les Biches was originally produced by the Diaghilev Ballet and performed in Monte Carlo in 1924.

Marie Laurencin’s setting depicted a bright drawing room such as might be found on the Riviera, and her costumes reflected contemporary cocktail dresses and swimwear.

A ‘biche’ is literally a female deer but is also used as a term of endearment  to an innocent young girl. However a change in tone can make it mean temptress, or even prostitute.

Les Biches is an ironic commentary on 1920s society and the ambivalence of the title perfectly describes the ambiguities in the piece. To an innocent mind it seems entirely inoffensive but the more worldly eye senses a different mood.

A dance for two girls in gray could be seen as the innocent affection of two friends, or an expression of lesbian love which the girls themselves may not be aware of – quite a suggestion for 1924.

In 1964 Frederick Ashton asked the original choreographer, Bronislava Nijinska, to revive it for the Royal Ballet.

Ashton had danced with Nijinska's company in the 1920s and had always admired her work. He wrote that 'the whole ballet is new, and yet it is at the same time composed entirely of classical movements with a new expression'.

The Royal Ballet began work on Les Biches with enthusiasm, although they had considerable communication problems. Nijinska was 73 years old, very deaf and spoke almost no English.

The production was a triumph, especially for Svetlana Beriosova as the cigarette-smoking, pearl-twirling Hostess, seen in this photograph with Robert Mead and Keith Rosson as her admirers.

Vaslav Najinsky

Vaslav Nijinsky caused a sensation from his first public performance at the Maryinsky Theatre in St Petersburg in 1907.

He became part of Diaghilev’s circle and his lover. In 1909 he travelled to Paris with the Diaghilev company. On the first night he danced the Favourite Slave in Fokine’s ballet Le Pavillon d’Armide. He was so excited by the audience’s enthusiasm that at the end of his solo he jumped off stage and was still travelling upwards as he reached the wings. The audience went mad.

He became the darling of French society – and the slave’s black choker became the height of fashion. He was feted like a rock star and his dresser used to sell petals from his costume in Le Spectre de la Rose to his fans.

In 1911 Nijinsky was dismissed from the Russian Imperial theatres, allegedly for a breach of discipline. Many believe that Diaghilev engineered the incident so that Nijinsky would be free to be the star of his permanent company.

Nijinsky succeeded Fokine as Diaghilev’s choreographer. His work was controversial.

In The Rite of Spring his dancers stood with feet turned in rather than the usual turnout position and moved in asymmetric groups.

In L’apres Midi d’un Faun the dancers moved as though on a Greek frieze, in profile to the audience. Nothing like it had been seen before.

In 1913 Nijinsky fell in love with Romola de Pulsky, and married her. Diaghilev in a jealous rage sacked him. Nijinsky tried to start a company in London but after only a week he became ill, unable to cope with the stresses of performance and running a company. Tragically, by 1919 he was so mentally disturbed that he never danced again. He died in England in 1950.

After World War II it was falsely reported that Nijinsky had been killed by the Nazis.

Nijinsky became a 20th-century legend. His wife’s biography was a bestseller. Hollywood filmed his life, ballets have been choreographed about him and a racehorse was named after him.

Anna Pavlova

Anna Pavlova was one of the most famous ballerinas of all time. Dance was her vocation and no other dancer in the days before air travel toured so widely – Australia, the Far East, the United States, South America and India. She danced for audiences who had never heard of ballet and inspired a generation of children to take up dancing, including Alicia Markova, and the choreographer, Frederick Ashton who first saw her in Peru.

Born in St Petersburg, Pavlova was inspired to dance after seeing a production of the ballet The Sleeping Beauty.

She trained at the Imperial Theatre School but by 1906 she was associated with the revolutionary ideas of Michael Fokine, who choreographed the famous Dying Swan for her.

In 1909 Pavlova danced with Diaghilev’s group in Paris, featuring on the poster advertising the season, but she could never be happy in a company where the ballerina was not supreme.

Her first appearance in London was a year later and in 1912 she appeared in the first Royal Variety Performance.

Pavlova was very competitive and during a curtain call slapped the face of her partner, Michael Mordkin, because she thought he was getting more applause.

The feud between Pavlova and Mordkin was much reported in the press.

Anna Pavlova and Mikhail Mordkin were a sensation when they appeared together at the Palace Theatre, one of London's leading music halls, in 1910.

They first appeared in a classical pas de deux, performed with such style and beauty that they took ten curtain calls, an extraordinary number for a music hall. Nothing prepared the audience for what came next.

Gone were Pavlova's tutu and Mordkin's ballet costume, gone her pointe shoes. In Greek tunics and sandals, they flung themselves onto the stage in the 'Autumn Bacchanal', one of the most tempestuous and passionate dances ever staged.

By 1913 she had formed her own company, of which she could be the undisputed star. If Diaghilev made ballet a serious art, she made it a world-wide popular entertainment.

Pavlova was interested in local and national dances, and created works based on Japanese and Indian dance, in which she appeared with the young Uday Shankar.

Pavlova, more than any other dancer, symbolised the ballerina for the 20th century - the dark expressive eyes, the pale oval face surrounded by severely dressed dark hair, the elegant, almost emaciated figure and the almost religious dedication to dance.

The popular image of Anna Pavlova is in her most famous solo, The Swan. In fact, Pavlova had an extraordinary range. She danced Giselle. She performed roles calling for elegance and charm, like the flirtatious Kitri in Don Quixote or the beautiful woman in Christmas.

There were solos that captured the essence of creatures like the Dragonfly or flowers like Californian Poppy. There were ballets inspired by countries she visited, like Japan and India, and their dance styles.

The Autumn Bacchanal showed another side. This was a dance that transmitted the Dionysian spirit of ancient Greece.

She became possessed, intoxicated, not just, as the dance indicated, by wine, but by the very movement itself. Her frenzy transmitted itself to the audience and those watching would shout to her as though they too were dancing the ancient orgiastic rite. Such qualities cannot be learned. As her teacher, Cecchetti, remarked, 'I can teach everything connected with dancing, but Pavlova has that which can only be taught by God'.

Worn out by touring and the stress of performing she died of pneumonia in 1931, aged just 51. According to legend, her last words were to her dresser telling her to get her Dying Swan costume ready.

Anna Pavlova believed that it was her mission to take ballet to the world. She appeared in countries which had hardly heard of ballet and whose dance traditions were very different. She toured small towns as well as the major cities. She captivated audiences everywhere with her artistry and her passionate commitment and inspired a whole generation of girls to take up ballet.

Pavlova was meticulous about her appearance on stage but equally concerned with her off-stage image.

She was a supremely elegant woman, who looked as smart in the pre-1914 fashions as in those of the 1920s. She was always perfectly groomed and obviously took as much care with her image as any of today's supermodels.

Innumerable publicity photographs of her survive, taken in front of well-known buildings and landmarks around the world. She could even maintain her famous poise and elegant chic on a camel.

Anna Pavlova bought Ivy House in Golders Green, north London in 1912. In 1913 she resigned from the Russian Imperial Ballet and Ivy House became her permanent home.

In the huge garden was a large pond with swans, which she studied to bring realism to her most famous role The Dying Swan.

From Ivy House, ballets were conceived and rehearsed and sets and costumes were made and stored. Frequent articles and features appeared in papers and magazines, showing pictures of her entertaining friends and 'relaxing' for the cameras. The below photograph shows her with her teacher, Enrico Cecchetti, one of the greatest ballet teachers of all time.