The great Russian choreographer Leonide Massine was the most important figure in modernist ballet in the 1930s, known for works such as Gaite Parisienne and The Three-Cornered Hat. His versatility and scope made his choreography the most representative of the century. Whatever period he portrayed, his style flowed freely and unselfconsciously. His character ballets dealt not with stereotypes but individuals, and his symphonic ballets proved how great music could be employed without demeaning it. Like his mentor Diaghilev, he strove to bring music, painting, and poetry to his ballets. Massine was responsible for the first resolutely abstract ballet and the first true fusions of ballet and modern dance. This work provides a biography of Massine and a detailed analysis of his major ballets, including those for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and American Ballet Theatre. The work integrates biographical study with an examination of Massine's works from an array of perspectives. By examining the music and composers, set design, and literary sources, it places the work in the larger context of the dance, opera, major visual art movements, literature and theater of the period. Analyses of ballets include synopses, scenery and costumes, music, choreography, critical survey and summary. The work concludes with an epilogue summarizing Massine's impact on the development of ballet in the twentieth century, and includes both informal and performance photographs.

"For twenty-five years after his Paris debut in 1914, Leonide Massine (1895-1979) was indisputably the premier male dancer and chief choreographer of Europe. Now, just as revivals of his ballets are reconfirming his status, historian Vicente Garcia-Marquez gives us a well-rounded, definitive biography that places Massine firmly in the mainstream of twentieth-century cultural history." "Onstage, he was widely praised for indelible performances in roles he created for himself (Joseph in The Legend of Joseph, the Miller in Le Tricorne, and the Chinese Conjuror in Parade are only a few) and as the choreographer of other perennial repertory favorites (such as Le Beau Danube, Gaite parisienne, Scuola di ballo). In the 1930s his choreography took an innovative and controversial turn with the creation of Les Presages, Choreartium (both recently revived in France and America), and Symphonie fantastique - ballets whose grandiose combination of symphonic music, metaphysical scenarios, and spectacularly complex movement patterns and configurations polarized the critics and the public." "Massine's collaborations with the major creative spirits of our time - including Diaghilev, Stravinsky, Falla, Cocteau, Picasso, Matisse, Miro, and Dali - were integral to his life and art, and each of these giants has a role in this book. So too does Michael Powell, the British filmmaker who, fortunately for us, recorded some of Massine's most brilliant characterizations, in The Red Shoes and The Tales of Hoffmann."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The approximately 300 designs the largest single collection commissioned between 1938 and 1944, the early period when the company possessed many brilliant dancers and the artistic stewardship of two indelible names of twentieth-century ballet.

The dance, art, music, and cultural worlds of the Ballets Russes--a dance company which helped define the avant-garde in the early part of this century--are surveyed in this book, which begins with Serge Diaghilev's influence. 200+ illustrations.

The Ballets Russes has engaged people for 100 years, ever since Russian-born Sergei Diaghilev created this dynamic avant-garde company. Diaghilev brought together some of the most important visual artists of the 20th century - Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Andr Derain, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Georges Braque, Giorgio de Chirico, Natalia Gonchorova and Mikhail Larionov and more - who worked as costume and stage designers with composers such as Igor Stravinky, choreographers such as Michel Fokine, and dancers such as Vaslav Nijinsky, infusing new life and creative energy into the performing arts of the time. Premiering in Paris, the Ballets Russes, for the brief period of its existence (1909 - 29), created exotic, extravagant, and charming theatrical spectacle but also critical discussion and technical innovation, as well as exuding glamour - and often creating scandal - wherever it appeared. The costumes featured in this book are drawn entirely from the National Gallery of Australia's world-renowned collection of Ballets Russes costumes and ephemera. Through the costumes, drawings, programs and posters, the visual spectacle of the Ballets Russes is brought back into view for a contemporary audience to appreciate the revolution it was and the ongoing influence it continues to have today. This book is a must for anyone interested in the performing arts, the intersection of art and design, and costume and fashion.