The Rite of Spring, Rite #2 [2018 remodelled version]  

An extract remodelled by La Boucle (Besançon, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté), artistic manager Sylvie Remlinger, as part of the “Danse en amateur et répertoire” programme (2017/2018) (a programme created to assist and promote amateur dancing).

Transmission by Dominique Brun, Clarisse Chanel et Marie Orts.

Presented on 26 May 2018, Les 2 Scènes, Théâtre Ledoux, Besançon.

The piece when it was created

Le Sacre du printemps

Firstly produced 29 May 1913 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris

Choreography: Vaslav Nijinski

Piece for 46 performers:  

act I : Maria Piltz, Mrs Tchernychowa, Maïkerska, Pflanz, Kopytsinska, Bonietska, Kokhlowa, Poiré, Ramberg, Doris, Wasilewska, Boiefska, Ieserska, Dombrowska, Pojerska, Razoumowitch, Boni, Maningsowa, Joulitska, Bromney, Ludmila Guliuk, Alexander Vorontzov, Mr Fedorow, Froman, Sergueiew, Statkevitch, Kowalsky, Maliguine, Kostetsky, Zelinsky, Kremmew, Kotchetowsky, Gavrilow, Bourman, Zverew, Semenow, Rakmanow, Ivanowsky, Warzinsky, Romanow, Oumansky, Savitsky, Tarassow, Kegler, Loboïko, Goudine

act II : Maria Piltz, Mrs Tchernychowa, Maïkerska, Pflanz, Kopytsinska, Bonietska,Dombrowska, Kokhlowa, Maningsova, Poiré, Ramberg, Doris, Mr Semenow, Rakmanow, Ivanowsky, Oumansky, Warzinsky, Froman, Fedorow, Kowalsky, Statkewitch, Kotchetowsky, Kremmew, Bourman, Gavrilow,

Sveriew, Tarassow, Savitsky, Kegler, Loboïko, Goudine

Music: Sacre du printemps d’Igor Stravinsky

Original duration: 35 minutes

Sacre #2

Firstly produced 13 March 2014 at the Manège – Scène nationale in Reims

Choreography: Dominique Brun

Piece for 37 performers : Julie Salgues the chosen one and (the women) Caroline Baudouin, Marine Beelen, Anne Bogard, Garance Bréhaudat, Lou Cantor, Clarisse Chanel, Sophie Gérard, Anne Laurent, Anne Lenglet, Marie Mangin, Maud Marquet, Emma Noël, Marie Orts, Laurie Peschier-Pimont, Coline Periano, Maelys Perlot, Maud Pizon, Mathilde Rance, Margot Robinet, Enora Rivière, Marcela Santander-Corvalan, Lina Schlageter, (the men) Roméo Agid, Matthieu Bajolet, Fernando Cabral, Loïc Faquet, Miguel Garcia Llorens, Maxime Guillon-Roi-Sans-Sac, Corentin Le Flohic, Johann Nöhles, Édouard Pelleray, Sylvain Prunenec, Jonathan Schatz, Pierre Tedeschi, Vincent Weber, Alexis Zelis 

Music: extracts from the Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky, conduction Esa-Pekka Salonen

Original duration: 33 minutes

The group

La Boucle (Besançon, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté) 

The group is made up of female dance students from three artistic educational structures: the Galerie de la Danse, an independent structure, the Conservatoire du Grand Besançon, and the Conservatoire de Pontarlier. The amateur dancers, all driven by the same passion, are aged thirteen to eighteen. They practice both classical and contemporary dance. They meet up regularly at shows and master classes organised in partnership with Les 2 Scènes and participate in dance training courses set up by the three structures. They benefit and contribute to dance dynamics in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region. 

The project 

The Rite of Spring, although stemming from the classical production repertoire of the Ballets russes, paved the way for today’s contemporary dance. Consequently, the work falls in between classical and contemporary dance and allows a form of transversality that brings the dancers together without having to worry about to which genre they belong. The group approached Vaslav Nijinsky’s work using the various sources and archives of the era of creation, before revealing its choreographic language, feeling its archaic body, working the relationship with space, measuring the energy flowing through it and, last but not least, understanding the special relationship that Vaslav Nijinsky enjoyed with Igor Stravinsky’s music and, in particular, with his rhythmic dimension.

Nijinsky was a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer of Polish descent. Nijinsky was one of the most gifted male dancers in history.  His ability to perform seemingly gravity-defying leaps was legendary.  Nijinsky was born in Kiev, Ukraine, son of Polish dancers Tomasz Niżyński and Eleonora Bereda. In 1900, he joined the Imperial Ballet School, where he studied under Enrico Cecchetti, and Nicholas Legat.  At only 18 years old he was given a string of leads. In 1910, a fellow Imperial Ballet dancer, Mathilde Kschessinskaya, selected Nijinsky to dance in a revival of Marius Petipa's Le Talisman, during which Nijinsky created a sensation in the role of the Wind God Vayou.

Nijinsky met Sergei Diaghilev, a celebrated and highly innovative producer of ballet and opera as well as art exhibitions, who concentrated on promoting Russian visual and musical art particularly in Paris.  In 1909, Diaghilev took his dance company, the Ballets Russes, to Paris, with Nijinsky and Anna Pavlova as the leads. The show was a huge success.   Nijinsky's talent showed in Fokine's pieces such as Le Pavillon d'Armide, Cleopatra and The Feast.  His partnership with Tamara Karsavina, also of the Mariinsky Theatre, was legendary, and they have been called the "most exemplary artists of the time".

Then, Nijinsky went back to the Mariinsky Theatre, but was dismissed for appearing on-stage during a performance as Albrecht in Giselle wearing tights without the modesty trunks, obligatory for male dancers in the company. The Dowager Empress, Maria Feodorovna, complained that his appearance was obscene, and he was dismissed. It is probable that Diaghilev arranged the scandal, in order that Nijinsky could be free to appear with his company in the west, where many of his projects now centered around him. He danced lead roles in Fokine's new productions Le Spectre de la Rose, and Igor Stravinsky's Petrouchka, in which his impersonation of a dancing but lifeless puppet was widely admired.

Nijinsky took the creative reins and choreographed ballets. His ballets were L'après-midi d'un faune (The Afternoon of a Faun, based on Claude Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune) (1912), Jeux (1913), Till Eulenspiegel (1916) and Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring, with music by Igor Stravinsky) (1913). Nijinsky created choreography that exceeded the limits of traditional ballet and propriety. For the first time, his audiences were experiencing the futuristic, new direction of modern dance. The radically angular movements expressed the heart of Stravinsky's radically modern scores. Nijinsky's new trends in dance caused a riotous reaction at the Théâtre de Champs-Elysées when they premiered in Paris.

In 1913, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes toured South America. Diaghilev did not make this fateful journey, because he was told by a fortune teller in his younger days, that he would die on the ocean if he ever sailed. Without his mentor's supervision, Nijinsky entered into a relationship with Romola Pulszky, a Hungarian countess. An ardent fan of Nijinsky, she booked passage on board a ship that Nijinsky was due to travel on, and during the voyage Romola succeeded in engaging his affections.  They were married in Buenos Aires when the company returned to Europe. Diaghilev is reported to have flown into a rage, culminating in Nijinsky's dismissal. Nijinsky tried in vain to create his own troupe, but a crucial London engagement failed due to administrative problems.

During World War I, Nijinsky was interned in Hungary. Diaghilev succeeded in getting Nijinsky out for the American tour in 1916. During this time, Nijinsky choreographed and danced the leading role in Till Eulenspiegel. However, it was around this time in his life that signs of his dementia praecox were becoming apparent to members of the company.

Nijinsky had a nervous breakdown in 1919, and his career effectively ended. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and taken to Switzerland by his wife, where psychiatrist treated him unsuccessfully, Eugene Bleuler. He spent the rest of his life in and out of psychiatric hospitals and asylums. Nijinsky died in a London clinic on April 8, 1950 and was buried in London until 1953 when his body was moved to Cimetière de Montmartre.  The tombstone of Vaslav Nijinsky is in Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris. The statue, donated by Serge Lifar, shows Nijinsky as the puppet Petrouchka.

While immortalized in numerous still photographs, no film exists of Nijinsky dancing. Diaghilev never allowed the Ballets Russes to be filmed. He felt that the quality of film at the time could never capture the artistry of his dancers and that the reputation of the company would suffer if people saw it only in short jerky films.

Source : Russian ballet’s historical website

Film director, Ivan Chaumeille, has worked with choreographer Dominique Brun a long time, most notably in the production of + One (2014), a creative documentary scheduled as part of the festival “Vidéodanse”, in the editing of which Rafaël Gubitsch participated; he filmed and edited two versions of Afternoon of a faun, choreographed by Vaslav Nijinski for the film Le Faune -un film ou la fabrique de l’archive. He also carried out interviews, and devised and formulated the ROM and video dimensions of the DVD (2007). He shot video sequences for the show Medea-Stimmen by Virginie Mirbeau, created at Festival Les Météores CNN du Havre (2008). With a background in philosophy, he produced a creative documentary entitled Avec François Châtelet, un voyage différentiel (2010) for the collection “À Contre-temps” in co-production with Groupe Galactica, Mosaïque films and Canal 15.

Amateur Dance and Repertory is a companion program to amateur practice beyond the dance class and the technical learning phase. Intended for groups of amateur dancers, it opens a space of sharing for those who wish to deepen a practice and a knowledge of the dance in relation to its history.

Laurent Barré
 Head of Research and Choreographic Directories
Anne-Christine Waibel
 Research Assistant and Choreographic Directories
 +33 (0)1 41 83 43 96
danse-amateur-repertoire@cnd.fr

Source: CN D

More information: https://www.cnd.fr/en/page/323-danse-en-amateur-et-repertoire-grant-programme