Michel Fokine

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In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Mikhaylovich and the family name is Fokine.

Michael Fokine
Михаил Фокин
choreographer
SpouseVera Fokina

Michael Fokine

choreographer and dancer
.

Career

Early years

Fokine costumed for the role of Lucien d'Hervilly, in Marius Petipa's 1905 production of the ballet Paquita
Fokine as the spectre in a 1914 production of the Ballets Russes' Le Spectre de la rose
Fokine directing the rehearsals of the ballet Aphrodite in 1919

Fokine was born in

Imperial Russian Ballet. In addition to being a talented dancer, Fokine was also passionate about painting and displayed talent in this area as well. He also played musical instruments, including mandolin (played on stage in ensemble led by Ginislao Paris), domra, and balalaika (played in Vasily Andreyev's Great Russian Orchestra).[1]

Transition to choreographer

He became frustrated with the life of a dancer and began considering other paths, including painting. In 1902, he was offered a teaching position at the Imperial Ballet School and was able to explore the artistic possibilities of choreography. In 1905, he created his first full-length ballet, Acis et Galatée, which was performed by his students and based on a Sicilian legend. Among his students were Desha Delteil and Bronislava Nijinska.

Some of Fokine's early works include the ballet Acis and Galatea (1905) and

Chopiniana (1907), which was renamed Les Sylphides
in 1909.

Ballets Russes

In 1909,

historical accuracy, the ballet was successful due to its brilliant colors, exoticism, and sexual overtones.[2]
The 1910 production featured Nijinsky in the role of the Golden Slave.

grand jeté out of the young girl's bedroom window, timed so the audience would last see him suspended in mid-air. In 1912, Fokine created an adaptation of Daphnis et Chloé
.

He left Ballets Russes in 1912. In 1914, Diaghilev convinced Fokine to return to Ballets Russes, where he then created the ballets Midas, Josephslegende, and Le Coq d'Or.[3] The Paris premiere of The Golden Cockerel by Ballets Russes in 1914 was an opéra-ballet, guided by Fokine with set design by Natalia Goncharova.

American Ballet Company

The outbreak of the

First World War in August 1914, disrupted the established touring circuit, which included countries now on opposing sides. Many dancers, including Fokine, returned to their home countries. He moved to Sweden with his family in 1918, and later established his home in New York City, where he founded a ballet school in 1921, and continued to appear with his wife, Vera Fokina. One of his pupils was Patricia Bowman. By 1924, he organized the American Ballet Company, which performed regularly at the Metropolitan Opera House and toured the United States. His first piece for the company was the comedy Bluebeard, set to a score by Jacques Offenbach
.

His ballet Les Sylphides was the first production at the American Ballet Theatre on 11 January 1940. In 1937, Fokine joined Wassily de Basil's offshoot of the Ballets Russes, which was eventually named the Original Ballet Russe. Among the new works Fokine created during this period were Cendrillon (1938) and Paganini (1939). His choreography was featured with the company until 1941.

Fokine staged more than eighty ballets in

Chopiniana, Le Carnaval (1910), and Le Pavillon d'Armide (1907). His pieces are still performed internationally. The Mariinsky Ballet performed a retrospective of Fokine's work at London's Covent Garden
in July 2011.

Death

Fokine died in New York on 22 August 1942, aged 62. In tribute to his death, seventeen ballet companies around the world performed Les Sylphides simultaneously.[citation needed]

Teaching methods and style

Fokine aspired to move beyond traditional ballet, toward a method of utilizing ballet to communicate the natural beauty of Man. He did not believe virtuoso ballet techniques to symbolize anything, and thought they could be substituted with forms that better expressed emotions and themes. Fokine was a strong believer in the communicative power of dance and pushed for creativity that broke tradition, believing that tradition is often distinct from reality and fails to capture the entire spectrum of human emotions. He believed that unless movements are expressive, they are irrational and neither delightful nor tolerable.[4]

Fokine also sought to strip ballets of their artificial technicality and outdated costumes. He believed that many of the ballets of his time used costumes and techniques that did not reflect the themes of the ballets. Fokine studied

Egyptian art, including vase painting and sculpture, and incorporated these into his ballets. As a choreographer, he took ballerinas out of their pointe shoes when pointe did not serve any "artistic purpose". He believed that pointe should be used when the dancing body desires to express a soaring and upward theme, rather than to flaunt the strength of dancers' feet. He presented this new idea to the Imperial Mariinsky Theater
's management, but did not win their support. One of Fokine's requests was to have his dancers perform barefoot in his 1907 ballet Eunice. His request was denied, and Fokine had toes painted on the dancers' tights so they would appear to be barefoot.

He also experimented with shifting the emphasis of movement away from the lower body and towards the whole body, with freer use of the arms and torso and using each muscle with clear intention.[4] In doing so, Fokine sought to unify motion with emotion and the body with the soul, bringing new life to the ballet as a language and an art.

In 1923, he choreographed the ballet Ajanta Frescoes for Anna Pavlova after she had been inspired by her visit to the Ajanta Caves.[5]

Cultural depiction

Tribute To Ballet, with Prefatory poem To M. Michel Fokine, by John Masefield (1938)

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ French transliteration Michel Fokine; English transliteration Mikhail Fokin; Russian: Михаил Михайлович Фокин, Mikhail Mikhaylovich Fokin
  1. ^ Fokine, Michel (author), Anatole Chujoy (editor). Fokine: Memoirs of a Ballet Master. Little, Brown and Company., 1961.
  2. ISBN 9780500203521
    .
  3. ISBN 0-297-77506-5
    , p. 268.
  4. ^
    ISBN 0-87127-173-7
    .
  5. ^ Lakshmi Shreeram, "The Pavlova Project: A unique exhibition presents the life and work of legendary ballerina through her costumes", Firstpost, 21 January 2020.. https://www.firstpost.com/living/the-pavlova-project-a-unique-exhibition-presents-the-life-and-work-of-legendary-ballerina-through-her-costumes-7928291.html. Retrieved 21 March 2021.

References

  • Beaumont, C. W., Michel Fokine and His Ballets,
    ISBN 1-85273-050-1
  • Anderson, Jack. "DANCE VIEW; Fokine -- The Undervalued Revolutionary". The New York Times. 7 September 1980. p. 8.
  • "Michel Fokine|Russian Dancer and Choreographer."
    Encyclopædia Britannica Online
    . Encyclopædia Britannica. Web. 21 February 2016.

External links

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