Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-wq2xx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T15:08:34.552Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Failed Impressions: Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in America, 1916

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2012

Hanna Järvinen
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In 1916 the Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev (1872–1929) took the Ballets Russes out of war-torn Europe for a tour across the North American continent. The tour was scheduled to run from January to April 1916, with short seasons in New York at the beginning and the end. As it turned out, the company returned for a second tour that ran from late September to January 1917, during which time, however, Diaghilev's former lover and principal star dancer, Vaslav Nijinsky (1889–1950), replaced him as director.

In this article I discuss the cultural differences at the heart of the Ballets Russes' failure to conquer America in 1916–1917, and why that failure had to be edited out of history. Specifically, I look at three aspects of the publicity and critical reception: elitism, patriotism, and modernism. The publicists of the company both misunderstood and underestimated their audience, but in dance research, their prejudices have been taken for granted. The “eye-witness accounts” of Diaghilev's employees and the histories of the company written in the first half of the twentieth century have largely gone unquestioned since, but contemporary primary sources of the North American tours tell a different story. By contrasting the first tour with the second, which received less publicity and better reviews, I emphasize the practical experience of touring in the New World and how differently American critics evaluated the achievements of the two Russian directors of the company—Diaghilev (for the first tour) and Nijinsky (for the second).

Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , Winter 2010 , pp. 77 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 200

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Acocella, Joan Ross. 1984. “The Reception of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes by Artists and Intellectuals in Paris and London, 1909–1914.” Ph.D. diss., Rutgers University.Google Scholar
Amberg, George. 1949. Ballet in America: The Emergence of an American Art. New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce.Google Scholar
Ambrose, Kay. 1951. The Ballet-Lover's Companion: Aesthetics without Tears for the Ballet-Lover. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Armitage, Merle. 1946. Dance Memoranda. Edited by Corle, Edwin. 2nd ed.New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce.Google Scholar
Au, Susan. 1993. Ballet and Modern Dance. London: Thames and Hudson.Google Scholar
Bernays, Edward L. 1965. Biography of an Idea. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Bougault, Valérie. 1997. Paris Montparnasse: The Heyday of Modern Art, 1910–1940. Translated by Wyllie, Murray. Paris: Editions Pierre Terrail.Google Scholar
Bourman, Anatole. 1938. The Tragedy of Nijinsky. London: Robert Hale Ltd.Google Scholar
Bowden, Sally. 1999. “The Avant-Garde Politics of Petrouchka: Retrieving the Performance Text of 1911.” In Dancing Texts: Intertextuality in Interpretation, edited by Adshead-Lansdale, Janet, 26–53. London: Dance Books.Google Scholar
Bowlt, John E. 1982. The Silver Age: Russian Art of the Early Twentieth Century and the ‘World of Art’ Group. Oriental Research Partners Studies in Russian Art History. Rev. ed. Newtonville, MA: Oriental Research Partners.Google Scholar
Braudy, Leo. 1997. The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Brewster, Ben, and Jacobs, Lea. 1997. Theatre to Cinema: Stage Pictorialism and the Early Feature Film. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Buckle, Richard. 1993. Diaghilev. Rev. ed. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.Google Scholar
Buckle, Richard. 1998. Nijinsky, Rev. ed. London: Phoenix Giant.Google Scholar
Burt, Ramsay. 1998. “Re-presentations of Re-presentations: Reconstruction, Restaging, and Originality.” Dance Theatre Journal 14 (2): 30–33.Google Scholar
Caffin, Caroline, and Caffin, Charles H.. 1912. Dancing and Dancers of Today: The Modern Revival of Dancing as an Art. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company.Google Scholar
Carbonneau, Susanne. 1999. “Adolph Bolm in America.” In The Ballets Russes and Its World, edited by Garafola, Lynn and Baer, Nancy van Norman, 219–44. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Carter, Alexandra. 1998. “The Case for Preservation.” Dance Theatre Journal 104 (2): 26–29.Google Scholar
Cohen, Barbara Naomi. 1979. “Ballet Satire in the Early Broadway Revue.” Dance Scope 13 (2–3): 44–50.Google Scholar
The Dance: Ancient and Modern. 1900. Translated by Moore, Arabella E.. Philadelphia: Press of Avil. Accessed January 13, 2008, from <http://www.archive.org/details/danceman058>.Google Scholar
deCordova, Richard. 2001. Picture Personalities: The Emergence of the Star System in America. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Diaghilev, Serge. 1979. “Around the World with the Russian Ballet.” Dance Magazine (September): 48–54.Google Scholar
Dizikes, John. 1993. Opera in America: A Cultural History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Dunham, Curtis ed. 1918. Dancing with Helen Moller: Her Own Statement of Her Philosophy and Practice and Teaching Formed upon the Classic Greek Model, and Adapted to Meet the Aesthetic and Hygienic Needs of To-Day. Introduction by “Narodny, Ivan.” New York: John Lane.Google Scholar
Flitch, J. E. Crawford. 1912. Modern Dancing and Dancers. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott,Google Scholar
Fokine, Michel. 1961. Memoirs of a Ballet Master. Translated by Fokine, Vitale, edited by Chujoy, Anatole. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company.Google Scholar
Franko, Mark. 2002. The Work of Dance: Labor, Movement and Identity in the 1903s. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Garafola, Lynn. 1988. “The Ballets Russes in America.” In The Art of Enchantment: Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, 1909–1929, edited by Baer, Nancy van Norman, 122–37. San Francisco: Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco/Universe Books.Google Scholar
Garafola, Lynn. 1992. Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Grigoriev, Serge. 1953. The Diaghilev Ballet, 1909–1929. Translated and edited by Bowen, Vera. New York: Dance Horizons.Google Scholar
Haskell, Arnold. 1955. Diaghileff: His Artistic and Private Life. London: Victor Gollancz.Google Scholar
Huesca, Roland. 2001. Triomphes et scandales: La belle époque des Ballets russes. Paris: Hermann.Google Scholar
Jackson, Barry. 1991. “Diaghilev: Lighting Designer.” Dance Chronicle 14 (1): 1–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Järvinen, Hanna. 2003. “The Myth of Genius in Movement: Historical Deconstruction of the Nijinsky Legend.” Ph.D. diss., University of Turku (Finland).Google Scholar
Järvinen, Hanna. 2008. “‘The Russian Barnum’: Russian Opinions on Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, 1909–1914.” Dance Research 26 (1): 18–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jeschke, Claudia, and Nectoux, Jean-Michel. 1990. “Afternoon of a Faun: Chronology of Performances by the Ballets Russes of Serge de Diaghilev.” In Nijinsky: Prélude à L'Après-midi d'un Faune, edited by Nectoux, Jean-Michel, 125–35. London: Thames and Hudson.Google Scholar
Jowitt, Deborah. 1989. Time and the Dancing Image. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Kachouba, Valentina. 1979. “Interview with Frederick J. Maroth.” Transcript held at the Dance Collection, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.Google Scholar
Kendall, Elizabeth. 1984. Where She Danced: The Birth of American Art-Dance. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Kinney, Troy, and Kinney, Margaret Wise. n.d. The Dance: Its Place in Art and Life. Rev. ed. New York: F. A. Stokes [first edition 1914].Google Scholar
Kirstein, Lincoln. 1987. Dance: A Short History of Classic Theatrical Dance. Princeton, NJ: Dance Horizons.Google Scholar
Kobler, John. 1988. Otto the Magnificent. New York: Scribner and Sons.Google Scholar
Krauss, Rosalind E. 1988. The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lee, Carol. 2002. Ballet in Western Culture: A History of Its Origins and Evolution. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Levine, Lawrence W. 1988. Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levy, Suzane Carbonneau. 1990. “The Russians Are Coming: Russian Dancers in the United States, 1910–1933.” Ph.D. diss., New York University.Google Scholar
Lifar, Serge. 1945. Diaghileff: His Life, His Art, His Legend. London: Putnam.Google Scholar
Macdonald, Nesta, ed. 1975. Diaghilev Observed by Critics in England and the United States, 1911–1929. New York and London: Dance Horizons and Dance Books.Google Scholar
Malnig, Julie. 1999. “Athena Meets Venus: Visions of Women in Social Dance in the Teens and Early 1920s.” Dance Research Journal 31 (2): 34–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matz, Mary Jane. 1984. The Many Lives of Otto Kahn. New York: Pendragon.Google Scholar
McConachie, Bruce A. 1988. “New York Operagoing, 1825–50: Creating an Elite Social Ritual.” American Music 6 (2): 181–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nemchinova, Vera. 1975. Interview with Joan Kramer, Carrie Nye Cavett, Benita and Dean Carey. June 20 and 21. Transcript preserved at the New York Public Library Dance Collection.Google Scholar
Nijinska, Bronislava. 1981/1992. Early Memoirs. Translated and edited by Nijinska, Irina and Rawlinson, Jean. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Nijinsky, Romola. 1980. Nijinsky and The Last Years of Nijinsky. New York: Simon and Schuster. (Facsimile reprint of two books, ©1934 and ©1952)Google Scholar
Nijinsky, Tamara. 1991. Nijinsky and Romola. London: Bachman and Turner.Google Scholar
Nijinsky, Vaslav. 1999. The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky [unexpurgated edition]. Translated by Fitzlyon, Kyril, edited by Acocella, Joan. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Google Scholar
Ostwald, Peter. 1991. Vaslav Nijinsky: A Leap into Madness. London: Robson.Google Scholar
Parker, H. T. 1982. Motion Arrested: Dance Reviews of H. T. Parker. Edited by Holmes, Olive. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Pessen, Edward. 1971. “The Egalitarian Myth and the American Social Reality: Wealth, Mobility, and Equality in the ‘Era of the Common Man.’” American Historical Review 76 (4): 989–1034.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Portes, Jacques. 1988. “Mirrors or Filters: The Evolution of Europe's Image of the United States, 1910–1930.” In High Brow Meets Low Brow: American Culture as an Intellectual Concern, edited by Kroes, Rob, 75–98. European Contributions to American Studies, vol. 13. Amsterdam: Free University Press.Google Scholar
Rath, Emil. 1914. Æsthetic Dancing. New York: A. S. Barnes.Google Scholar
Reynolds, Nancy, and McCormick, Malcolm. 2003. No Fixed Points: Dance in the Twentieth Century. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Schouvaloff, Alexander. 1997. The Art of Ballets Russes: The Serge Lifar Collection of Theater Designs, Costumes, and Paintings at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Sert, Misia. 1953. Misia and the Muses. With an appreciation by Cocteau, Jean. New York: John Day.Google Scholar
Shawn, Ted. 1920. Ruth St. Denis: Pioneer and Prophet: Being a History of Her Cycle of Oriental Dances. 2 vols. San Francisco: For John Howell by John Henry Nash.Google Scholar
Sinfield, Alan. 1994. The Wilde Century: Effeminacy, Oscar Wilde and the Queer Moment. London: Cassell.Google Scholar
Sokolova, Lydia, 1960. Dancing for Diaghilev: The Memoirs of Lydia Sokolova. Edited by Buckle, Richard. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Spencer, Charles. 1974. The World of Serge Diaghilev. With contributions by Dyer, Philip and Battersby, Martin. Chicago: Henry Regnery.Google Scholar
St.-Johnston, Reginald. 1906. A History of Dancing. London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent and Company.Google Scholar
Stravinsky, I. F. 1997. Perepiska s russkimi korrespondentami: Materialy k biografii. Vol. 1, 1882–1912; vol. 2, 1913–1922. Edited and annotated by Varunts, V. P.. Moskva: Kompozitor.Google Scholar
Stravinsky, Igor. 1975. An Autobiography. London: Calder and Boyars (French edition published in 1935).Google Scholar
Stravinsky, Vera, and Craft, Robert. 1978. Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Thomas, Helen. 1995. Dance, Modernity and Culture: Explorations in the Sociology of Dance. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Todd, Robert B. 1977. “Nijinsky in Vancouver—Sixty Years Ago.” In Vancouver Ballet Society Newsletter (January): 15–16.Google Scholar
Tolstoy, Leo. 1956. What Is Art? and Essays on Art. Translated by Maude, Aylmer. London: Oxford University Press (Russian edition published in 1898).Google Scholar
Tomko, Linda J. 1999. Dancing Class: Gender, Ethnicity, and Social Divides in American Dance, 1890–1920. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Turnbaugh, Douglas Blair. 1992. “Le rôle d'Otto Kahn dans la libération de Nijinsky, ses représentations à New York et l'organisation de sa tournée à travers les États-Unis.” In Écrits sur Nijinsky, edited by Stanciu-Reiss, Françoise and Pourvoyeur, Jean-Michel, 145–53. Paris: Chiron.Google Scholar
Van Vechten, Carl. 1917. Interpreters and Interpretations. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Whitworth, Geoffrey. 1913. The Art of Nijinsky. London: Chatto and Windus.Google Scholar