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The beginnig of Ballet Russe
Twentieth century ballet began when a Russian theater director named Serge Diaghilev brought his company, Ballet Russe, to Paris in 1909. His company traveled throughout Europe, the United States, and various areas of South America. -
Death of Diaghilev
In the year off 1929, Diaghilev died and left his company, Ballet Russe, without work. -
Beginning of Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo's journey
George Balanchine became the dance master and choreographer of Ballet Russe after the death of Diaghilev, and he decided to make three young dancers, ages 12-13, the stars of ballet. Their names were Tamara Toumanova,Tania Riabouchinska and Irina Boranova. They were all known for the separate aspects of their personalities and performance skills. Tamara was the dramatic dancer, while Tania was known most having lots of personality and Irina was the passionate one. -
Leonide Massine
During this time, ballet Russe de Monte Carlo had their very first performance.Soon, choreographers from Diaghilev's Ballet Russe came back to work with Wasily de Basil and Rene Blum and after the first season, they started to replace Balanchine with Leonide Massine. Leonide Massine created a dance for " The Red Shoes" and he danced the lead role as the shoemaker. He was considered the greatest choreographer in the world. -
New Era of Ballet
This year started the Massine Era of ballet at the Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo located in London. In the next year, Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo will begin to travel to America , who has never experienced ballet at this time. They decided that hiring American dancers would be a good idea. Marc Platt became one of the first Americans to join Ballet Russe, and Alicia Markov was one of the youngest dancers in Ballet Russe -
Ballet Wars
The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo arrived in America and began to hire America dancers who were very skilled. Blum and Basil started to disagree on many things, causing Blum to resign from the company along with Massine who wanted to escape the ego of Basil. Massine and Basil began battling over legal rights of the company and the choreography. Massine won the rights to the company name, Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo, causing Basil to renamed his company The Original Ballet Russe -
Hard times
Due to Massine loosing rights to Ballet Russe de monte Carlo, he lost all of his choreography and only had a sort time frame to choreograph 3 new ballets. Basil ended up hiring Lichine, who became a rival of Massine's and they started to steal dancers from each other. Both compaies performed in London just blocks away from each other. Massine took his company on tour in America, while Basil took his company to Australia where they filled the theaters for 7 months. -
Time of Panic
On September 3, 1939 War was declared. Britain and France declare war on Germany in World War II causing many people to panic and rush to leave the country. Most Russians did not have the paperwork to leave the country on a boat headed to the Americas. Both of the companies traveled on this boat to avoid the destruction of the war.Sol Hurok made it his responsibility to provide both companies with work so they spent 9 months touring by train to small towns that never saw ballet. -
The end of their journey
Hurok and Basil decided to try and work together to go on tour but the dancers were entirely too exhausted from their previous tours and the war was adding a lot more stress as well. -
Had Enough!
In the year of 1941, Hurok decided that he no longer wanted to work with Basil, declaring that he was the most difficult person to work with. The Ballet Russe was now left without work. -
The War started to have its impact on the dancers
When they found work, Basil took his company on a Latin American tour. However, the entire country was suffering from the war;the country was very poor and food was scarce. The dancers worked extremely hard and were exhausted from this tour. -
The final show
When Hurok abandoned the company again, dancers began to leave in hopes of finding other places to dance. Basil was forced to hire new dancers but they just weren't talented like the previous dancers leaving the company in terrible shape. The company's final performance was in the year of 1948. Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo took the chance of hiring an American choreographer named Agnes de Mille and this marked the beginning of American ballet.
