Its really rather nice as every time I step out into the galleries I meet a friend. The dance-going public is certainly supporting this exhibition. Happily however its not just friends and each day there are groups with notebooks jotting information down, groups with sketchpads drawing costumes, and others just engrossed in what they are seeing.
Snap. This image, allegedly Craig’s favourite drawing of Isadora Duncan dancing to music by Beethoven, can be seen in both the Diaghilev and the Craig exhibitions. The first is the original watercolour while in the Craig exhibition it is the photo lithograph from the 1905 published portfolio of Duncan dancing.
There have been a number of events around the exhibition and it is fun getting direct reaction from our visitors. So many still ask what happened to the TheatreMuseum in Covent Garden and we explain it has moved back into the V&A ; this Diaghilev exhibition includes material from the TheatreMuseum’s Collections. It also provides the excuse to make visitors aware that upstairs, essentially above the exhibition, there is the permanent space for the display of the Theatre & Performance Collections. Even better at present there is a small Gordon Craig exhibition in T&P’s temporary exhibition space: Space & Light: EDward Gordon Craig. Craig was, of course a contemporary of Diaghilev and one of the few artists-designers Diaghilev failed to charm into working for the Ballets Russes.
Amongst the publicity for the exhibition is a short film of my co-curator Geoff Marsh talking about the exhibition.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/constantin-bjerke/diaghilev-and-the-golden_b_744251.html