Harvard Celebrates Centennial of the Ballet Russes

“There is something about the profession of impresario, the entire tribe of them, that has fascinated me ever since I learned that such weird and exotic beings existed,” said the late Clive Barnes, one of the preeminent dance critics from the turn of the 20th century. “I think I originally imagined them looking a little like Serge Diaghilev. A grandee of café society, yet a man of classless class, who wore his cultural and intellectual distinctions as casually as a subtle aroma of cologne.”

The Sergei Diaghilev in question was a connoisseur extraordinaire and director of the famed Ballets Russes, a troupe that emerged in Europe in 1909 and proceeded to change the realm of culture and art around the entire globe forever. This year, its centennial is being celebrated everywhere from Moscow, Hamburg, Stockholm, Canberra, and Paris to the Boston area. From April 15 through 17, Harvard will host a three-day Ballets Russes Symposium comprised of an exhibition of rare documents and art at the Pusey Library, student performances in conjunction with the Office for the Arts Dance Program, and a stellar array of lecturers and panelists at the New College Theatre.

The Ballets Russes harkens back to Great War glamour and intrigue—a time that recalls Proust, Joyce, Picasso, Stravinsky and Diaghilev all meeting for one legendary, mouthwatering dinner at the Paris Majestic, in the midst of the intellectual phenomenon that was the early 20th century modernist movement. Diaghilev introduced the novel idea that dance must exist not on its own but as a climactic collaboration between first-rate painters, musicians, and composers.

The willingness of men from Picasso, Matisse, and Rouault to Ravel, Debussy and Stravinsky to collaborate with Diaghilev on his creations signaled the inauguration of a new interdisciplinary era in arts and culture, and dance in particular, that would shape all future exploits. Early Diaghilevan productions have not only remained in the repertory of many major ballet companies but have also taken their rightful places amidst the historical cannon.

“Firebird” and “The Rite of Spring” (“Le Sacre du Printemps”), two ballets with specially commissioned scores by Igor Stravinsky, are perhaps two of the most famous; the latter, with choreography by the legendary dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, caused a furor at its inception by virtue of its outrageous costumes, unusual choreography, bizarre story of pagan sacrifice, and Stravinsky’s musical innovations, all of which tested the patience of the audience to the extreme.

“My hope at the symposium is to recapture something of the excitement of the premiere, by thinking about the context in which the Rite’s first audience experienced it,” Morton B. Knafel Professor of Music Thomas Forrest Kelly notes of “The Rite of Spring.” “The cultural context of Paris in 1913, the context of the Russian Ballet, the context of the ballet within the program of the evening…It was deliberately ‘primitive’ and ethnographic, and Diaghilev hoped it would shock. The Rite was positioned for a riot.”

Perhaps most relevant to the “ingénue” America was Diaghilev’s fateful acquisition of a new, young choreographer named George Balanchine, who would later come to America and revolutionize ballet with the founding of the School of American Ballet and the New York City Ballet and a style of movement totally new neo-classical, despite its Imperial roots. This one man would transform American dance forever.

The symposium features a starry list of illustrious guest speakers, panelists, and moderators that includes Joan Acocella, staff writer for The New Yorker; Anna Kisselgoff, former chief dance critic at the New York Times; former New York City Ballet dancer Toni Bentley; and current Boston Ballet director Mikko Nissinen, as well as Harvard faculty and visiting professors of history, music, and drama from colleges around the globe.

Lecture topics range from “Fashion for Russia” to “Balanchine and Massine” and “Igor Stravinsky.” In addition, an exhibition, “Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, 1909-1929: Twenty Years that Changed the World of Art,” has been organized by the Harvard Theatre Collection at the Pusey Library, which features more than 200 original documents and art works and is free of charge and open to the public. On April 16th, the OFA Dance Program presents “Dancers’ Viewpointe 9” at the New College Theater, featuring student dancers and choreographers, as well as Associate Artistic Director and Choreographer of Ballet Nacional de Mexico Jaime Blanc’s own “Rite of Spring.”

“Harvard, as you know, has an extraordinary range of scholarly and research based resources. It is also an institution with the unique capacity to convene experts from around the world to discuss and examine a broad range of intellectual and creative interests,” OFA Director Jack Megan says.

“The Ballets Russes symposium speaks to all of these strengths. It engages important scholars, dance critics, and artists in a discussion about one of the most innovative artistic enterprises of the 20th century. It draws upon the incredibly rich resources of the Harvard Theater Collection, which help to inform that discussion; it engages some of our most wonderful student performers through the OFA Dance Program. It connects deeply to scholars in the Music Department.

“In short, it demonstrates the creative power and insight that this university can bring to bear when unique resources in various pockets of the campus reach out, connect and collaborate. I expect that there will be much more of this type of thing in years to come.”

For those curious enough to venture outside of the Yard, a weeklong Boston-wide Ballets Russes festival running from May 16 through 23 will include a concert by the Boston Pops, exhibitions at the Wadsworth Athenaeum and Boston University’s 808 Gallery, film screenings at the Museum of Fine Arts, performances at New England Conservatory, and a special program from the Boston Ballet, featuring seminal Ballets Russes works like “Afternoon of a Faun,” “Le Spectre de la Rose,” and a new “Le Sacre du Printemps” by celebrated contemporary choreographer Jorma Elo.

Of Boston Ballet’s contributing gift, Press Director Mariel Macnaughton explained, “It’s definitely a retrospective program. The spirit of the Ballets Russes was the nature of Diaghilev’s forward thinking: being inventive and creating something new. Now we are honoring that. It’s great to look at it as something that looks back and also forward.”

“The Ballets Russes provided one of the great moments when the arts came together to produce things greater than any one of them could provide alone,” Professor Kelly says. “The individual works are treasures, the historical phenomenon is fascinating, and this symposium and exhibition provide a great way to see what art is for, what it can do, and why it matters.”