Herman Stevens Posted June 20, 2006 Share Posted June 20, 2006 Recently I read an article about the POB during the Lifar era*, and I was surprised to learn that Hitler, apparently, was so pleased with what Lifar was doing that he was invited to become the sort of Reich's Balletmaster - an offer which Lifar deftly turned down, saying his neo-classicism would not work well in Berlin. I have always been under the impression that classical ballet was not approved of by the people in charge in the Third Reich; that originally Modern / Expressionist Dance was the big thing as the Nazi movement took off, but frankly I'm kind of unclear what the actual Nazi stand on ballet was from 1933 onwards. Anybody able to fill me in? * users.ox.ac.uk/~jouhs/michaelmas2004/paolacci02.pdf Link to comment
Estelle Posted June 20, 2006 Share Posted June 20, 2006 I can't offer any interesting information about ballet in the Third Reich (I've only read things about modern dance in that period), but thanks for the link to the article about Lifar. I was a bit surprised to read about that offer from Hitler- and the footnotes also say that in 1930 "In 1930, Lifar had refused Stalin's offer to become director of dance for the USSR, maintaining that art should be totally independent from politics. See Lifar, Ma Vie, p. 296; also private archives of André Hofmann, Lifar's unpublished memoirs, chapter V, p. 54." I wonder if there are other sources than Lifar's own autobiography (considering that Lifar often is said to have been a somewhat arrogant and self-promoting person, I don't know how reliable his autobiography is...) Lifar's attitude during the Occupation period has been a very controversial topic to this day. users.ox.ac.uk/~jouhs/michaelmas2004/paolacci02.pdf Link to comment
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