The Rite of Spring reconstructed

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This week sees the centenary of the first performance by Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes of The Rite of Spring at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. Everyone is familiar with the details of that momentous occasion, and Stravinsky’s score is probably performed more frequently today than any of his other works. Less familiar is the nature of the ballet which caused so much outrage. A combination of the hectic schedule of the Ballets Russes and the loss of choreographer Nijinsky a few months later meant that the choreography was never properly transcribed. This caused problems for subsequent revivals, and the only reason we have an idea of the radical nature of the ballet is thanks to a decade of research by Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer, a pair of cultural archaeologists who’ve specialised in reviving ballets. Hodson and Archer scoured archives looking for details of Nicholas Roerich’s costumes, and also traced surviving members of the 1913 company in order to verify their choreographic researches.

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The performance here is a recording of the Joffrey Ballet’s staging of Hodson and Archer’s reconstruction from the late 1980s. I first saw this in 1989 and was aghast at how strange and savage the dancing is compared to classical ballet. Hodson and Archer have since amended some of the performance details but there’s more than enough in this staging to convey why the ballet was so threatening and disturbing to the audience in 1913. Even today, after decades of modern dance it looks surprisingly crude with its dancers stamping their way across the stage. I was also thrilled to see the restoration of Nicholas Roerich’s costumes and decor. In addition to giving the ballet its distinctive look, Roerich contributed the pagan dramaturgy, something that tends to be overlooked when so many big names are competing for attention. (There’s more about Roerich and his involvement with the Rite here.) I always enjoy the way Roerich provides a link between this favourite ballet and the writings of HP Lovecraft. I’ve no idea what Lovecraft would have made of The Rite of Spring but he had a lot of time for Roerich’s paintings, and refers to them in At the Mountains of Madness.

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The recording linked here is annoyingly split into three parts (and the soundtrack is hissy mono) but if you’ve any interest in the original ballet it really needs to be seen.

The Rite of Spring: part one | part two | part three

Previously on { feuilleton }
Vaslav Nijinsky by Paul Iribe
Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes
Pamela Colman Smith’s Russian Ballet
Le Sacre du Printemps
Images of Nijinsky

The art of Konstantin Somov, 1869–1939

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Naked Young Man (1937).

The work of Russian painter Konstantin Somov has a decent presence on the web, albeit separated into his public works which comprised portraits, landscapes and illustrations, and his more private, homoerotic studies of voluptuous Russian men. The former can be seen at WikiPaintings or The Atheneum where there’s a recurrent theme of rococo fantasy similar to that being explored by Rex Whistler in Britain between the wars. (Whistler’s work was recently featured at Little Augury.) It is, of course, the other side of Somov’s work that concerns us here. This gives me an opportunity to put titles and dates to some of the paintings circulating on gay art sites with no details at all.

Somov was friends with Sergei Diaghilev, and provided illustrations and designs for Diaghilev’s Mir Iskusstva arts magazine. This year is the centenary of the first performance of The Rite of Spring so expect to hear more about the great Sergei and company in the coming months.

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The Boxer (1933).

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Portrait of A Man (1933).

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A Reclining Man (1936).

Continue reading “The art of Konstantin Somov, 1869–1939”

Weekend links 55

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From the Ornamental Age series (2009) by Seher Shah.

Seher Shah has recently updated her website giving us a better view of her extraordinary art.

The Demon Regent Asmodeus, my short film of Alan Moore’s reading from the first Moon & Serpent CD, has been posted to YouTube. In other self-promotion news, Mahakala, a drawing of mine from 1984, finds an audience on Tumblr.

• Yet more Moore: Alan Moore & Iain Sinclair “explore psychogeography” at the Cheltenham Festival in June. Alan will also be discussing science and fiction with Robin Ince. Then in July he’s performing with fine fellow Stephen O’Malley at Alexandra Palace as part of Portishead’s I’ll Be Your Mirror festival. They’ll be providing text and music for Harry Smith’s Heaven and Earth Magic.

In most countries, parents can tell their kids that if they work hard and do everything right, they could grow up to be the head of state and symbol of their nation. Not us. Our head of state is decided by one factor, and one factor alone: did he pass through the womb of one aristocratic Windsor woman living in a golden palace? The US head of state grew up with a mother on food stamps. The British head of state grew up with a mother on postage stamps. Is that a contrast that fills you with pride? (…) Earlier this month, David Cameron lamented that too many people in Britain get ahead because of who their parents are. A few minutes later, without missing a beat, he praised the monarchy as the best of British. Nobody laughed.

Johann Hari kicks the royals.

• Related to the above: Lydia Leith’s royal wedding sick bag.

Beautiful Century relates a dispiriting (and very common) encounter with Google’s blog prudery. The new Beautiful Century is now at Tumblr.

• In the future, everything will be on Tumblr for fifteen minutes. Among this week’s discoveries there’s Writers and Kitties, attractive men and vintage photos at Stuff Doer, and all manner of things at Maggs Counterculture including a picture by Jim Leon I hadn’t seen before.

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From the Ornamental Age series (2009) by Seher Shah.

“Sidewalk cafés, free from conservative business attire…” Film of groovy Greenwich Village in the late 1960s. Related: groovier fashions in Art Nouveau Barcelona.

Ai Weiwei’s Blog: Writings, Interviews, and Digital Rants, 2006-2009, a book from MIT Press.

The Delian Mode, a film about electronic musician Delia Derbyshire by Kara Blake.

Austin Osman Spare, a biography of the artist and occultist by Phil Baker.

• Lando Jones is giving away three limited edition prints of his artwork.

Plano Creativo, a blog (in Spanish) by Alejandro Jodorowsky.

B Magazine is a new publication for gay Americans.

Diaghilev gets his due at Coilhouse.

Baby’s On Fire (1973) by Brian Eno | Baby’s On Fire (1976) by 801 | Baby’s On Fire (from Velvet Goldmine) (1998) by The Venus In Furs.

Weekend links 33

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Blue Sky Noise (2010) by Esao Andrews.

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt is the first exhibition in the United States devoted exclusively to the 18th-century sculptor. Related: an earlier post about the artist’s work.

• How are the team behind War Horse planning to follow up their smash hit? With a gay love story performed by puppets. Related: Achilles (1995) by Barry JC Purves.

• More great posts at A Journey Round My Skull: Czechoslovakian Expose VI and Black Cradle of Bright Life, fifteen works by the Macedonian artist Vangel Naumovski (1924–2006).

Top 10 Anti-Gay Activists Caught Being Gay. Related: “Fuck your feelings,” in which columnist Dan Savage gets righteously impatient when a correspondent complains. As Savage says, people who use their faith as a stick to beat gay people contribute to an atmosphere of intolerance in which kids are bullied for being gay (or appearing to be), or transgender, or merely different, and kill themselves as a result. Over the past couple of weeks there’s been an upsurge of US media attention to the most recent suicides; Savage inaugurated the It Gets Better project in order to help. Also related: God Loves Poetry.

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Meigh (2010) by Esao Andrews.

Antony Hegarty enthuses about Shoot Yer Load, one of the scurrilous 12″ singles released by my Savoy colleagues in the 1980s. Antony and the Johnsons have a new album out, Swanlights, on Secretly Canadian.

When the future of music was a rainbow hued parabola: book designer John Gall collects old synthesizer manuals.

Fantastic Memories (1944) by Maurice Sandoz, illustrated by Salvador Dalí.

Urban optometry: life as a London crane operator at BLDGBLOG.

• Today is 10/10/10 which means it’s Powers of Ten Day.

These New Puritans: a band like no other.

Art Nouveau: a virtual exhibition.

Diaghilev: Lord of the dance.

Flaming Telepaths (1974) by Blue Öyster Cult; Flaming Telepaths (2005) by Espers.

Diaghilev’s World of Art

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Cover by Evgeny Lanceray for Prospectus of the Magazine, 1901.

Previous posts here have concerned fin de siècle art magazines like The Savoy, Pan and Jugend; yesterday we had Sergei Diaghilev so it seems fitting to mention Diaghilev’s own magazine, Mir Iskusstva (World of Art), founded in 1899 with similar intentions to the European magazines which were highlighting developments in art beyond the academic sphere. Mir Iskusstva was also the name of the Russian art group who used the magazine as their forum, and a number of the artists involved in the movement, notably Léon Bakst, Ivan Bilibin and Nicholas Roerich, went on to work for Diaghilev at the Ballets Russes.

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Cover by Léon Bakst for Mir iskusstva #8 (1902).

I find this later development especially fascinating since it positions the magazine as a precursor to the groundbreaking works which followed rather than being—as so many periodicals were and still are—a publication which had its moment of glory then faded from view. Of the works shown here, Vrubel’s Symbolist Demon, one of several painted by the artist, was featured in a 1903 edition of the magazine, whilst the Bakst painting, depicting the destruction of Atlantis, shows a Symbolist side to an artist who later became far better known for his Ballets Russes costume designs.

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Demon (1902) by Mikhail Vrubel.

Unlike the other magazines mentioned above, I’ve yet to come across a cache of whole editions of Mir Iskusstva (and I’m still waiting for Ver Sacrum to turn up somewhere). This page has an overview of the Russian art movement and its journal, while this page has a selection of works by the artists involved. For more of Vrubel’s work, Wikimedia Commons has the best collection of the artist’s paintings and sculpture.

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Terror Antiquus (1908) by Léon Bakst.

Previously on { feuilleton }
Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes
Pamela Colman Smith’s Russian Ballet
The art of Ivan Bilibin, 1876–1942
Magic carpet ride
Le Sacre du Printemps
Images of Nijinsky