ballet

the 20th century

With time, Petipa's choreographic method settled into a formula. Mikhail Fokine called for greater expressiveness and more authenticity in choreography, scenery, and costume. He was able to realize his ideas through Ballets Russes, a new company organized by Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev.

Ballets Russes opened in Paris in 1909 and won immediate success. The male dancers, among them the Russian dancer Vaclav Nijinsky (right), were particularly admired because good male dancers had almost disappeared in Paris. The company presented a broad range of works, including Fokine's compactly knit one-act ballets with colourful themes from Russian or Asian folklore: The Firebird (1910), Schéhérazade (1910), and Petrushka (1911). Ballets Russes became synonymous with novelty and excitement, a reputation it maintained throughout its 20 years of existence.

Although the most famous members of the company were Russian (among them designers Leon Bakst and Alexandre Benois and composer Igor Stravinsky), Diaghilev commissioned many Western European artists and composers, such as Pablo Picasso and Maurice Ravel, to collaborate on the ballets. Diaghilev's choreographers, Fokine, Polish Bronislava Nijinska, Nijinsky, Russian-born Léonide Massine, Russian-born American George Balanchine, and Russian-born French dancer and choreographer Sergei Lifar, experimented with new themes and styles of movement.

The offshoots of Ballets Russes revitalized ballet all over the world. Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, who danced in its early seasons, formed her own company and toured internationally. Fokine worked with many companies, including the future American Ballet Theatre. Massine contributed to the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, a company formed after Diaghilev's death. Two former members of Ballets Russes, Polish-born British dancer Dame Marie Rambert and British dancer Dame Ninette de Valois, became the founders of British ballet. Rambert's students included British choreographers Sir Frederick Ashton, Antony Tudor, and John Cranko. De Valois founded the company that became Britain's Royal Ballet. Balanchine was invited to work in the United States by Lincoln Kirstein, a wealthy American patron of the arts. Lifar worked at the Paris Opéra and dominated French ballet for many years.

In the 1920s and 1930s, modern dance began to be developed in the United States and Germany. American dancers Martha Graham and Doris Humphrey, German dancer Mary Wigman, and others broke away from traditional ballet to create their own expressive movement styles and to choreograph dances that were more closely related to actual human life. Ballets also reflected this move toward realism. In 1932 German choreographer Kurt Jooss created The Green Table, an antiwar ballet. Antony Tudor developed the psychological ballet, which revealed the inner being of the characters. Modern dance also eventually extended the movement vocabulary of ballet, particularly in the use of the torso and in movements done lying or sitting on the floor.

Popular dance forms also enriched the ballet. In 1944 American choreographer Jerome Robbins and composer Leonard Bernstein created Fancy Free (above), a ballet based on the jazz-dance style that had developed in musical comedy. The idea of pure dance also grew in popularity. In the 1930s Massine invented the symphonic ballet, which aimed to express the musical content of symphonies by German composers Ludwig Van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms. Balanchine also began to create plotless ballets in which the primary motivation was movement to music. His ballet Jewels (1967) is considered the first evening-length ballet of this type.

Gelsey Kirkland, New York City Ballet

Two great American ballet companies were founded in New York City in the 1940s, American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet. The latter drew many of its dancers from the School of American Ballet established by Balanchine and Kirstein in 1934. Since the mid-20th century, ballet companies have been founded in many cities throughout the United States and in Canada, among them the National Ballet of Canada, in Toronto (1951); Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, in Montréal (1952); the Pennsylvania Ballet, in Philadelphia (1963); and the Houston Ballet (1963).

Beginning in 1956, Russian ballet companies such as the Bolshoi and Kirov (now the St. Petersburg Ballet) performed in the West for the first time. The intense dramatic feeling and technical virtuosity of the Russians made a great impact. Russian influence on ballet continues today, both through visits from Russian companies and the activities of defecting Soviet dancers such as Rudolf Nureyev, artistic director of the Paris Opéra Ballet from 1983 to 1989; Natalia Makarova; and Mikhail Baryshnikov, director of the American Ballet Theatre, New York City, from 1980 to 1989.

the present day

Dance in general underwent an enormous upsurge in popularity beginning in the mid-1960s. Ballet began to show the influence of a younger audience, in both themes and style. The athleticism of dancing was enjoyed in much the same way as sports, and virtuosic steps were admired for their challenge and daring. Popular music such as rock and roll and jazz was used to accompany many ballets.

Today's ballet repertoire offers great variety. New ballets and reconstructions and restagings of older ballets coexist with new works created by modern-dance choreographers for ballet companies. Choreographers experiment with both new and traditional forms and styles, and dancers constantly seek to extend their technical and dramatic range. The frequent tours of ballet companies allow audiences throughout the world to experience the full spectrum of today's ballet activity.

Main picture: Margot Fonteyn in La Péri

Contributed by Susan Au, M.A., Dance historian. Author of Ballet and Modern Dance.