Ballets Russes Exhibit @ Lincoln Center Library

From Lynn Garafola's article in the brochure for the exhibit entitled Diaghilev's Theater of Marvels which honors the 100th anniversary of the Ballets Russes and which is on display at the Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center thru September 15, 2009:

I've been to see the exhibit once and plan to drop in several times over the next couple of months. There is so much to see and the photographs, costumes, playbills and posters wonderfully evoke this great era in dance history when ballet as we know it today was coming alive.

Standing in the midst of this room I felt surrounded by the vital, living history of dance. One could almost smell the rosin box, the mixture of sweat and perfume, the musty scent of costumes being unpacked from their trunks on tour. Pavolva's toe shoes! How small her feet were!

Music from the Ballets Russes repertoire plays throughout the space and you can watch a series of films including some especially luminous dancing by Nadia Nerina (above) in FIREBIRD. That Stravinsky ballet is a featured work: an old score marked by Stravinsky himself is displayed as well as Natalia Goncharova's costume and set designs (below).

Wherever one turns, bits of dance magic leap into view: the enormous construction-costumes for PARADE have been reproduced in full size...a score of APOLLO...Diaghilev's 'excercise book' lies open...Eugene Berman's delicate watercolour designs for DANSES CONCERTANTES...Cocteau's line drawing of Bronia Nijinska...busts of Fokine (by Noguchi) and Vaslav Nijinsky (by Una Trowbridge)...original letters from the main players in the history of Ballets Russes.

Cast lists from playbills, original artwork posters and some incredibly rare photographs abound. Above: Stravinsky, Diaghilev and Leon Bakst with an unnamed woman in Switzerland 1915.

Legends of dance surround you: Felia Doubrovska (above in FIREBIRD), Karsavina, Lopokova, Bolm, Massine, Dolin. One item that drew me back for several close looks was a beautifully subdued portrait of Lifar in gray and deep blue by Louis Marcoussis. Just to see that again I will go back. A huge photo of Balanchine by Dimitriev and a double portrait sketch of Stravinsky by Boris Soloratoff are equally vivid in my mind a few days after my visit.

And then there was the uncanny moment. Two, actually. I sometimes think I have a strange power to summon people by thinking about them. A day or two before I saw the exhibit I was recalling several dancers who have left New York City Ballet in recent seasons. Sweeping down the mental list, Pascale van Kipnis and Alexander Ritter came to mind. While I was having lunch with Dmitry, Pascale strolled by with her dog.

At the Library I was all alone in the exhibition room and enjoying the solitude immensely. Then I became aware of a pale, slender young man with a backpack moving quietly amid the displays. It was Alex Ritter.

Comments

[Sibyl]

I am so envious! I would move heaven and earth to see that exhibit, but sadly, neither effort would give me enough money to buy a plane ticket. >Sigh< I love where I live, but not always. Go many, many times and be enthralled!

[lauren]

Seriously, I'm considering flying out just to see that very exhibit!