bringing fokine to light

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Bringing Fokine to LightAuthor(s): Karen NelsonSource: Dance Research Journal, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Autumn, 1984), pp. 3-12Published by: Congress on Research in DanceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1478716Accessed: 10-03-2015 17:22 UTC

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2/11

ringing

o k i n e t

i g h t

Karen

Nelson

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,

set-

ting

dances was

all

pure

brain

work,

extracting

and

using

the

magical

harmonies and

rhythms

that lie hidden in

na-

ture. ' The natural

law

of

choreography

that Fokine

postu-

lated 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

and 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,

recol-

lections of

people

who

came into

contact with

him

or his

work,

and

his own statements

and

writings.

In

the course

of this

review of Fokine's

professional

life,

two

main

points

are

developed.

First,

Fokine deserves

more atten-

tion

than

he

gets.

Until

fairly recently,

the

Baltimore Sun

liked to

refer to

its home base

as the

largest

unknown

city

in

the

United States.

In

the recent

annals of

ballet,

Fokine

is

the

most

important

unknown

choreographer.

Yet to

acknowledge

Fokine's

eminence

is

not

to concede

quite

the

degree

of icono-

clasm

and

groundbreaking

Fokine

himself

claimed for

his

work,

nor the

degree

of

universality

he claimed for

his aesthe-

tic

principles.

The reforms

for which

Fokine

is famous entailed

the sort

of reaffirmation

of the

indispensability

of

committed

artistry

which

has recurred

periodically

over

the

years.

He

was

struggling

against

the

tendency

of dance

production

to

become

routine,

overrefined,

and beholden to

conventional

tastes.

Fokine was not

the first

individual

to take

a stand on

these

matters,

but

the existence

of

precursors

does

not

diminish

the

importance

in his own

time of

Fokine's

efforts

at

renewal.

He

promoted

the fundamental

and timeless

aesthetic

value of

expressiveness.2

On the other

hand,

the

fugitive

nature

of Fo-

kine's

choreographic

prescriptions,

in

general,

and of

most

of

his

ballets,

in

particular,

indicates

that

he

was

overreaching

when

he

claimed

universal

applicability

for

his own

particular

preferences

in movement

quality

and

characterization.

The

second

point

is

that,

at the

very

least,

recognition

of

authorial

privilege

requires

that

Fokine's

work

be

judged

using

standards

appropriate

to

the

particular

genres

in

which

he worked.

Speaking

generally,

Fokine

was drawn

to

the

romantic

school of

ballet,

both for

its

tendency

to

stylization

of

classical

steps

and

poses

in

order to enhance their

expres-

siveness,

and

for its

dramaticism,

requiring

dancers to

project

roles rather

than

their own

personalities

(or

some

more

or

less

neutral

persona).

Fokine was

bent on

displacing

a

regime

represented by

a

repertory

of

full-length

works

composed

in

Petipa's

formal

style

and

interpreted

by

ballerinas who tended

to

view such works as

personal

showcases.

Speaking

more

specifically,

one

genre

Fokine

especially

favored

was that

drawing

on

fairy (or

folk)

tales.3

Several of his ballets

in this

genre

are central to

his

oeuvre,

but

are

easily

undervalued

because

they

have an inherent

air of

naivete and oldfashioned-

ness.

A

folkish

ballet,

such as

Scheherazade, Petrouchka,

or The

Firebird,

is marked

by

an

atmosphere

that

is

a

deliberate

blend of

fantasy

and

reality (a

characteristic of

romanticism)

and

by

characters

who are

types.

Although

this

genre

is not

much in favor

today,

it is a

legitimate

approach

to narrative

ballet,

one which can

embody

complex psychological

quali-

ties

and

relationships,

as

evidenced

by

the

duality

of the

major

roles in

the

fairytale

ballets Fokine

choreographed.

In

the

words

of the

psychologist

Bruno

Bettelheim,

Fairy

tales

describe states

of the

mind

by

means of

images

and

actions. 4

Thus

they

are

especially

suited

to

choreographic

treatment.

Still,

today's

audiences

find

a

fairytale

ballet difficult to

take

seriously

unless

the

piece

is one from

the

canon

of nineteenth-

century

classics,

such as The

Sleeping

Beauty,

or

is

given spe-

cial

dispensation

as

a

signature

work,

such

as,

in

Fokine's

case,

The

Firebird.

Just

as

some

moderns

reject

fairy

tales

because

they apply

to

this

literature

standards

which

are

totally

inappropriate, 5

latter-day

evaluations

of Fokine's

works

often

fault

him for

failing

to

do

things

he

neither cared

nor intended

to do.

Although

analogies

to

literature

can

be

carried

only

so

far,

Alastair

Fowler's observations

that each

age

has

a

fairly

small

repertoire

of

genres

that its readers and

critics

can

respond

to with

enthusiasm

and that

it is not

works

that

are

said to

age

or

evolve,

but

their

genre

may

help

clarify

the

point

being

made

here

concerning

Fokine's

reputation.6

In addition

to

the constraints

imposed

by

today's

sensibili-

ties,

there

are technical

considerations

that

make

Fokine's

choreography

hard to

keep

in

the

repertory.

His work

depends

on

careful attention

to detail

and

atmosphere,

both

of

which

blur

with

time

unless

performers

receive

careful

coaching.

The

difficulty

of

dance

conservation

in the

choreographer's

absence

varies.

In the

case

of

Fokine's

ballets,

much

of

the

DanceResearchJournal 16/2 (Fall1984)

3

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3/11

substance

is

lost

if

only

combinations of

steps

are

taught

to

new

casts,

something

that

is much less of a

problem

with a

choreographer

n

the

Petipa

tradition.

Furthermore,

whereas

some

ballets,

notably Petipa's,

have survivedall sorts of inter-

polations,

to

interpolate

n

Fokine is to obliterate. Forestall-

ing

erosion of

his

work was made

especially

difficult

for Fo-

kine

by

the fact that for the better

part

of 20

years

he

had

only

a

changing

group

of

students o

use in

maintaining

his ballets.

Fokine's

Career

Fokine'sprofessional areerbeganin 1898 when he graduated

at

the

age

of

eighteen

from the St.

Petersburg mperial

Ballet

School into

the

Maryinsky

company.

In his memoirs he de-

scribes he

growing

alienationhe

felt

during

his firstfew

years

of

service

at the

Maryinsky.

The

repertory

and

performances

of the ballet

company

seemed nartistic o

him.

He considered

resigning,

but

decided

against

t and instead

occupied

himself

with

painting, visiting

museums,

and

experimenting

with the

students

he had

begun teaching

in

1902.7

The first

public

presentation

of

his

choreography

was Acis and Galatea in

1905. The costumesand movementsof this

piece

hinted at the

departures

rom academicism

Fokine would

adopt

more

fully

in a few

years.8

n

particular,

he

sought

to

capture

n Acis

and

Galateasome of

the

expressiveness

e associatedwith the

plas-

tiqueof figureson Greekvases. Overthe next few years, Fo-

kine continuedto

feel his

way

as a

choreographer

n

pieces

he

made for student

and

charity performances.

His

1907

produc-

tion

of Eunice

for a

benefit was the first instance

in

which

he

was able

to

present

his vision

of

antiquity

in unadulterated

form:

The costumeswere

in the Greek

style

(except

bare

legs

were not

allowed),

none of the

dancers

were on

pointe,

and

the

dances

for the

corps

were at the

same level of

importance

as the soloists'

parts.

One of the

Maryinsky's

ancers,

Tamara

Karsavina,

recalled

Eunice as

a

compromise

between our

tradition

and the Hellenic

revivalembodied

by

Isadora

[Dun-

can]. 9

Within a few

months,

two

of Fokine's

major

ballets

had their

premieres

on the

Imperial

stage

itself:

Le Pavilion

d'Armide

n

November,

1907

and the

second

version of Cho-

piniana, laterknownin the West as Les Sylphides, n March,

1908.

Fokine's

nnovative

work

marked

him as the obvious

choice

to

serve

as

company

ballet

master

when

Diaghilev

was

ready

to

include

ballet

in

his Russian

easons

n Paris.

Although

Dia-

ghilev

occasionally

offered

his audiences

items

from the

clas-

sical

repertory,

for the most

part

he

was resolved

to

present

progressive

horeography.

Fokine's

nitial

contact

with

Dia-

ghilev's

circle

was

his work

on

Le Pavilion

d'Armide

with that

ballet's

librettist

and

designer,

the

artist

Alexander

Benois.

Benois's

ibretto,

although

actually

based

on

Theopile

Gau-

tier's

tale

Omphale,

was

inspired

by

his infatuation

with

French

baroque

and

rococo

art of

the

eighteenth

century

and

with

the

tales

of

Hoffmann. ?

ccording

o

Karsavina,

It

was

an essentialfeatureof Benois that he not merelyreconstitut-

ed

an

epoch,

but invested

t

with

weird

irresistible

power

over

one's

imagination.

Later

she

adds,

His

mastery

of

blend-

ing

fantastic

with

real

was the

more

wonderful

because

he

effected

his

magic

by

the

simplest

means. '2

Nicholas

Legat,

who

might

otherwise

have

beenchosen

to

do

Armide

because

he was

senior o

Fokine

at

the

Maryinsky,

was

unable to

han-

dle such

a

departure

rom

Petipa's

more

benign

or,

one

might

say,

classical

style

of

choreographing

airytales.'4

Peter

Lie-

ven,

a close

observer

of

Russian

ballet

at the

time,

contends

that

Benois

outshone

Fokine

in

developing

the dramatic

side

of

the

ballets

on

which

they

worked

together. s

On the

other

hand,

Fokine

found

that

Benois's

ideals

for

music,

mime,

and

dance

were

entirely

traditional,

so Armide

involved

some

compromises

with Fokine's

aesthetic

principles,

in

particular

the

inclusion of

passages

of

pure

mime-instead

of

mime

inte-

grated

with

dancing-at

the

beginning

and

end.'1

During

the

years

1909-1912 Fokine

was

working

both

in

the

West with

Diaghilev

and in

St.

Petersburg.

Fokine was so

committed

to

his

view of a

company's choreographer

as

its de

facto

director

that he could

not

recognize

the

pivotal

position

of

Diaghilev

in the

Ballets Russes.

Fokine,

in

fact,

felt that he

had created

Diaghilev's

company, saying

that

Diaghilev's

only

creative contribution was

making

cuts

in

scores,

and

that Diaghilev's artistic policy was unduly responsive to con-

siderations of

expediency. 7 According

to

Fokine,

he

refused

to let

Diaghilev

interfere with his

choreography

aside from

making

occasional editorial

changes.'

In

1912,

when

Nijinsky

was

staging

The

Afternoon of

a

Faun,

Fokine

resigned

from

the

company

rather

than share the

choreographic spotlight

and

the

prerogatives

of

ballet master.

The evidence we have

indicates that

Diaghilev

was

content to

see Fokine return to

St.

Petersburg.

At the time of this first

departure

from the

Ballets

Russes,

Fokine was

only

seven

years

into

his

career

as a

choreographer

and had

another 30

years

of

work ahead of

him.

Nevertheless,

he

had

already

created a third of his total

output

of

ballets and about half of

what,

in a final account-

ing

seems

important.'9

Fokine's second

and final

period

of

service with Diaghilev took place during the brief interim in

1914

between

Diaghilev's firing

of

Nijinsky

in

response

to the

latter's

marriage

and the onset

of World

War I.

The related

questions

of

who did what

in

the

early years

of

the Ballets

Russes,

and

to what

extent artistic

principles

gov-

erned what was

done

by

whoever

did

it,

involve

such a

tangle

of

testimony by

interested

parties

and such a

profusion

of

hearsay,

that

it is

impossible

to offer

detailed

answers

with

any

confidence

today.

In

assessing

the

relative

contributions

of

Diaghilev

and

Fokine

during

the

period

they

worked

to-

gether,

it is fair to

say

that

major

items

in the

early repertory

of the

Ballets

Russes were

choreographed

by

Fokine with

no

input

from

Diaghilev,

that

later works

produced

by

Fokine

under

the

Diaghilev

aegis

bore

the distinctive

stamp

of

their

choreographer, and that once Diaghilev's support was no

longer

available,

Fokine's

career

lost

momentum.

Over

twenty

years

passed

before

he was

again

in a

position

to collaborate

with

distinguished

artists

in what

were-for

ballet-reason-

ably

secure

institutional

settings.

Yet,

to

say,

as some

have,

that

Fokine's

gifts

faded

after

his

separation

from the

Diaghi-

lev

enterprise

is

misleading.

Fokine was

an aesthetic

dogma-

tist

who

deliberately

restricted

himself to

certain

dance

genres,

movement

styles,

and

approaches

to

characterization.

He re-

mained

in full command

of

his artistic

faculties,

but the

cho-

reographic

front

moved

beyond

him

through

the

second

and

third

decades

of this

century.

As a

result,

there

was

an increas-

ing

gap

between

the

modernism

Fokine

professed

and that

actually

practiced

by

progressive

choreographers.

Fokine lost

currency.

Fokine

returned

to

St.

Petersburg

at the

end of

1914

and

worked

at

the

Maryinsky

until 1918.

The Soviet

historian

Natalia

Roslavleva

contends

that

he turned

out

nothing

re-

markable

during

this

period,

although

he could

take

satisfac-

tion

in

seeing

that

his

efforts

at reform

had

some

impact

on

the

company's

dancers

and

performances.20

Another

Soviet

historian,

Vera

Krasovskaya,

offers

a

different

view of

Fo-

kine's

wartime

career.

She

points

out

some

mitigating

circum-

stances

and

identifies

what

seem

to

her

to

have

been

some

real

successes.21

Fokine

was

back

in the

thick

of

Maryinsky

poli-

tics, including

in

particular

Mathilda

Kschessinska's

maneu-

vers

to

preserve

her

premiere

position

among

the

ballerinas.

Kschessinska

was

never

able

to

master-or

perhaps

to

accept

4

Dance

ResearchJournal

16/2

(Fall

1984)



4/11

-Fokine's

plasticity

and never understood

what

he had

against pauses

for

applause

and

demonstrations

in the audi-

ence.22

Nonetheless,

she

supported

his efforts

in return for

choreographic

concessions

on his

part.

Aside from

several

revitalizing choreographic

contributions to

operas,

the suc-

cessful

ballets of

this

period

included

Iota

Aragonesa

and

The

Sorcerer's

Apprentice,

both created

in

1916,

the first for

the

Maryinsky

and the second for

a

charity performance.

Krasovskaya

reports

that

]ota,

set to Mikhail Glinka's

score,

benefitted

from Fokine's

gifts

for

responding

expressively

to

music and for

bringing

folk color to a ballet without

precious-

ness or

fakery.

He did not take

Spanish

steps

and convert

them to

something

more

nearly

academic,

but

rather

em-

ployed

authentic

Spanish

movements

(picked

up

when he and

his

family

traveled

through Spain

at

the end

of

1914)

which

were reminiscent of academic

steps.

This was

in line

with

Fo-

kine's belief that national

dances,

because

they

were undis-

torted

by

concern for

critics, directors,

or

the

public,

had

a

fundamental aesthetic

truth to

them.23 As

in

Petrouchka

(1911),

Fokine retained

a hint of

improvisation

in

the

crowd

movements.

Krasovskaya argues

that

what

Chopiniana

did

for

symphonic

ballet

(her

term),

Jota

did for folk ballet:

both

compositions

were

exemplary

for their

synergistic

union

of

music and dance.

The Sorcerer's

Apprentice,

though

shown only once in Russia, enjoyed successful revivals in the

United

States and

Buenos

Aires.25

Fokine's

first work

in

the United

States

was

setting

show

dances for

Morris Gest

in 1919 and 1920.

According

to the

New York Sun's

reviewer,

Fokine

managed

to transform

the

chorus

girls

from

puppets

into

mainsprings,

but it seems

the dances

themselves

were

inconsequential.

Fokine also oc-

cupied

himself with concert

tours in which

he and his wife

Vera,

herself a

dancer,

presented programs

of evocative

and

exotic

dances

(described

as

unitone

in Musical

America27).

In

1921

Fokine

settled

in New York for

good,

but until

1936,

when he

joined

the

Ballet

Russe de Monte

Carlo,

his career

in

this

country

was an extended

dry spell.

Roslavleva

reports

that

during

this

time Fokine

wanted to

establish

a

company

which would compete with the Ballets Russes by contrasting

the

Fokine

version of

progressive

choreography

with that

sponsored

by Diaghilev.

However,

no one

would

back Fokine

for

anything

other than

purely

commercial

ventures.2

Every

now and

again

there

was a

heartening

moment

in

this

period

before

1936,

such as the occasion

in

1934

when

several thou-

sand too

many people

showed

up

at the

Lewisohn Stadium

for a

program

of

Fokine's

ballets.29

The Elves

(1924)

is

an

example

for which

we have

a film

record

of Fokine's

work

in

the

first

period

of

his career in the

United

States.

The critic

John

Martin,

reviewing

the 1937

Ballet

Russe

revival,

which is the

subject

of the

film,

said the

piece

conveyed strongly

[Fokine's]

romantic

style,

his

ability

to turn

a

charming

and inventive

phrase

and

his dominant

sense of character and atmosphere. 30 Another reviewer,

Robert

Lawrence,

wrote that the

ballet

represented

one of

Mr. Fokine's

most successful

attempts

at the union of

music

and

movement. 3'

(The

score

was Felix

Mendelssohn's

inci-

dental

music for

A

Midsummer

Night's

Dream.)

The

film

has

no sound

track

and the

dancers are in

practice

clothes,

so it

requires

some

imagination

to

appreciate

the

relation of the

movement

to the

score

and to

conjure up

the

sylvan

atmo-

sphere

of

the

piece.

What the

film

does make

apparent

is Fo-

kine's concern

with

occupying

the entire

stage

with dance and

with

designing

steps

that

appear

natural for

elves,

however

challenging

some

of them

would be

for

humans to execute.

There are

big

lifts and

arabesques

sautes,

a

variety

of turns

in

the

air,

cross-stage

runs,

and

even elves

occasionally

at rest on

Michel

Fokine:

Self-portrait

(From

the

estate

of

Lucile

Marsh,

courtesy

Dance

Collection,

The

New

York

Public

Library)

the

ground.

The overall

impression

is one of creatures

whose

nervous

energy

propels

them

through

the

woods

in

fortuitous

symmetry.

(Krasovskaya

reports

Fokine

also

unexpectedly

favored symmetrical designs in Jota Aragonesa.

32)

Fokine's

career

had a renascence

beginning

in 1936

when

two

ballets made

for Rene

Blum's

Ballet

Russe

de Monte Car-

lo

were

premiered,

L'Epreuve

d'Amour

in

April,

and Don

Juan

in

June.

These

were the

first

in

a

series of

ballets,

extend-

ing

to within

a

year

of

Fokine's

death,

that

received

approv-

ing

notices

from

many

of the

critics

who

reviewed

them.

In

1937 Fokine

made a

new

hour-long

ballet

version

of Le

Coq

d'Or

for the

Ballet

Russe,

now

managed

by

Colonel

W. de

Basil.

(Diaghilev

had

sponsored

Fokine's

staging

of Le

Coq

d'Or as an

opera-ballet

in

1914.)

The

next

year

Fokine

pro-

duced

Cendrillon

for de

Basil,

whose

company,

for

legal

rea-

sons,

had

been

rechristened

the

Educational

Ballet.

In

1939

came

Paganini,

also

for

the

Educational Ballet.

Although

the critics disagreed as to the quality of

these

works, they

con-

curred

in

their

description

of the

approach

Fokine

employed.

He

continued

to

favor

dance-drama,

including

the

fairytale

genre.

His

dancers all

had

specific

roles

and

their

movements

were

specifically

designed

to

project

those

roles.

A

sample

of

Fokine's

choreography

from this

period

can

be seen

in a 1946

film

which

excerpts

the

Florentine

Maiden's

dance

from

Paga-

nini. Fokine's

choreography

places

a considerable

burden

on

its

interpreter

because the

steps

themselves

are

essentially

simple: largely

chaine

turns

and bourrees

accompanied

by

a

certain

abandon

in the

upper

body

and

arms to

convey

the

Maiden's

ecstasy.33

In

1939

Fokine

reached

an

agreement

with

Ballet

Theatre

to

restage

some

of

his

existing

works

and to

choreograph

new

Dance

ResearchJournal

16/2

(Fall11984)

5



5/11

ones. The first new ballet was

Bluebeard

(1941).

This

was

fol-

lowed

by

Fokine's last

completed

ballet,

Russian

Soldier

(1942).

Helen

of Troy (1942)

was the final ballet on

which

Fokine

worked;

however,

Fokine died before he could

com-

plete

the

choreography,

so the

staged

version is credited

to

David Lichine.

Forerunners

The reforms

Fokine

outlined

in

1914 in his

widely-cited

letter

to the London Times34 were most directly aimed at the

pro-

duction values of Marius

Petipa,

who served

as chief

choreog-

rapher

at the

Maryinsky

from

1869

to

1903

(having

been

ap-

pointed

to

the staff of

balletmasters

in

1862).

Petipa

composed

evening-length

ballets whose

style

and

structure varied

little

from one

to the next. Each

piece,

regardless

of

its

subject,

was

blocked

out to include

a

predictable

assortment of

divertisse-

ments,

mime

scenes,

and

pas

for

soloists and

principals

in

a

classical

style

that

especially highlighted

the ballerina's

virtu-

osity.

Fokine called such

ballets

prefabricated. 35

Petipa

used

the dancers in

the

corps

as an

ensemble

to achieve mass

geometric

effects in

their own dances and

to

provide

a

variety

of decorative frames

when the

principal

dancers were on

stage.

Fokine

objected

to

Petipa's

inattention to the

ostensible

content of his stories and to the ballerinas' habit of interpolat-

ing

favorite variations

into a

ballet with no concern

for

main-

taining

a

homogeneous

style

in

the work or

even

for

perform-

ing

enchainements

that fit the

ballet's score.

In

addition,

Fo-

kine found the

traditional mime

inexpressive,

the

male dancers

underemployed,

and the

overall

impression

the

ballets

made

diffuse. On

the

other

hand,

he admired

the wealth of

imagi-

nation

Petipa displayed

in his

invention of

steps

and

poses.

For his

part, Petipa

was

sufficiently

impressed

with Fokine's

gifts

to favor the

younger

man as his

successor.36

Junior

to

Petipa

was Lev

Ivanov,

who served as second

bal-

let master

at the

Maryinsky

from

1885 until his death in

1901.

For

Ivanov,

dance

was the

blossoming

of

the

music,

an atti-

tude

reflected in

his careful

linking

of his

choreography

for a

ballet to its score.37 Ivanov is also noted for depending less

than

Petipa

on

divertissements

and for

using

the

corps

as a

more

active element in

the

design

of his

ballets.38

All

these

qualities

of Ivanov's

work

have their

correlates

in

Fokine's,

but Ivanov

worked in

a refined

mode,

while Fokine

adopted

a

degree

of

stylized

abandon in much

of his

choreography.

For

instance,

Ivanov's version

of the

Polovetsian

Dances

was

cited

by

Alexander

Shiryaev,

who danced

the Chief in

1890,

as

a source

Fokine

failed

to

acknowledge

when he

choreo-

graphed

his

own

version of the

work

in

1909. On the

other

hand,

Joan

Lawson

reports

that

Fokine,

who had

also

ap-

peared

in Ivanov's

production,

was

explicitly

invited

by

Dia-

ghilev

to

set

choreography

to

Borodin's

score

that would

be

less formal than Ivanov's and

more

in

keeping

with

Nicholas

Roerich's

impressionistic

decor.39

In

Moscow

during

the

early years

of this

century,

the

inno-

vative work at the

Bolshoi was

being

done

by

Alexander

Gor-

sky,

whose

choreography

was influenced

by

the

stage

direc-

tion of

Constantine

Stanislavsky.

Both

these men aimed at

achieving

dramatic

truth

by

suiting

the

style

of

any particular

work to its

subject.

Their

emphasis

was on

expressiveness,

on

the

use

of

authentic

costumes,

on

individualizing

both

princi-

pal

and

ensemble

roles,

and on

having

the

ensemble contri-

bute

importantly

to the

progress

of the drama.40 For the sake of

elucidating plot

and

character,

not to mention in the

hope

of

arousing

audience

interest,

since the

Bolshoi was

playing

to

many

empty

seats at the turn of

the

century,

Gorsky

introduced

new

ports

de

bras and

new foot

positions. According

to Kra-

Rehearsalfor

Prince

Igor

with Michel

Fokine

and

Alexandra

Fedorova

and her

dancers,

Riga,

Latvia,

February

5,

1929.

(Courtesy

Dance

Collection,

The New

York

Public

Library)

sovskaya,

these

changes

were more

an

overlay

of

Duncanesque

plasticity

than

a

fundamental

alteration

of movement

quali-

ty.

She

argues

that Fokine

always

embarked

on

new

work

and

developed

corresponding

new

movement

idioms,

while

Gorsky made a habit of touching up Petipa's ballets with a

non-classical

glaze.41

The

choreographer

Kasian

Goleizovsky,

who was familiar

with both

Gorsky's

and

Fokine's

work,

said

Fokine

was like

an

engraver

building up

an

image

from

fine

details,

while

Gorsky

created with

bright

rich

dabs. 42 In

Krasovskaya's

view,

what this

amounted to

was that

Gorsky's

works were

less finished

than

Fokine's. On

the other

hand,

Lieven

spoke

for

many

when he

suggested

that much

of

Fo-

kine's

best work was

produced

when

he was

so rushed

that

he

could not

spend

time

fussing

over details.43 In

any

case,

it

is

apparent

that Fokine and

Gorsky

had

a number

of

parallel

ideas,

including

the view that

the

1830's and

1840's

were

exemplary years

for

ballet,

but

their

specific styles

and

the

very

itineraries

of their

careers were

quite

different

(Gorsky

had

little

occasion to leave Moscow), so their paths of subse-

quent

influence

diverge.

There is

no

way

of

measuring

the

degree

to which

Isadora

Duncan's

work

may

have

influenced Fokine.

It was

always

a

sore

point

with Fokine

that

Diaghilev promoted

the view

that

all

of Fokine's

best

ideas had been

borrowed

from

Duncan.

Fokine

readily

agreed

that he admired

Duncan's

ideals of

natural

and free

movement of the

whole

body,

and

that he

shared her

devotion to

flowing plasticity

in

dance,

but he in-

sisted

his work was

different in

important ways

from

hers.

According

to

Fokine, he,

unlike

Duncan,

used

more

than one

style

of

movement

(encouraged by

the

great

variety

of na-

tional dance

traditions

of which

he

was

aware);

he

used

styl-

ized

and

complex

movement

when

appropriate;

he did

not

6

Dance Research ournal

16/2

(Fall1984)



6/11

allow

improvisation;

and,

although

the two

choreographers

used similar

phrasing

and

timing,

he

designed

his

dances

care-

fully

to

correspond

o the scorerather than

presenting

his

in-

stinctive

response

o the

music,

as he was under the

impres-

sion Duncan often did.45

Fokine

was convinced hat

his

work,

unlike

Duncan's,

could

only

be handled

by thoroughly

rained

dancers.

Duncan,

as aware as

Fokineof the

similarity

of their

aesthetic

mpulses,

n 1909 invited him

to

teach at her

school,

an invitationhe

says

he declined

only

because

he

was

already

under contract

o

Diaghilev.46

In his 1914 letter to the Times, Fokineargued:

No artistcan tell to what extent

his work s theresult

of the

influence

of

othersand to what extent it

is his own.

I

can-

not, therefore,

judge

to

what extent the

influence of

the

old traditions

s

preserved

n

the

new ballet

[i.e.,

in his

ballet]

and

how

much

the

new ideals of MissDuncan are

reflected in it.47

This is a defensible

position,

but the record should note that

Fokine

appliedsomething

of

a double

standard,

claiming,

for

instance,

that

his

choreography

or the

Venusberg

scene of

Tannhaiuser

had

anticipated

the

two-dimensional

look

of

Nijinsky'sAfternoon of

a Faun.48

Furthermore,

Fokine's

ar-

dent rhetoric ended to

sound a more

revolutionary

note than

his actualchoreography.A statementof Benois's s represen-

tative of an

alternate

view: Fokine

was a

renovator,

not

by

any

means

a fanatical innovator.

Fokine

himself was far too

deeply

n

lovewith what had

helped

to

formulatehis aesthetic

consciousness o

wish

to

destroy

t

and

create

something

essen-

tially

his own and

entirely original. 49

inally,

a

number of

Fokine's most

respected

ballets

were made

in collaboration

with

other

artistswhose contributions

deserve more

generous

recognition

than Fokine

sometimes

gave

them.

Aesthetics

Fokine's

aesthetics

were based

on his belief

in natural

aws

of

dance,

not

to be confused

with the canons

of

academic

dance, and on his agreementwith Leo Tolstoythat thepro-

jection

of

feeling,

the

inoculation

of

the audience

with

it,

is

... the

very

essence

of

pure

art form. 50

Fokine's

aesthetic

convictions

ed

him

to

produce

a

type

of romantic

choreog-

raphy

that

departed

n

important

ways

from

the

Petipa para-

digm,

while

following

rules of

its own.

Where

Petipa

extend-

ed

his

material

to

fill

an

evening's

program

with

a

single,

multi-act

ballet,

Fokine,

seeking

to make

a

more focused

im-

pression

on

his

audience,

worked

with librettos

concentrated

into

single-act

treatments

of their

subjects.

So

that the

im-

pression

made

on the audience

should

be

distinctive

and also

realistic

n

ways

that

were

important

to

him,

Fokine

required

that each

ballet

be

composed

n

a

consistent

tyle:

from

begin-

ning

to

end

the

choreography,

music,

and

decor of a

ballet

wereall to

correspond

o its

subject

and

setting.

With respect

to

choreography,

his

meant

producing

meticulously

stylized

movement

whose

idiom

would

change

appropriately

from

one

piece

to

the

next,

rather than

always

working

in the

for-

mal classical

style

and

employing

a

marked

element

of virtuo-

sity.

Representative

f

the

ballets

in

which

Fokine

gave

play

to these

principles

are

Daphnis

and

Chloe

(1912),

which

called

for

a

plastique

based on

the

decoration

of Greek

vases,

Cleopatre

1909),

which

drew

upon

Egyptian

wall

paintings,

and

Le

Dieu

Blue

(1912),

which

adopted

motifs of Hindu

art.

Fokine

expected

technical

mastery

in

his

dancers,

but

he

also nsisted

hat

they

achieve

in their movements

an

intensely

natural

quality

he identified

with

expressiveness.

Fokine's

at-

titude

on

this

point

is

seen

clearly

in

his

teaching:

he

seemed

to take

for

granted

that

his

students

would

perfect

their

tech-

nique

and devoted

his attention

to

developing

n them

his ver-

sion of

beauty

and

expressiveness.51

okine's

ideal

was

the

work

of the romantic

ballerina

Marie

Taglioni

in

the

first half

of the

nineteenth

century.

Not that

he

thought

every

ballet

should

have the

look of

a

Taglioni

lithograph;

rather,

he

be-

lieved

dance

should

always

have

meaning

and

a

true

vitality

and

expressonging

for a

different,

better

world,

as

it seemed

to

him had

been the case

in

Taglioni's

ime. It was to

this end

that

Fokine based

his

ballets

on

natural

gestures

dealized

to

highlighttheir psychologicalmotivation. In fact, Fokinede-

fined

dance as

the

development

and ideal of

the

sign. 52

That

is,

for

Fokine,

only

movements

which

constituted

nterpreta-

ble

gestures

could be considered

dance.

As

an

example

of

movement

dealized to

the level

of

deeply expressive

gesture,

he cites the

arabesque,

a

surgeupwards

nto

distance-it

[ex-

presses

an]

urge

with the entire

body,

a

movement,

with

the

whole

being.

Without that

motivation,

the

arabesque

be-

comes ntolerable

nonsense. 53

imilarly,

he found the

tombe,

a movement

in

which

the dancer

resists

gravity

till the

last

possible

moment,

especially

expressive.

Lincoln

Kirstein,

in

sorting

through

the

choreographic

developments

f

this

century,

suggests

hat

Fokine's

particular

approach

o

stylization,

designed

as

it was to contribute

o the

creationin each

piece

of

grandiloquent

ocal color, vitiated

the artistic

orce

of hisidealized naturalism.

Insteadof

a

time-

less

poetics

of

physical

magery

and

metaphor

uch

as

Nijinsky

employed,

Fokine's

audiences

were

presented

with

a literal-

minded

picture

of a

distant

place

in a distant

time,

an

ethno-

graphicpicture

based

on

secondary

sources

in libraries

and

museums.

In Kirstein's

iew,

therewas

a

certain

redundancy

in the

pains

Fokine took

to make movement

meaningful.

He

argues

that

Nijinsky's

approach,

one

which

took

for

granted

that

movement

is

meaningful

and

sought

ways

to unveil

its

meaning,

was

more

elemental.54

Fokine

felt

that his

calling

was to

produce

dramatic

dance

works.

This he

did

throughout

his

career,

even

though

the

genre

in which

he worked

seemed

more and more old-fash-

ioned.

Although

Fokine clearly enjoyed solving the choreo-

graphic

problem

of

establishing

ocal

color,

this

was not

his

sole aim.

For

instance,

in his

fairytale

ballets

exoticism

and

ethnic

color are

not

ends

in

themselves,

but

rather

are intend-

ed to

support

the

main

purpose

of

unfolding

human

relation-

ships

and

psychology.

Jacques

Riviere,

a

French

critic

who

followed

the Ballets

Russes

n its

early

years,

questioned

whether

Fokine

was even

serious

in

pursuing

his

expressed

aim

of

making

movement

meaningful:

[Fokine's

dance]

is

inherently

unsuited

to

the

expression

of

emotion;

one

can read

into

it

nothing

but

a

vague,

entirely physical

and

faceless

joy....

Instead

of

emotion

beingthe objectthat the movementtriesto describeand

make

visible,

it

becomes

a

mere

pretext

for

erupting

nto

movement,

and

is

soon

forgotten

amid

the

abundance

of

which it

is the source....

For

Riviere,

the

headlong

quality

of

the

choreography

n a

ballet

like

Le

Spectre

de

la Rose

was

incompatible

with

inner

truth. 55

It

is

true that

Fokine

favored

joyful

themes

(as

did

August

Bournonville),

and

exactly

because

they

provided

a

pretext

for abundant

movement.

The

sad themes

of

many

of

the

ex-

ponents

of

modern

dance

struck

him

as

the

excuse

of amateurs

to

avoid

moving.'5

Speaking

more

broadly,

for the

genres

in

which

he

worked

there

is

no

inherent

inconsistency

between

Fokine's

methods

and

the

demands

of

inner

truth.

Again

tak-

DanceResearchJournal

16/2

(Fall1984)

7



7/11

ing

fairy

or

folk

tales

as an

example,

what is

distinctive about

them

is that

they incorporate

naturalisticdetails

in a

fantastic

context,

and this

very conjunction

allows them to enact alle-

gorical

incidents

motivated

by indwelling

human

impulses.

This

psychological

accuracy

is what

Bettelheim celebrates.

However,

as David Levin

puts

it

in

analyzing

the

attributesof

Balanchine's

work,

an aesthetic

of

immanence

(an

aesthetic

of

self-revealingpresence)

has

come

to

replace

the earlier aes-

thetic of mimetic

connotation

and transcendent

ymbolism. 57

So

long

as this

aesthetic s

in

ascendancy,

and

at

the

moment

it seemsquiterobust,manyof Fokine'sballetswill seemdated,

while

many

of Balanchine's

will

seem

timeless.

Fokine

rejected

he work

of modern-dance

choreographers

because it violated

his

aesthetic

principles.58

As noted

above,

Fokine

argued

that sad themes should

be

avoided

because

they

invitedancers o

mope,

not

move.

Similarly,

he felt that

visiblemuscle tension

in

the

movements

of dancers

on

stage,

except

in the

portrayal

of

the

grotesque

or

the

morbid,

was a

symptom

of

poor

training,

not a

means of

directly creating

beauty.

Awkward

movements

were

unnatural

and hence

ugly.

Thus,

however

nteresting

Fokine's

wn

essays

n

grotesquerie,

as

in certain

passages

of

The

Firebird,

he neverconsidered

uch

movement

anything

other

than sideshow material.

His

rea-

soning

n this

regard

can

be inferred

from the

rhetorical

ques-

tionhe posedin a polemicdirectedagainstthe Germandanc-

er

Mary

Wigman:

What

sincerity

could

exist where

all

is

ruled

by

one

principle-do

everything

freakishly, strangely,

unusually? 59

Fokine's

constant

admonition

was that

dilet-

tantes,

those

lacking

a

thorough

classical

raining,

should

stay

off

the

stage,

just

as

pianists

should

hold

off

giving

recitals

until

they

can do

justice

to

their

music.

Understandably,

his

sense

of

professionalism

was offended

by poorly produced

work,

but

it seems not to

have occurred

to him

that much

of

what

appeared

amateurish

in

the

work

of those

developing

modern

dance

would

in due course

be amended.

Apart

from their

lack of

skill,

Fokine

faulted

modern danc-

ers

for

lacking

sufficient

knowledge

of the

past

history

of

dance

to

be

able

to contribute

to

the evolution of the art.

On

the contrary, they seemed inclined to make everlasting starts

from

the

very primitive

beginnings

which Fokine

found

pointless.60

Furthermore,

exponents

of modern dance

were

faddists: Ballet

is a form

of art.

Modernism is a

temporary

state,

a

period

in

the

evolution

of art. 6

Fokine was not

loath

to

tread

even farther

out

onto thin

ice:

he claimed that

the

last 25

years

[c.

1905-1930]

have

shown

that

the ballet can

be

progressive

and

modern,

and that

in it can

be found all

the

new

achievements

of the

dance. 62

His own

advice

for creat-

ing

something

novel

was

to

forget

the

theater and

transport

oneself

to another

world,

paying

no attention to the

demands

of tradition

or fashion.

He told

the critic Walter

Terry,

I

do

not

try

for

novelty.

Newness

comes

naturally.

When

I compose I forget my audience, and I forget myself. My

ideas

come

from

a

book,

from

music

or from

a dream-

my

themes

are

from

no one

period,

for

I love art

from

ancient

Egypt

up

to the

present.63

It

was

this

ability

to

appreciate

five thousand

years

of art that

Fokine felt

qualified

him to

reject

authoritatively

the work

of

Wigman

and Martha

Graham,

in which he could discover

no

historical,

ethnological,

or

psychological

truth.

Fokine

complained

that

in

modern

dance

everything

is

superseded

by

boldness

and

audacity, 4

an

opinion

that

seems

to

be related

to

his

sense of what

sort of dance

move-

ment

is

appropriate

for

women.

In

general,

Fokine

believed

dances

should be

wholesome,

indeed

spiritualized:

The

thea-

trical

art

in its

higher

levels

elevates itself above the

body

and

caters not

to

sensuality

but to the

brains and

imagination. 65

As far as

Fokine was

concerned,

Nijinsky's

Faun had been

pornographic

filth. 66

More

specifically,

Fokine's

notions of

masculinity

and

femininity

were

conventional

and,

corre-

spondingly,

he

tended to work

with

specialized

masculine

and

feminine movements.

In

particular,

Fokine's

men

were

usually

expected

to

display

more

power

than

his

women.67

Bold and

audacious

women

seemed

improper

to

Fokine

unless

they

were

members of an untamed

people,

such as

the Polo-

vetsian women

in

Prince

Igor,68

or

were,

like the

Firebird,

not

in fact human.

In

sum,

Fokine

promoted

a

style

of

dance which

made

heavy

use of his

version of

interpretive

movement.

He

af-

firmed aesthetic values of

naturalism,

vitality, joyfulness,

sty-

listic

consistency,

and,

above

all,

expressiveness. (The

latter,

though

often an elusive

notion,

in

Fokine's case can be taken

to mean

rather

literal

portrayal

of narrative actions and their

motivations.)

Some

of

these

values are almost

beyond

debate,

but what

they imply

for

movement

quality

and

characteriza-

tion will

vary according

to each

choreographer's

individual

vision.

Movement

Quality

and

Characterization

Fokine's standard for dancing grew out of his principles of

expressiveness

and

naturalism. He looked

for a

pliant body

moving

fluidly through

space

in

time with the

music. His

pupils

report

that in

class he

equated

beauty

with

perfection

of

line,

complete

follow-through

in

movement

(with

the

movement itself often on an

enlarged scale),

and

perfect

coor-

dination.

He

always taught by

phrase

and

allowed the

body

to

make

its

own

adjustments

in

moving

from one

pose

to

the

next in a

phrase.69

He

expected

his dancers

to

be

able to

link

natural

rhythms

of

running

and

walking

to

corresponding

musical meters and

depended

on

combinations of

different

rhythms

to

achieve

striking

choreographic

effects.70

From

Sol

Hurok we

learn that his

favorite words when

discussing

danc-

ing

were

laska

(a caress)

and

naslazhdaites

(enjoy

your-

self).71

Karsavina

argues

that

Fokine's standard of

beauty

was

essentially

the

same

as that

of

his

predecessors:

harmony,

soft-

ness and roundness. 72

But,

as Mikhail

Baryshnikov

points

out,

the result

in

Fokine is like

playing

with and

reshaping

the strict classical

style. 73

Nora

Kaye,

who

was

dancing

with

Ballet Theatre while Fokine worked

there,

lists as

character-

istics lack

of

rigidity

in the

hips

and

back,

loose arms

with

limp

wrists

and soft

elbows,

and a

slight

tendency

to

be off

balance.74

In

general,

Fokine tried

to

avoid the erect and

squared-off carriage

of

the

Petipa

dancer,

and there

were

several features of classical dance he

explicitly rejected.

One

was exclusive use of the five

turned-out

positions

of the

feet,

for which he had

discovered scant

precedent

in

painting

and

sculpture. Another was virtually exclusive use of dancing on

pointe

in

choreography

for

women.

Fokine

considered

pointe-

work suitable for

achieving

effects of

lightness,

as in the role

of the

Queen

of Shemakhan

in Le

Coq

d'Or,

but not for acro-

batics.

In the latter

category,

the virtuoso feat

he

most fer-

vently

condemned was

the

fouette,

a

step

he felt was

virtually

guaranteed

to

distract

a

ballerina

from

projecting

the

char-

acter

she was

playing.75

Fokine

had an

especial

distaste for

side-to-side

choreography,

with the dancers

continually

fac-

ing

the

audience

and

making

frequent

use of

second

position

and of movements

a

la

seconde.

76

Instead he relied

heavily

on

diagonal

movements and stressed

correct

epaulement

and use

of the

head,

citing

the

works

of

Auguste

Rodin

and

Michel-

angelo

as models.77

8

Dance

ResearchJournal

16/2

(Fall

1984)



8/11

How Fokine

put

his aesthetic

preferences

nto

practice

is

best seen

by

considering

actual

examples

of his

choreography.

Scheherazade

1910)

is an

early

instance both of Fokine'suse

of

mime and

of

his

handling

of

numbersof

dancers on

stage.

Fokine recalls

that

it was in

Scheherazade hat

I

applied

for

the

very

first time

my

principles

of

describing

action. The

actions

and emotionswere

expressed hrough

movementsand

positions

of the

body.

No one

'spoke'

with the hands. 78

What

most

thrilled audiences

was the notorious

orgy,

whose

impact

SergeGrigoriev,

Diaghilev'sregisseur,

attributednot

especial-

ly to itsvoluptuouselementsbut rather o itsvarietyof dances

and to its

timing:

the scene reached a

great

climax,

came

to

a

halt,

andthen unwound.79

Watching

the ballet 25

years

after

its

premiere,

Fokine

found it

unaged,80

not a unanimous

opinion.

Recent

productions

have been

appreciated

for

their

visual,

dramatic,

and

plastic

values,

if

not for their

stylized

eroticism.The ballet is

usually

characterized

imply

as

exotic,

but the

fairytale origins

of

this

exoticism should be

kept

in

mind. Fokine never

intended the

movements

he set to

be an

exercise

n

strict realism: he wanted not

simply

to

share

his

vision

of

Persia,

but also to

develop

a

fantastic

drama

whose

psychologicaldynamic

would have a

universal

resonance.

Fokine

repeatedly

claimed a

strong

interest in

psychology

and in

using

his

art to

portray

human

feelings accurately.

In

fact, he insisted that his dancers portrayed human beings

rather han

simplydisplaying

hemselves.8'

t was a feature

of

Fokine's

romanticism that the

major

characters

he

created

tend to be emblematic

rather than

particular

humans,

but

this does not

prevent

their

being

as

complex

as real individuals

are.

(It

is

the

nature of

their

complexity

that is the

object

of

artistic

choice.) According

o Fokine's

pupils,

he

almost invar-

iably

indicated

the

characterization

he

had

in mind

through

imagery

rather than

simply announcing

the emotions to be

portrayed.82

vidently,

however literal-mindedone

may

find

the

mime

through

which Fokine's

characters

in

large

part

express

hemselves,

his

approach

to

creating

roles was funda-

mentally

poetic,

i.e., creative,

imaginative.

Petrouchkacan

serve as

an

example

of

how Fokine was

able to exploitthe combinationof realismand fantasycharac-

teristic

of folktales to create

psychologically

sophisticated

roles

for

characters

one would

never

expect

to

encounter off-

stage.

In

John

Martin's

eyes,

Petrouchka

was the

first mod-

ern

ballet,

for

in it for the first time

choreography

was created

from

the inwardnessof

the characters. 83

aryshnikov

dvises

that

theuseof a

puppetlike

style

must,

first of

all,

be

clearly

designed

and then

performed

with a seamless

fluid

ease so

that it becomes

its own

standard,

so

that the

audience does

not feel that the

dancer is

'playing

a

doll. '84

Benois,

one of

the

librettists,

offers

a similar

insight,

but

in converse terms:

The

great

difficulty

of

Petrouchka's

part

is to

express

his

piti-

ful

oppression

and

his

hopeless

efforts to achieve

personal

dignity

without

ceasing

to be a

puppet. 8'

From either

per-

spective,

the idea is that the

performer

must

preserve

Pe-

trouchka's

dual

makeup.

Fokine

was

expert

at

creating

such

dualistic

characters and took considerable

pains

to

convey

to

his dancers the

inherent

oppositions

in

their

roles.

For

Pe-

trouchka,

he

says,

I

tried to create

puppetlike,

unnatural

movements

and,

at the same

time,

to

express

in

these

move-

ments three

totally

different characters

and

to

convey

the

plot

of

the drama-so

that,

in

spite

of

the

puppetlike

movements,

the

audience

would

be forced

to

respond

and

sympathize. 86

In Le

Spectre

de la Rose

(1911),

the ballet

Riviere

cited as

an

example

of Fokine's

falseness

in

portraying

emotion,

the

impression

rendered

can

certainly

be

spoiled

if the ballet's

roles

are sentimentalized.

Again,

the

key

is to

avoid

interpret-

ing

the

roles

simplistically.

In

his

memoirs Fokine

insiststhat

the danseur is

in

no

circumstances

a

'cavalier,'

a

ballerina's

partner. 87

Although

the

Spectre

is

guiding

the Girl

when

they

dance

together,

it

is

the

Girl's

dream that

engenders

the

Spectre's

movement. The dream has

both

real and

hallucina-

tory

aspects

which,

as her

consciousness

matures,

the

Girl

must

sort out.

She

must be

actively passive,

as

the critic

Clive

Barnes

puts

it.

Barnesadds

that he

was once

privileged

to watch TamaraKarsavina

ketch

out

a few

of the

gestures

and she evoked a

world of lost sentiment and social

structure.

It was

a Victorian

dream of the

purest

love. 88The

Spectre's

airbornemovement s quite distinct from the somnambulistic

movement

of the Girl. The man

must

be

a

poet-athlete

(Rob-

ert Lawrence's

term)

because the

dialectic

here

is

one of

strength

muted

by sensitivity.89

Having

struggled

so

consciously

o transcend he

expressive

conventions of traditional

ballet,

Fokine

objected

when his

workwas describedas

classical,

a

category

in

which

he

in-

cluded

not

only

ballets of the

Petipa

school,

but also

those,

like

Giselle,

which

are now more

likely

to

be

referred to as

romantic. 90

okine

acknowledged

that

his use

of idealized

(as

opposed

to

pedestrian)

movement

was

characteristic of

classical

ballet,

and he

agreed

that

ballet

technique

is valua-

ble

for the

variety

of

movement it

provides,

for the sense of

rhythm

and line

it

develops,

and

for the charm it adds

to

movements.Nevertheless,as far as his actual choreography

was

concerned,

he

felt that his care in

matching

movement

and music and his

departures

rom the

stereotypeddescriptive

and

symbolic

elements of

Petipa's

ballet,

from its

relatively

rigidupperbody moving always

en

dehors,

and

from its em-

phasis

on

virtuosity,

were so marked hat he deservedhis own

category

in

the

taxonomy

of

choreographic

tyles.

Ironically,

when

commentators

do make a

point

of distin-

guishing

Fokine's

work

from that

of

Petipa,

it

is

generally

in

the

process

of

assigning Petipa's

the

higher

rank.

Arguing

along

the

same lines

as

Levin

(see previous

section),

the critic

ArleneCroce attributes his

outcome to a crisis

n the

poetics

of dance which came to a

head

in

the

1920s.

The issue to be

resolved

was

exactly

that

which

engaged

Fokine as a

rising

choreographern the earlyyearsof the century:is the expres-

sive

potential

of dance seated

in the

color,

the

drama,

the

'mimetic

body'

of

[a]

Fokine

or in

poetic

distillation,

hat

is,

in

an

emphasis

on

dancing

with

no

meaning apart

from

itself? 91 okine answered

one

way,

Balanchine the

other,

and it was the latter whose

position prevailed.

Those

who

welcomed Balanchine's

ormalism

were

drawn as

well

to the

kindred

quality

of

Petipa'schoreography.

The term clas-

sical has come

to

be

used to

refer to the

style epitomized

by

Petipa,

and

it is

in

this

narrower

sense of the

word that Fo-

kine's

work

is

non-classical.

On

the

other

hand,

the formal

tradition

n ballet

and,

for want of

a

better

term,

what

might

be called the

interpretative

radition

are

coequal.

Each has its

own

characteristic

genres(for

example, symphonism

n the

caseof the formaltradition,andthe folktalein the case of the

interpretative

radition),

and these

genres,

in

turn,

tend

to

give

rise to

distinct

approaches

o movement

and

characteri-

zation.

The

Firebird

(1910),

one

of the

small

number

of Fokine's

works o

have

survived he

crisisof

poetics

of the

1920s,

is a

pure

example

of

Fokine's

adoption

of the

fairytale genre

to

embody

his

principles

of

expressiveness.

n Karsavina's

iew,

this

ballet

broke

resh

ground

in

treating

fairy

tales

without

adulteration,

preserving

all

their

ruthlessness,

vigor,

and

exotic

flavor. 92

hree

types

of

movementare

employed:gro-

tesque

and

angular

for

the

evil

kingdom,

natural and soft

for

the

princesses,

and

on

pointe

without turnout or

academic

steps

for the

Firebird.

The

Firebird

must

express

n her move-

Dance

Research

Journal

16/2

(Fall11984)

9



9/11

ments the

tension

experienced

by

a creature

whose

wings

would

normally

allow

her

to move

with

great

freedom,

but

who

is,

for

the

moment,

under restraint.93

According

to

Kar-

savina,

Fokine wanted the

Firebird not

to be

graceful,

but

rather

powerful,

hard to

manage,

and rebellious with no

human emotion. The

Firebird is

proud,

arrogant.

She

gives

the

feather

only

to

buy

her

freedom,

not

to

help

the

Prince.

She

returns

because she

made a

promise

which

she fulfills. 94

Fokine

did not want

people

to

imagine

he

promoted

reforms

in ballet

production

because

he

was

incapable

of

composing

in the classical tradition, broadly defined. Les Sylphides is his

demonstration of command

of the

classical

idiom

and is

un-

derstandably

treated

by

most as

sui

generis

among

Fokine's

works.

The

choreographer's

own

view

was that

In

this

ballet

I

expressed

my

sentiments

more

clearly

than

in

any

other,

more

clearly

even than

in

my

own

program

of reforms....

With

the

production

of the

Chopiniana

Waltz

I

wanted

to

show

how

I

understood

the

unique

beauty

of the

classical

dance.95

Given its

music

and

costumes,

it is

easy

for the

ballet to

lose

its

exquisite

antithetical

quality

of

infinite

movement

and

ap-

parent

calm,96

and become

sentimentalized,

even

queer.

The

ballet's

simplicity

and

deliberateness

are

its

infrastructure,

synthesized from lyric movement, sustained poses (often ara-

besques),

and

repetitions.

Its

superstructure

is framed

by

the

variety

of

entrances

and

exits

for

the soloists

and

incorporates

the

ensemble

as an

important

element

of its

design.97

Arnold

Haskell

observed

Fokine

stage

Les

Sylphides

in 1936

and

reported

it

was

slower

and

more

deliberate

than

we

usually

see

it,

far

richer

in detail.

The

greatest

difference

of all lies

in

the

treatment

of

the arms

which

are

meltingly

soft

and

rounded. 98

Fokine

made

a

point

of

establishing

a

quality

of

movement

for the

danseur

different

from

that

of

the female

soloists:

as

in

Spectre,

the

male must combine

aspects

of

spir-

ituality

and

strength.

If

Les

Sylphides

is to be

performed

as

Fokine

intended,

its

cast

must

not

be led to think

of it as

Fo-

kine's

lone

extant

essay

in the

academic

style.

For

this

ballet,

as for all his others, Fokine wanted the particular quality of

movement

which

he found

consistent

with

his

aesthetic

prin-

ciples.

And,

despite

the

absence

of

explicit

characters,

he

wanted

his

dancers

to

bring

to

their

parts

something

more

than

just

the

steps.

Sono

Osato,

who

performed

in the

ballet

under Fokine's

direction,

recalls

that

Fokine

said

a dancer

should

never

move

in

Sylphides

until

inspired

by

some

image

of

nature. 99

Conclusion

When

Fokine's

memoirs

were

published

in

English

in

1961,

reviewers

tended

to

comment

on his

diminished

influence.

The

historian

bringing fokine to light

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