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To: Borges
I think The Rite of Spring was shocking because audiences were so used to the ballet style as done by Marius Petipa for the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg in Russia that this was radical change. Indeed, the eventual success of this very ballet made it possible for develop the so-called "modern dance" style of ballet that began to happen in the 1930's.
6 posted on 05/25/2013 7:11:13 AM PDT by RayChuang88 (FairTax: America's economic cure)
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To: RayChuang88

No no no no no no.
The concept of modern dance came from Isadora Duncan, who was inspired by the painting and sculpture of ancient Greece. Duncan was already world famous - and living in Paris - when this ballet was staged. She had performed in Russia frequently, beginning in 1905, and her ideas had a huge impact on Stanislavsky, who became her close friend, and on the choreographer Fokine, and on the intelligentsia of Russia. Nijinsky had already seen her dance, and had also seen the work of Duncan’s brother, Raymond, who lived in Greece and was married to a Greek woman. Raymond Duncan had staged his versions of classical Greek plays in Paris that employed a chorus going across the stage in sideways motion, imitating the figures on Greek frieze paintings and ceramics. Nijinsky had seen that performance in Paris in 1908 or 1909, and that was the source of his inspiration for the choreography for The Rite of Spring.


20 posted on 05/25/2013 9:49:57 AM PDT by kabumpo (Kabumpo)
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