VaslavNijinsky was a ballet dancer and choreographer cited as the greatest male dancer of the early 20th century. Born in Kiev to Polish parents, Nijinsky grew up in Imperial Russia but considered himself to be Polish. He was celebrated for his virtuosity and for the depth and intensity of his characterizations. He could dance en pointe, a rare skill among male dancers at the time, and was admired for his seemingly gravity-defying leaps.
René Blum was a French theatrical impresario. He was the founder of the Ballet de l'Opéra at Monte Carlo and was the younger brother of the Socialist Prime Minister of France, Léon Blum. A Jew, he was interned in various camps from 1941 until he was murdered by the Nazis at the Auschwitz concentration camp in late September 1942. While at the camps, he was known for keeping up the spirits of his fellow prisoners with tales of his life in the arts.
Bronislava Nijinska was a Polish ballet dancer, and an innovative choreographer. She came of age in a family of traveling, professional dancers.
Neoclassical ballet is the style of 20th-century classical ballet exemplified by the works of George Balanchine. The term "neoclassical ballet" appears in the 1920s with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, in response to the excesses of romanticism and post-romantic modernism. It draws on the advanced technique of 19th-century Russian Imperial dance, but strips it of its detailed narrative and heavy theatrical setting while retaining many key techniques, such as pointe technique.
The ballet, The Afternoon of a Faun, was choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky for the Ballets Russes, and was first performed in the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on 29 May 1912. Nijinsky danced the main part himself. The music is Claude Debussy's symphonic poem Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune. Both the music and the ballet were inspired by the poem L'Après-midi d'un faune by Stéphane Mallarmé. The costumes and sets were designed by the painter Léon Bakst.
Ida Lvovna Rubinstein was a Russian dancer, actress, art patron and Belle Époque figure. She performed with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes from 1909 to 1911 and then quit to form her own company. Boléro by Ravel (1928) was among her commissions.
Serge Lifar was a French ballet dancer and choreographer of Ukrainian origin, famous as one of the greatest male ballet dancers of the 20th century. Not only a dancer, Lifar was also a choreographer, director, writer, theoretician about dance, and collector.
Les Noces is a ballet and orchestral concert work composed by Igor Stravinsky for percussion, pianists, chorus, and vocal soloists. The composer gave it the descriptive title "Choreographed Scenes with Music and Voices" and dedicated it to impresario Sergei Diaghilev. Though initially intended to serve as a ballet score, it is often performed without dance.
The Ballets Russes was an itinerant ballet company based in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Revolution disrupted society. After its initial Paris season, the company had no formal ties there.
Les biches is a one-act ballet to music by Francis Poulenc, choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska and premiered by the Ballets Russes on 6 January 1924 at the Salle Garnier in Monte Carlo. Nijinska danced the central role of the Hostess. The ballet has no story, and depicts the random interactions of a group of mainly young people in a house party on a summer afternoon.
Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel was a French fashion designer and businesswoman. The founder and namesake of the Chanel brand, she was credited in the post-World War I era with popularizing a sporty, casual chic as the feminine standard of style, replacing the "corseted silhouette" that was dominant beforehand. She is the only fashion designer listed on Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. A prolific fashion creator, Chanel extended her influence beyond couture clothing, realizing her aesthetic design in jewellery, handbags, and fragrance. Her signature scent, Chanel No. 5, has become an iconic product, and Chanel herself designed her famed interlocked-CC monogram, which has been in use since the 1920s.
The Calais-Mediterranée Express was a French luxury night express train which operated from 1886 to 2003. It gained international fame as the preferred train of wealthy and famous passengers between Calais and the French Riviera in the two decades before World War II. It was colloquially referred to as Le Train Bleu in French and the Blue Train in English because of its dark blue sleeping cars.
The Original Ballet Russe was a ballet company established in 1931 by René Blum and Colonel Wassily de Basil as a successor to the Ballets Russes, founded in 1909 by Sergei Diaghilev. The company assumed the new name Original Ballet Russe after a split between de Basil and Blum. De Basil led the renamed company, while Blum and others founded a new company under the name Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo. It was a large scale professional ballet company which toured extensively in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, the United States, and Central and South America. It closed down operations in 1947.
Nicolas Le Riche is a French ballet dancer, choreographer and ballet director.
Pablo Picasso and the Ballets Russes collaborated on several productions. Pablo Picasso's Cubist sets and costumes were used by Sergei Diaghilev in the Ballets Russes's Parade, Le Tricorne, Pulcinella, and Cuadro Flamenco. Picasso also drew a sketch with pen on paper of La Boutique fantasque, and designed the drop curtain for Le Train Bleu, based on his painting Two Women Running on the Beach, 1922.
Lynn Theresa Garafola is an American dance historian, linguist, critic, curator, lecturer, and educator. A prominent researcher and writer with broad interests in the field of dance history, she is acknowledged as the leading expert on the Ballets Russes de Serge Diaghilev (1909–1929), the most influential company in twentieth-century theatrical dance.
Irina Nijinska was a Russian-Polish ballet dancer who performed with the company of Ida Rubinstein; in the Théatre de la Danse Nijinska; the Ballets Russes of Col. de Basil; the Polish Ballet, and other troupes. She spent much of her later life promoting the work of her mother, Bronislava Nijinska, the dancer and choreographer.
Le Dieu bleu is a ballet in one act choreographed by Michel Fokine to music by Reynaldo Hahn, set to a libretto by Jean Cocteau and Federico de Madrazo y Ochoa. Léon Bakst designed the sets and costumes.
Leon Woizikovsky originally Léon Wójcikowski was a Polish dancer and ballet master, and later choreographer and teacher. He first came to prominence as a member of the Ballets Russes. Later he worked with various ballet companies, e.g., Pavlova, de Basil, de Valois, Ballet Polonaise, Massine, the London Festival, the Royal Flemish.
