K2356

It at once became obvious that in Fokine there were creative possibilities quite unlike those of old St.Petersburg masters of ballet.Leaving Marius Petipa...... The difference between Fokine and other ballet masters was not the tendency of his art,it was a difference of quality,he was more talented and saw more clearly and more deeply,while being more daring.Fokine did not aim at destroying existing things,he had a very real respect for the old school,the school which he owed his own mastery. In Fokine art he improved on the past without casting it aside,he created with simplicity and never pandered to the new "isms".In this respect Fokine was quite opposite of Nijinsky and Diaghileff. Prince Peter Lieven in his book "The Birth of the Ballet Russes" Prince Peter Lieven in his book"The Birth of the Ballet Russes"

Subject "Dance Symphony"/ "Tanzsynfonia" My name is Kevin Taylor,i have a friend in a Moscow ballet company (Kremlin Theater of Ballet) who has successfully recreated Lopukhov's "Tanzsynfonia" in Tokyo and St.Petersburg,Russia. My friend is Natalia Voskresenskaya,instructor for Kremlin Ballet and former member and choregrapher of Nemirovich-Dancheko ballet in Moscow. "Tanzsyfonia" is a ballet that Lincoln Kirstein,of the New City Ballet,writes about in his book Movement & Metaphor(Four Centuries of Ballet). Kirstein states in his book that "Tanzsynfonia" was the prototype for the work George Balanchine produced in America twelve years later,notably Serenada in 1935.George Balanchine was a principle dancer in "Tanzsynfonia" along with Alexandra Danilova,Leonid Lavrovsky,and Piotr Gusev in the only preformance of March 1923 at the Mariinsky Theater in St.Peterburg,Russia.Kirstein also states that "Tanzsynfonia" caused a scandal;much of its movement was considered obscene by the erudite balletomane and soviet critic A.L.Volyinsky.The combination of insistent symphonism and presumed sexuality was shocking to public and professionals who,cut off by the war and revolution from Diaghilev's innovations,had seen little progressive chorography since Fokine's work before 1914.Tanzsynfonia was censured by the Soviet's as an impure manifesto by a decadent younger generation. The Tokyo preformance of "Dance Symphony" in October of 2000,that i refer in my first paragraph above,was reviewed in the magazine Dance Europe (December 2000) by a Yuki Nagano.The ballet company NBA of Tokyo,Japan recreated "Dance Symphony" under the direction of Natalia Voskresenskay.Natalia in 1998 found and read Lopukhov's manuscripts and chorographers notes in St.Petersburg and directed the NBA to recreate Dance Symphony.The Tokyo recreation of "Dance Symphony" is the first known preformance in 77 years. Natalia is also a Russian ballet researcher/historian and would like to find a venue to recreate "Dance Symphony" in America.In addition Natalia has researched and does have access to original Russian ballet manuscripts of the 19th and early 20th century. Also if anyone is interested general information about Dance Symphony,or has addition background info please let me know. kevin