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While valuing freedom of movement as the sine qua non for making dance expressive, his overriding goal, Michel Fokine nonetheless maintained that a dance could be beautiful only if it followed “the rigid laws that govern the creation of one of Shakespeare's sonnets.” As far as Fokine was concerned, setting dances was “all pure brain work, extracting and using the magical harmonies and rhythms that lie hidden in nature.” The “natural law” of choreography that Fokine postulated had as its main precepts principles governing rhythm and plasticity. This paper discusses Fokine's dance aesthetic, its validity, and the degree to which his aesthetic was actually realized in his work. A context for this discussion is provided in the form of a recapitulation of the principal facts of Fokine's career arid of related aspects of the careers of his forerunners. The materials with specific reference to Fokine available for study include current versions of a few of his ballets, films of a somewhat larger number, critical responses to his work, recollections of people who came into contact with him or his work, and his own statements and writings.
I am grateful to Selma Jeanne Cohen, Gemze de Lappe, and Orest Sergievsky, who were all kind enough to share their recollections of Fokine and his work with me.
1. New York Times Magazine, Nov. 16, 1919.
2. For one philosopher's treatment of expressiveness as the defining characteristic of art, see Langer, Susanne, Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art Developed from “Philosophy in a New Key” (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1953), p. 40Google Scholar.
3. There is no set distinction in English between the terms “folktale” and “fairytale,” although the latter may be said to be the more comprehensive since it can refer both to authentic folktales and to stories lacking any actual folk provenance. The two terms will be used interchangeably here.
4. Bettelheim, Bruno, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977), p. 155Google Scholar. See also Krasovskaya, Vera, Stati o Balete (Leningrad: Iskusstvo, 1967), pp. 167–168Google Scholar, where the author credits Fokine with developing mime that “shows” (pokazyvaet) rather than “tells” (rasskazyvaet).
5. Bettelheim, p. 155.
6. Fowler, Alastair, Kinds of Literature: An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and Modes (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982), pp. 226–228Google Scholar, 166.
7. Chujoy, Anatole, Fokine: Memoirs of a Ballet Master (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1961)Google Scholar, Ch. III. Krasovskaya reports that the Maryinsky Annuals give 1904 as the year in which Fokine began teaching. Krasovskaya, Vera, Russian Ballet Theater of the Beginning of the Twentieth Century [in Russian] (Leningrad: Leningrad Government Institute of Theater, Music and Cinema, 1971), vol. 1, p. 164Google Scholar.
8. Chujoy, p. 89; Krasovskaya, , Russian Ballet Theater…, p. 166Google Scholar.
9. Karsavina, Tamara, Theatre Street: The Reminiscences of Tamara Karsavina (New York: E.P. Dutton & Company, Inc., 1931), p. 211Google Scholar.
10. Benois, Alexander, Reminiscences of the Russian Ballet (New York: Da Capo Press, 1977 [orig. pub. 1941]), pp. 225, 244Google Scholar.
11. Karsavina, , Theatre Street, p. 243Google Scholar.
12. Ibid., p. 260. See also Benois, Alexander, “The Decor and Costume,” in Footnotes to the Ballet: A Book for Balletomanes ed. by Brahms, Caryl (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1936), p. 209Google Scholar.
13. Benois, , Reminiscences, p. 265Google Scholar.
14. Krasovskaya, p. 72; Lieven, Peter, The Birth of Ballets-Russes (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1973 [orig. pub. 1936], p. 309Google Scholar; Benois, , Reminiscences, pp. 225, 253Google Scholar; Benois, , “Decor and Costume,” p. 189Google Scholar.
15. Lieven, p. 79.
16. Chujoy, pp. 111-113.
17. There are a number of manuscripts of Fokine's deposited in the Dance Collection of the New York Public Library. The one used here is a translation of some extended notes on Diaghilev's role in the Ballets Russes which Fokine had written out in Russian. The Russian text of these notes is reprinted in the Russian version of Fokine's memoirs: Protiv tcrheniia: vospominania baletmeistera, ed. by Slonimsky, Yu. I. (Leningrad and Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1962)Google Scholar.
18. Beaumont, Cyril W., Michel Fokine and His Ballets (London: Cyril W. Beaumont, 1935), p. 129Google Scholar; Karsavina, , Theatre Street, pp. 257–258Google Scholar, in which she reports that Diaghilev helped her grasp her roles as Echo and Thamar.
19. For an indication of the relative importance of each of Fokine's ballets, see the Appendix in Chujoy, pp. 300-311.
20. Roslavleva, Natalia, Era of the Russian Ballet (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1966), p. 184Google Scholar.
21. Krasovskaya, , Russian Ballet Theater…, pp. 450, 466–468Google Scholar.
22. Kschessinska, Mathilda, Dancing in Petersburg: The Memoirs of Kschessinska (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1961), p. 106Google Scholar.
23. Chujoy, p. 103.
24. Krasovskaya, , Russian Ballet Theater…, pp. 466–468Google Scholar. Karsavina, remembered Jota as “Fokine in his brightest mood.” Theatre Street, p. 312Google Scholar.
25. Moore, Lillian, Artists of the Dance (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1938), p. 191Google Scholar. Jota was revived for René Blum.
26. New York Sun, Nov. 10, 1919.
27. Musical America, Jan. 17, 1920.
28. Roslavleva, , Era of the Russian Ballet, p. 183Google Scholar.
29. New York Times, Aug. 23, 1942.
30. New York Times, April 22, 1950.
31. New York Herald Tribune, June 2, 1943.
32. Krasovskaya, , Russian Ballet Theater…, p. 468Google Scholar.
33. Walker, Kathrine Sorley, De Basil's Ballets Russes (New York: Atheneum, 1983), p. 43Google Scholar, reports difficult and virtuoso dancing in other parts of Paganini.
34. See, e.g., Beaumont, , Michel Fokine, pp. 144–147Google Scholar.
35. Fokine, Michel, “The New Ballet,” in Argus, November 1, 1916Google Scholar. A typescript of the English text of this article is on deposit in the Dance Collection. The Russian version is reprinted in Protiv techeniia.
36. Karsavina, , Theatre Street, p. 169Google Scholar. See also Chujoy, p. 92, for a record of Petipa's complimentary reaction to ballet, Fokine'sLa Vigne (1906)Google Scholar. Note, with regard to interpolations, that such changes in choreography may on occasion have been introduced by the choreographer himself.
37. Lawson, Joan, A History of Ballet and its Makers (New York: Pitman Publishing Corp., 1964), p. 83Google Scholar; Krasovskaya, , Russian Ballet Theater…, p. 333Google Scholar.
38. Slonimsky, Yury, “Writings on Lev Ivanov” with “a biography of Ivanov in excerpts” from Borisoglebsky, M., all ed. by Chujoy, Anatole, Dance Perspectives 2 (1959)Google Scholar.
39. Roslavleva, , Era of the Russian Ballet, p. 128Google Scholar; Lawson, pp. 86, 107.
40. Roslavleva, Natalia, “Stanislavsky and the Ballet,” Dance Perspectives 23 (1965)Google Scholar.
41. Krasovskaya, , Russian Ballet Theater…, pp. 237, 262Google Scholar.
42. Roslavleva, , Era of the Russian Ballet, p. 214Google Scholar.
43. Lieven, p. 311.
44. Haskell, Arnold, Balletomania Then and Now (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977), p. 100Google Scholar.
45. Protiv techeniia, pp. 517-523. See also Cohen, Selma Jeanne, Next Week, Swan Lake: Reflections on Dance and Dances (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1982), pp. 32–33Google Scholar. Benois reports that Fokine balked at the suggestion that Duncan be cast in Le Pavilion d'Armide. Reminiscences, p. 252.
46. Chujoy, p. 257.
47. Beaumont, , Michel Fokine, p. 147Google Scholar.
48. Chujoy, p. 208. See also Haskell's comment: “…when I first met [Fokine] he was… inclined, as the majority of choreographers, but with much more reason, to find that everything had been borrowed from him.” Haskell, Arnold L., In His True Centre: An Interim Autobiography (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1951), p. 56Google Scholar.
49. Benois, , “Decor and Costume,” p. 197Google Scholar. Cf. this comment by Karsavina in the May, 1955 issue of Dance and Dancers: “It is easy to see that in his classical ballets [Fokine] never deviated from academic tradition except in pruning away from it any form of exhibitionism, and giving it more expression: the more supple, unhackneyed movements of arms and a more ingenious ground plan.”
50. Chujoy, p. 62.
51. Horwitz, Dawn Lille, “A Ballet Class with Michel Fokine” in Dance Chronicle, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1979), pp. 36–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also “Dilettantism in the Dance” (1932), one of the Fokine manuscripts on deposit at the Dance Collection. Cohen devotes a whole chapter to the role of virtuosity in dance: Ch. 4, pp. 61-79.
52. Fokine, Argus. See also “The Central European Dance” (1933), another of the Fokine manuscripts on deposit at the Dance Collection. Helpful comments on this point are provided by Cohen, p. 32.
53. Chujoy, p. 129; also these Fokine manuscripts at the Dance Collection: “The NewBallet” (1916), “Dilettantism in the Dance” (1932), and an undated letter to the editor of Musical America.
54. Kirstein, Lincoln, Nijinsky Dancing (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975), pp. 30–31Google Scholar. In an earlier book, Fokine (British-Continental Press, Ltd., 1934), p. 64Google Scholar, Kirstein listed Fokine's strong points: “To have studied under Fokine is to have experienced an unforgettable illumination into the sources of gesture, the definition of style, the creation of theatrical effect.” See also Kirstein's, Dance: A Short History of Classic Theatrical Dancing (New York: Dance Horizons, 1969), pp. 284–285Google Scholar. Coton makes a point similar to Kirstein's, namely that Fokine was to some extent working at cross purposes because stylization in dance can inhibit expression. (Coton does attach a positive value to the “homogeneity” of each Fokine work.) Coton, A.V., The New Ballet: Kurt Jooss and His Work (London: Dennis Dobson, Ltd., 1940), pp. 25Google Scholar, 13. Benois argues that Golovin's ethnological decor for The Firebird defeated the “fantastic and eerie” quality of Fokine's choreography. He makes a similar comment about the decor of Le Festin. Reminiscences, pp. 306-307, 354.
55. Rivière, Jacques, “Le Sacre du Printemps” (1913)Google Scholar, reprinted in Kirstein, , Nijinsky Dancing, p. 166Google Scholar. Rivière's earlier enthusiasm for Fokine's work is detailed in his article, “Des Ballets Russes et de Fokine,” La Nouvelle Revue Francaise, Vol. VIII, No. 43 (July, 1912), pp. 174–180Google Scholar.
56. Haskell, , Balletomania, p. 91Google Scholar; Chujoy, p. 250. See also Bournonville's forward to his Etudes Choreographiques. Note that Fokine would treat a sad theme if, as in The Dying Swan, he found the theme in question consistent with full-bodied movement.
57. Levin, David Michael, “Balanchine's Formalism,” Dance Perspectives 55 (1973), p. 34Google Scholar. Reprinted in Salamagundi, No. 33-34 (Spring-Summer, 1976), pp. 216–236Google Scholar.
58. The Fokine manuscripts in the Dance Collection consulted were those listed in note 53 and “The Dance Is Poetry Without Words” (1924), “A Sad Art” (1931), “The Central European Dance” (1931), and “Sex Appeal in Dance” (1932).
59. Fokine, “Central European Dance.”
60. Morning Telegraph, Feb. 4, 1931.
61. Fokine, “A Sad Art.”
62. Fokine, “Central European Dance.”
63. Terry, Walter, I Was There: Selected Dance Reviews and Articles—1936–1976 (New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc., 1978), p. 13Google Scholar [1937].
64. Fokine, “Central European Dance.”
65. Fokine, “Sex Appeal in Dance.”
66. Chujoy, pp. 204, 206.
67. But see the letter of Fokine quoted by Terry, Walter in the New York Herald Tribune of Dec. 29, 1940Google Scholar: Fokine writes: “People interested only in the demonstration of power and masculinity… should not go to the theater but to sporting events.”
68. Walker, p. 48.
69. See Horwitz.
70. Described in notes Fokine prepared for Lucille Stoddart's Teachers' Course at the Hotel Astor in 1931 (on deposit in the Dance Collection). See also Betty Ross's interview with Fokine published in the May, 1926 issue of The Dance Magazine in which he indicates his attraction to the variety of jazz rhythms but rejects jazz dance as too mechanical and too focused on the feet.
71. Hurok, Sol, S. Hurok Presents: A Memoir of the Dance World (New York: Hermitage House, 1953), p. 96Google Scholar.
72. Karsavina, , Theatre Street, p. 289Google Scholar.
73. France, Charles Engell (ed.), Baryshnikov at Work: Mikhail Baryshnikov Discusses His Roles (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976), p. 141Google Scholar.
74. Payne, Charles, American Ballet Theatre (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977), p. 310Google Scholar.
75. Cohen recalls that Fokine found a specific dramatic purpose for employing fouettés in Bluebeard when he needed a strong image of a woman ridding herself of a rival for her husband's affections. Cohen, p. 74.
76. Fokine, Argus. Cf. Goleizovsky's comments concerning translation of classroom movements, including movements in second position, to the stage, in Banes, Sally, “Goleizovsky's Ballet Manifestos,” Ballet Review, Vol. XI, No. 3 (Fall, 1983), pp, 70–74Google Scholar.
77. Fokine's teachers at the Imperial Ballet School, notably Christian Johannson, should be given credit for training him to value care in epaulement.
78. Chujoy, pp. 152-153.
79. Grigoriev, S.L., The Diaghilev Ballet, 1909–1929 (London: Constable, 1953), p. 46Google Scholar.
80. Chujoy, p. 154.
81. Ibid., p. 51.
82. Horwitz, p. 43.
83. New York Times, Jan. 11, 1934.
84. France, p. 227.
85. Benois, , Reminiscences, p. 338Google Scholar (Benois's emphasis).
86. Chujoy, p. 191. See also Lawson, pp. 109-111, for a discussion of Fokine's handling of reality and fantasy in Petrouchka, especially her suggestion that the Charlatan is the link between the real and the fantastic because his flute controls both the crowd and the puppets. Note Massine's, remark in My Life in Ballet (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1968), p. 52Google Scholar: “Although I heard glowing descriptions of Nijinsky's performance [of Petrouchka], I did not see how Fokine's interpretation could have been improved upon.”
87. Chujoy, p. 182.
88. New York Times, June 1, 1977. See Rambert, Marie, Quicksilver: The Autobiography of Marie Rambert (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1972), p. 112Google Scholar, for mention of a similar experience with Spessivtseva.
89. Lawrence, Robert, The Victor Book of Ballets and Ballet Music (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1950), p. 437Google Scholar.
90. Haskell, , In His True Centre, p. 58Google Scholar.
91. Croce, Arlene, “News from the Muses,” The New Yorker, Sept. 11, 1978, pp. 126–127Google Scholar.
92. Hall, Fernau, paraphrasing Karsavina, in Saturday Review, April 16, 1955Google Scholar.
93. Benois, , Reminiscences, p. 305Google Scholar.
94. Margot Fonteyn: Autobiography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976), p. 144Google Scholar. For Alexandra Danilova's comments on The Firebird, see the article by Eric Johns in the May, 1949 issue of Theatre World.
95. Chujoy, p. 105.
96. Stokes, Adrian, Russian Ballets (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1936), p. 93Google Scholar.
97. See Lawson, pp. 99-103, for an outline of the choreography of Les Sylphides.
98. Daily Telegraph, May 16, 1936.
99. Osato, Sono, Distant Dances (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980), p. 287Google Scholar.
100. Typescript deposited in the Dance Collection.
101. Payne, p. 316.
102. New York Times Magazine, Dec. 15, 1940.
103. Chujoy, p. 109.