Parade The Influence of Visual Art on Ballet & the Accidental Origins of Intermedia By Natalia Valerdi, University of California, San Diego

1917 2005 Parade: The First Steps Toward a New Art Form

“When a work seems ahead of its age, it is really the age which has yet to catch up the the work.” – Jean Cocteau 1

The red curtain opens, only to reveal a second curtain. Picasso’s canvas displays a Harlequin, a Columbine and a Pierrot along with a bullfighter, a sailor and a moor juxtaposed with a Pegasus, a sylph and a starred ball. Satie’s Prelude of the Red Curtain plays.2 When this curtain is lifted, sirens, a typewriter and sound of pistol shots3 fill the air. A Chinese Magician appears and produces a trick in which he swallows a ball and makes it re-appear out of his foot. He is clever and satisfied with his trick. Soon, two men in tall costumes (one that looks like downtown Manhattan) enter the scene with voices that sound like megaphones. Eventually, there is dancing and soon enough we hear a melody. To some, this may appear as common postmodern choreography, but when Parade was first performed in the spring of 1917 by the Ballet Russe in Paris, the audience, who disfavored this avant-garde ballet, had little appreciation of the theatrical breakthrough they were witnessing.4 This benchmark production initiated a series of collaborations between choreographers and visual artists to create theatrical Figure 1: Pablo Picasso. Stage Curtain for the Ballet productions that we still see “Parade”. 1917. Pompidou, Paris. 3 Nov. 2005 today. Though not unusual http://www.tancelet.hu/picasso.php for our time, it was an outrage during its premiere in Paris during the spring of 1917. The result of these collaborations indirectly led to the development of Intermedia. Apollinaire expanded on his idea of the ‘new spirit’ in dance during a lecture he gave at the Théâtre du Vieux Colomier in November, 1917. He

1 Cocteau wrote the original script for Parade. See Axsom, Richard H. “Parade”: Cubism as Theater. (New York: Garland Publishing, 1979) p. 219: He refers to Oeuvres completes de Jean Cocteau 3 (Geneva: Marguerat, 1946): 3: “Lorsqu’une oeuvre semble en avance sur son époque, c’est simplement que son époque est en retard sur elle.” 2 The Great Parade: Portrait of the Artist as a Clown. “The Picasso Curtain” (2004. 2 Nov. 2005. < http://www.gallery.ca/exhibitions/exhibitions/parade/english/curtain.html>) 3 Potter, Michelle. “Diaghilev Festival.” Ballet.co Magazine. Ed. Bruce Marriott. (2005. 30 Oct. 2005 ) 4 Axsom, “Parade”, p. 1 describes part of an argument between Cocteau and Apollinaire saying, “…the poet of the future will direct large, multi-media works” and suggests that the modern poet “will attempt to amplify the art of the dance…”5 Like Béjart, Dick Higgins revives this idea in the 60’s. Higgins coined the term “intermedia” in the 60’s to describe the tendency of new art to cross boundaries or to fuse with media that may not have been considered art before.6 This parallelism is a direct result of the legacy left behind by Parade, fusing sets, costumes, music and ballet during a time when ballet had not been fully recognized as an independent art form. Parade was performed in the Théâtre du Châtelet as a benefit for the War Benefit Fund, yet it was less than courteously received.9 This conservative audience did not understand the degree of innovation they were witnessing. For Parade, Ballet Russe’s entrepreneur Sergei Diaghilev rounded up Jean Cocteau, who conceived the story and wrote the libretto; Pablo Picasso who designed the sets and costumes; Erik Satie, who composed the music; and Leonide Massine, who choreographed the ballet. Diaghilev supported the making of new art in multiple ways. Parade is considered a breakthrough because it was the first Cubist ballet ever to set foot on stage. Another, less recognized innovation, is the collaboration of the artists who created Parade, before collaboration was a working model. Finally, the lasting impact visual art had on the face of ballet. Today it seems absurd to think of costumes, set and dance as created separately for a single ballet. But during the nineteenth century, all these elements were independent of each other. Emphasis was placed on realistic scenery that imitated everyday life, often juxtaposed with dream-like sequences of ethereal worlds. Mime was the primary language used to convey emotion to the audiences who accepted codes inherited from the courts of Louis XIV. Jean Georges Noverre’s Letters on Dancing and Ballets (1760) influenced the construction of the idea of unity in the creation of a stage piece. As a leading advocate of ballet d’action, Nouverre “argues that ballets should be unified works of art in which all aspects of the production contribute to the main theme.”10 The popular form at the time, ballet à entrée emphasized plotless display with declaimed verse, while ballet d’action emphasized unity and drama, making ballet an independent theatrical spectacle for the first time.11 Nouverre envisioned the

5 Axsom, “Parade”, p. 54. See Francis Steegmuller, Apollinaire: Poet among the Painters (New York: Farrar and Straus, 1963. See Steegmuller’s Appendix II) 6 Friedman, Ken. Umbrella. Judith A. Hoffberg. (Dec. 1998. 30 Oct. 2005 ) 9 Axsom, “Parade”, p. 1 10 Anderson, Jack. Ballet & Modern Dance: A Concise History. 2nd ed. (Hightstown, NJ: Princeton Book Company, 1992) p. 60-61 11 Anderson, Ballet, p. 60 integration of scenery, costumes, music, mime and book.12 While few of his reforms were adopted during his lifetime, most were seen again during the beginning of the twentieth century when Isadora Duncan and Michel Fokine, choreographer for the Ballet Russe, revived them. In 1909 Diaghilev invited Fokine to be the first balletmaster for the Ballet Russe. The keen and ambitious theatrical producer sought to bring new art to Western European audiences, in particular the Russian avant-garde; and though he recognized he was not an intellectual nor an artist, his talents as critic and coordinator changed the course of ballet history through his support of accomplished innovative artists13. Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe flourished between 1909 and 1929. During this time the Ballet Russe went through two phases: the pre-war phase, which is also known as the Russian phase, and the French phase, which lasted from the last year of the First World War until Diaghilev’s death in 1929.14 During the pre-war phase, Diaghilev was on a mission to bring Russian art to the rest of the world. Fokine, frustrated with the restrictions imposed by his previous compatriots at the Maryinsky15, was the perfect ally. Fokine’s ‘Five Principles of the New Ballet’ flourished under Diaghilev’s heroic entrepreneurship, which led to the creation of memorable works such as Firebird, Schéhérazade and Petrouchka. Most notable are his establishment of the one-act ballet, which became the norm in European and American ballet theaters, as well as the principle that each work should be choreographed in a style that is unique and appropriate to its particular narrative or theme.16 This is clearly articulated in Fokine’s letter to The Times in 1914, in which he describes the fifth Principle as “the alliance of dancing with other arts. The new ballet, refusing to be the slave either of music or of scenic decoration, and recognizing the alliance of the arts only in the condition of complete equality… gives complete liberty to their creative powers.”17 Diaghilev and Fokine shared this view of art which legitimized ballet in its own artistic category, much like Nouverre had envisioned in 1760, while simultaneously integrating ballet with other art forms, resulting in a fully coordinated ballet production. This quality was strikingly foreign to nineteenth- century ballet when the custom was for the choreographer, composer, set and costume designers to generate their ideas separately, and for the artistic director to pull them together in the end just before production. Richard H. Axsom, who completed his History of Art dissertation on Parade in 1979 at the University of Michigan examines the layers of the collective

12 Axsom, “Parade”, p. 31 13 Axsom, “Parade”, p. 11 14 Axsom, “Parade”, p. 20-24 15 Anderson, Ballet, p. 122 16 Anderson, Ballet, p. 123 17 Anderson, Ballet, p. 135. See Michel Fokine, “Letter to The Times, July 6th, 1914: The Five Principles,” in Cyril W. Beaumont, Michel Fokine and His Ballets (London: C.W. Beaumont, 1945, pp. 145-147) efforts of the artists thoroughly from cover to cover. During the time of his investigation, the Joffrey Ballet staged a reconstruction of Parade. Leonide Massine was invited to supervise the reconstruction, allowing Axsom to conduct a series of interviews which deepened his understanding of the collaborative quality the Ballet Russe pioneered18.The theme of his dissertation emphasizes that what has been missing in the critical literature of each approach to Parade – literary, musical, choreographic and scenic, had been the awareness “of how the four dimensions of Parade worked in ensemble.” In other words, what had been missing was the relationship of the parts.19 Axsom suggests that the isolated critical works of each field (litereary, musical, choreographic and scenic), subtly inhibit a broader perspective on Parade. They isolate the parts instead of evaluating the whole, the latter of which could reveal new information.20 This inclusive perspective has influenced ballet profoundly and propelled new ideas that served as the seeds for emerging concepts such as ‘collaboration’, ‘new media’ and ‘intermedia.’ These concepts are only now beginning to achieve recognition in academia. Axsom even suggest a relationship between Parade’s Cubism and Intermedia. However, he quickly veers away from this idea to instead explore how Parade worked as a vehicle for placing Cubism, a two-dimensional art, within a theatrical setting.21 Picasso’s collaborations with the Ballet Russe caused a ripple of changes, which have taken many years to integrate and analyze. But for Diaghilev, this idea was well overdue.

Diaghilev and Picasso: The War and Art

Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929) enrolled in St. Petersburg Law School in 1890, during which time when he began participating in a literary group. By 1898, he led the group in publishing their first arts periodical, The World of Art. The Nevsky Pickwickians had a two-fold mission: to break Russia from her isolation from the west while revitalizing her traditions with modernism, and to present the artistic heritage of Russia in the west. The success of this periodical led Diaghilev to the theater, where he found the perfect vehicle for bringing together several arts in a single event.22 In 1909, out of that same mission, the Ballet Russe was born. Diaghilev was at the forefront of integration in the arts and applied his talents as an entrepreneur to divulge the arts throughout Europe. He incorporated several new “ism” available: Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism and

18 Axsom, “Parade”, p. 7 19 ibid 20 Axsom, “Parade”, p. 4 21 Axsom, “Parade”, p. 8 22 Anderson, Ballet, p. 13-15 Constructivism. Parade was Diaghilev’s first authentic statement of this new artistic strategy.23 In modern art, an “ism” is thought to be a certain radical kind of form.24 This ‘radical’ phenomenon came after a series of wars: World War I (1914 to 1918), the Russian Revolution (1905) and the French defeat in the Franco- Prussian War (1870). These events disintegrated the philanthropic system of the time, giving way to the public gallery spaces we know today. Unknowingly, this also made room for the unexpected. In the mid-1880’s, artists sought an art that was true to itself and less about imitating the outside world. This outlook eventually led to Cubism around 190825, to which Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque gave full expression. There were three principal influences affecting how Picasso would design Parade: the break with artistic conventions through impressionistic ideas, Japanese line art and the fragmentation of perspective. The latter is a trait of the ‘avant-garde’, a military term coined early in the nineteenth century by French critic Saint-Simon who described the ‘avant-garde’ to be a result of progressive social action, art and science26 at the wake of the Industrial Revolution. Diaghilev and Picasso were in the eye of the storm. Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was born in Malaga, Spain. After moving to Barcelona in 1895, where his father Don José Ruiz Blasco was an art teacher at the School of Fine Arts, he decided to move to Paris in 1900. During this time, also known as his Blue Period, the melancholic qualities of his work suggest longing while depicting derelicts, starving children and beggars.27 During Picasso’s Rose Period, lasting only two years from 1905 to 1906, he began to use circus performers as his subjects, airy and graceful, yet alienated and still melancholic. This paradox of mournful yet heroic clowns is central to the development of the character of the Chinese Magician in Parade, a role Massine himself performed during the premiere, and which he created in conjunction with Picasso, building parts of the Cubist puzzle in all areas of the ballet. The foundation of Cubist thought is indicative of the time when Sigmund Freud published his first book on the subconscious and during the discovery of the atom. The Cubist image “conformed to the new scientific knowledge that human perception derives not from a single, all-encompassing glance but from a succession of ‘takes’, from the experience stored in the memory and from the intellect’s capacity to intellectualize form.”28 Thus to the flat, bass-relief image,

23 Anderson, Ballet, p. 22 24 Hunter, Sam and John Jacobus. Modern Art. 3rd ed. (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1992) p. 9 25 ibid. 26 Hunter, Modern Art, p. 18 27 Hunter, Modern Art, p. 133 28 ibid. the fourth dimension of time was added, making Cubism the perfect artistic module for the stage. Cubism was fully integrated into the ballet. The sets and costumes conceived of through Cubist forms related to the piece as a commentary rather than as a backdrop. In fact, Picasso would not consider the independent elements Cubist by themselves. Instead he considered them part of Parade’s Cubist paradigm. All parts were integrated with one another to the extent that removing or redesigning any element of the production would alter the vision Picasso had for the entire ballet.29

From Avant-Garde to Intermedia

Guillaume Apollinaire, an art critic during the avant-garde movement wrote program notes for Parade.30 In tracking the effects of this collaborative effort on the part of the Ballet Russe and its associates, he began to describe the outlines of a ‘new spirit’ rising out of cultural democratization, globalism and technological development, claiming that the ‘old regime’ had expired on the battlefield.31 He signals the beginning of a democratic avant-garde and introduced the world ‘Surrealism’ to the public in his program notes for Parade.32 It took four years for audiences to accept such artistic reforms. Parade’s debut in the spring of 1917 witnessed the disfavor the Parisian audience felt towards this avant-garde ballet.33 Such is the history of taste that Parade was the fashionable hit of the season when it was revived four years later.34 Parade was revived by the Joffrey Ballet in 1973, as well as by Maurice Béjart, who also mounted a major revival of the ballet in the sixties.35 Both were drawn to the ballet because of its attempt to realize Gordon Craig’s idea of Total Theatre, defined as “the intersection of symbolic meaning with music”.36 Other reconstructions of Parade include the Bordeaux Opera Ballet’s 2003 tribute to Diaghilev in Paris.37 Although a worker’s strike impeded this performance, it was performed as part of the Edinburg Festival later that year.38

29 Axsom, “Parade”, p. 187 30 Adamson, Walter L. “Apollinaire’s Politics: Modernism, Nationalism, and the Public Sphere in Avant- garde Paris. Modernism/Modernity 6.3 (1999. 28 Oct. 2005 ) p. 33 31 Adamson, Modernism, p. 51 32 Adamson, Modernism, p. 52 33 Axsom, “Parade”, p. 1 34 Axsom, “Parade”, p. 2 35 Axsom, “Parade”, p. 207 36 Axsom, “Parade”, p. 52: E.P. Kirby, Total Theatre, p. xvi. 37 Boccadoro, Patricia. “Worker’s Strikes Perturb ‘Picasso and the Dance.’” Culture Kiosque Dance: Reviews (2003. 30 Oct. 2005 ) 38 Studio International. Ed. Michael Spens (2003. 30 Oct. 2005 ) What is left is a legacy of collaborations between artists which began with Picasso’s designs for six ballets, including Le Tricone (1919) which later became Three-Cornered Hat,39 Pulcinella (1920), Cuadro Flamenco (1921), Afternoon of a Faun (1922 revival), Mercure (1924), and Le Train bleu (1924).40 Thanks to Diaghilev’s vision, the Ballet Russe continued its collaborations with a range of visual artist as scenic and costume designers. Among the collaborators were Benois, Roerich, Korovine, Bakst, Gontcharova, Jones, Picaso, Matisse, Survage, Braque, Ernst, Miro, Cocteau, Tchelitchev, and Rouault. Choreographers and visual artists continue to leave their mark in history through their collaborations. Most notable are the works crafted by the choreographic genius of Maurice Béjart, Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham and Pina Bausch, among others. Intermedia is evolving thanks to artists, critics, pioneers and entrepreneurs such as Diaghilev, Picasso, Cocteau, Bausch, Cunningham, Graham, Béjart and Higgins. It is because of them that art forms, while continuously shaped by social and political climates, have continued to relate to one another, and thus making way for new visions and openings. Even though many works were ahead of their time, such as Parade, many of their achievements survive and continue to inspire subsequent generations to realize a continuous ‘new spirit.’ Such is the history of taste. 

39 “Three-Cornered Hat” American Ballet Theatre. (29 Oct. 2005 ) 40 Axsom, “Parade”, p. 225 Front Cover Illustrations

Front Cover left: Picasso, Pablo. French Manager’s Costume. 1917. The International Museum of Collage, Assemblage and Construction. 31 Oct. 2005 < http://post- dogmatist-arts.net/museum/collage/picasso001.htm> Front cover right: Picasso, Pablo. American Manager’s Costume. 2005. Diaghilev Festival 2005. 29 Oct. 2005

References

Adamson, Walter L. “Apollinaire’s Politics: Modernism, Nationalism, and the Public Sphere in Avant-garde Paris.” Modernism/Modernity 6.3 (1999). 28 Oct. 2005 Anderson, Jack. Ballet & Modern Dance: A Concise History. 2nd ed. Hightstown, NJ: Princeton Book Company, 1992. Axsom, Richard H. “Parade”: Cubism as Theater. New York: Garland Publishing, 1979. Boccadoro, Patricia. “Worker’s Strikes Perturb ‘Picasso and the Dance.’” Culture Kiosque Dance: Reviews. 2003. 30 Oct. 2005 Friedman, Ken. Umbrella. Ed. Judith A. Hoffberg. Dec. 1998. 30 Oct. 2005 Hunter, Sam and John Jacobus. Modern Art. 3rd ed. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1992. “Leonide Massine.” American Ballet Theatre. 29 Oct. 2005 Potter, Michelle. “Diaghilev Festival.” Ballet.co Magazine. Ed. Bruce Marriott. 2005. 30 Oct. 2005. Studio International. Ed. Michael Spens. 2003. 30 Oct. 2005 “The Picasso Curtain” The Great Parade: Portrait of the Artist as a Clown. 2004. The American Express Foundation. 2 Nov. 2005 “Three-Cornered Hat.” American Ballet Theatre. 29 Oct. 2005