Leon Bakst

Scheherazade

Leon Bakst

One of the magnets that attracted me to ballet was the work of the artists whom Sergei Diaghilev commissioned to design sets and costumes for his productions. The artist who has impressed me most is Leon Bakst. He was born in Russia in 1866 and died in France in 1924. He created the designs for some of the most lavish productions of the Ballet Russes including Michel Fokine's Scheherazade which appears above.

We are fortunate in this country to enjoy convenient access to much of Bakst's work through the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum. If you are new to this artist a good place to start would be the Leon Bakst page on the V & A's website. This leads on to a short biography which explains his importance in the history of art generally and theatre design in particular. There is an excellent page on Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes which "revolutionized early 20th-century arts and continue to influence cultural activity today." The nature of that revolution and its continued influence is explained with some gorgeous photographs in The 20th Century Ballet Revolution.  The V & A has an extensive collection of set and costume designs, photographs, scores and other materials in its Theatre and Performance section and there is a splendid Ballet web page with links to all sorts of other articles on the subject.

To understand how all this influences the ballets that we see today it is good to read the chapter on Serge Diaghilev and The Ballets Russes on the Royal Ballet School's website which I introduced in A New Interactive Resource: Royal Ballet School's Ballet History Timeline on Saturday. Diaghilev aroused a curiosity and appetite for dance throughout Western Europe including the United Kingdom and Bakst's work contributed much to that appeal.

Though her resources were limited particularly in the early years Ninette de Valois commissioned set and theatre designs from the best available artists when she set up her own company. Sir Frederick continued that that tradition continued with Osbert Lancaster's magnificent sets for La Fille mal gardée (see Danielle Buckley's How La Fille mal gardée creates pastoral magic through 'Marmite' cartoons 7 Oct 2016 on the Royal Opera House's website) and Nicholas Georgiadis's for Romeo and Juliet. I could be wrong for I am no expert on the topic. but it seems to me that Georgiadis was strongly influenced by Bakst particularly in his use of colour.

In so far as it is possible to express in words reasons for my love of ballet one would be that ballet is a fusion of several arts - music, painting, drama as well as choreography - and that, of course, always leads me back to Bakst.

Maybe we do have a Junior Company in England after all

I have written quite a lot about the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company and why I think it is a good idea. In Ernst Meisner’s Work with the Dutch National Ballet 2 Dec 2014, Ernst Meisner, Artistic Co-ordinator of the Junior Company explains how it came into being. He gave more details on his work with the company in The Junior Company 3 Dec 2014.

I last saw the Junior Company in Ballet Bubbles on 14 Feb 2016. Before the show Ernst gave a little talk about the company and he stressed that it provides opportunities not just for outstanding young dancers but promising stage and costume designers, lighting engineers and technical staff too.   I wrote a little more about those opportunities in Opportunities Not Just for Dancers 26 May 2016.

I was reminded of Ernst speech and his earlier interviews when I checked out the website of the New English Ballet Theatre. The reason I did that is that the London Ballet Circle has been invited to attend the company's choreographic lab Taking Chances at the Rambert Studios on 15 Oct 2016. On checking through the website I noticed that Ernst is one of its choreographers as indeed is Wayne Eagling who was the Dutch National Ballet's Artistic Director before he returned to London to direct the English National Ballet.

On the About page I listened to the above video and read under "Who we are":

"We are a modern ballet company with a mission to present exciting new work to the widest possible audience. We are committed to the continual reinvention of classical ballet and giving artists the creative space to explore its boundaries. What makes us different is how we work with talented young people from a variety of disciplines. We have a company of exceptional dancers, but we also seek out choreographers, musicians, designers and visual artists. As a new company, we have the creative freedom to drive ballet forward, showcasing the strength, athleticism and agility of the next generation."

 I was even more fascinated by "Who inspires us":

"We have bold ambitions as a company, drawing inspiration from the likes of Sergei Diaghilev and George Balanchine. A pioneer in every sense, Diaghilev founded the Ballet Russes, a company which brought together the best young Russian dancers of the day, including Anna Pavlova and Vaslav Nijinsky. Determined to create groundbreaking work, Diaghilev also commissioned some of the most famous composers of the 20th century, from Stravinsky and Ravel to Strauss and Prokofiev. This spirit of collaboration also extended to artists and he worked with Picasso and Matisse among others.
We set out to emulate Diaghilev’s all-embracing approach to the creation of new work, building a company in the style of the Ballet Russes for the 21st century."

That inspires me too.  I shall be at the choreographic lab on 15 Oct 2016 and I shall follow the company with great interest.