By Sierra Holt
After the first season of the Ballets Russes began in 1909, the world of ballet was never the same. Formed by Serge Pavlovich Diaghilev, Ballets Russes performances brought an avant-garde rethinking of classical and new ballets through the dances they performed and the artistic materials (sets, props, and costumes) used to tell these stories. No longer were productions reliant on symbolist thinking with simple backgrounds and ballerinas performing in stiff tutus. At a Ballets Russes production, colorful illustrations draped the stage, and costumes were equally eye-catching. They were often bejeweled, heavily embroidered, and/or graphically patterned. This attire channeled popular art movements of its time, including Art Nouveau and Russian Futurism, but they were also durable wares for the stage. “[The costume] wasn’t just designed to be beautiful,” explains the show’s guest curator, costume and dance historian Caroline Hamilton. “It had to work with the dancer, it had to move, it had to convey the story.” Those making these unforgettable designs were equally as enthralling; the company employed many talented artists and designers on the cusp of Western art and design, including famously Léon Bakst, Pablo Picasso, and fashion designer and financial patron of the company Coco Chanel, who made minimalistic costumes for a 1924 production of Le Train Bleu.
Read more at The Magazine Antiques.
Image credit: Curtain design for the prologue in Le Coq d’Or (The Golden Cockerel) by Natalia Gontcharova, 1913. All objects are in the collection of the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas; gift of The Tobin Theatre Arts Fund. © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris, all photographs are courtesy of the McNay Art Museum.
