In Pursuit of Petipa: A Bicentennial Symposium

[dstinchcomb]

Please see the announcement below for a half-day symposium at Harvard on the life and legacy of the Marius Petipa.

 

Friday, November 9, 1:30 – 5:30 PM | Houghton Library

After more than a century, the ballets of Marius Petipa remain a staple of dance companies around the world. Join Alastair Macaulay (The New York Times) and an international panel of dance experts for a symposium shedding new light on Petipa’s formative years in France and Spain; and the preservation of his choreography through a cache of pioneering films rediscovered in Russia in 1995. Alexei Ratmansky (American Ballet Theatre) will offer concluding remarks on his recent reconstructions of Harlequinade for ABT and La Bayadère for the Staatsballett Berlin, using a unique archive of dance notations in the Harvard Theatre Collection.

Free and open to the public. Seating is limited; RSVP appreciated

Speakers

Alastair Macaulay
Chief Dance Critic, The New York Times

Alexei Ratmansky
Artist in Residence, American Ballet Theatre

Viktor Bocharov
Filmmaker and Historian, Moscow

Laura Hormigón
Magazine ADE-Teatro, Madrid; former prima ballerina, National Ballet of Cuba

Sergey Konaev
Principal Researcher, The State Institute for Art Studies, Moscow

A reception and viewing of the exhibition, Step Back: Seeing Ballet’s Future in the Past, will follow.

Co-sponsored by the Harvard Theatre Collection and the Princeton Department of Music

Organized by Irina Klyagin (Harvard University), Simon Morrison (Princeton University), Dale Stinchcomb (Harvard University)

 

[Quiggin]

The accompanying exhibit of dance notations, programs and photographs goes on through December 18. 

Interesting that the advertisement poster uses a mild version (no red colors) of 1920s post-Petipa Constructivist graphics as its design basis.

[Laurent]

On ‎10‎/‎24‎/‎2018 at 8:34 AM, dstinchcomb said:

After more than a century, the ballets of Marius Petipa remain a staple of dance companies around the world. Join Alastair Macaulay (The New York Times) and an international panel of dance experts for a symposium shedding new light on Petipa’s formative years in France and Spain;

 

"A symposium shedding new light on Petipa's formative years in France?" The author may not be aware that Marius Petipa was not formed in France, his ballet education took place in Belgium, his career at Bordeaux was short and undistinguished to the point that he later himself wanted "not to remember it" at all. It was only in Madrid that he made some impression and was given an opportunity to partner a distinguished dancer (Marie Guy-Stéphan). Still, Madrid was then ballet backwater (today it is a ballet desert).

[Laurent]

https://library.harvard.edu/events/step-back-seeing-ballets-future-past

Quote

This exhibit celebrates the bicentenary of Marius Petipa’s birth. Petipa (1818–1910) came to Russia in 1847, and spent the rest of his career at the Maryinsky Imperial Ballet. He created more than 50 ballets, Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, and The Sleeping Beauty among them.

If the previous was not very well informed, this is an embarrassing blunder.