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Showing off Les Ballets 1933
Jane Pritchard (London)
Documentation et Art de
l'Acteur
Records and Images of the Art of the Performer
18ème Congrès
International, Stockholm 3-7 septembre 1990
18th International Congress, Stockholm 3-7 September 1990
Editor: Barbro Stribolt (Drottningholms Teatermuseum).
Stockholm : 1992, p. 35-37
The exhibition is a
springboard for further research and does much to clear
up the historical haze around Les Ballets 1933. The
choreography may be lost, but for the first time it is
possible to understand what the repertory was about. (N.
Y. Times 19 August 1990)
The quotation from the New
York Times comes from a review article on the current
exhibition on show at the National Museum of Dance,
Saratoga Springs, New York State. It is the latest in a
succession of exhibitions displaying materials from a
little-known dance company, Les Ballets 1933, and
suggests that through the display of publicity material,
photography, designs, costumes and properties we have
succeeded in indicating something of what this small,
experimental dance company was like.
The exhibition at the new Saratoga Museum (which opened
some four years ago and houses touring exhibitions of
material drawing on the collections of others as it has
only a very small collection of its own) could be
described as the third which draws on the same range of
material. At its heart, and indeed at the heart of the
preceding exhibitions shown in Britain, are sets,
costumes, properties and masks from the Royal Pavilion,
Art Gallery and Museums, Brighton (a significant regional
museum on the South Coast of England). What the Saratoga
exhibition achieves, that the others did not, is it
places the material in its proper context in the
development of twentieth-century theatre-dance. True the
essays in the catalogue of the Brigthon collection and
exhibition did provide some such information but the
visitor had to read it up - the material was not
presented to the visitors to view.
To begin the story of the exhibitions at the beginning.
Les Ballets 1933 was a short-lived company which
performed for one season in Paris (at the Théâtre des
Champs-Elysées) and in London (at the Savoy) in June and
July 1933. It was one of many enterprises at that time
which enabled choreographers to try out their ideas
unimpeded by commercial considerations. In this instance
dancers, designers and composers were brought together by
Boris Kochno to allow the young George Balanchine to
continue the work begun with the infant Ballet Russe de
Monte Carlo in 1932 (a company for which Balanchine's
conctract was not renewed) and to experiment further.
That the designers who created works for Les Ballets 1933
were of the calibre and variety of Christian Bérard,
André Derain, Caspar Neher, Pavel Tchelitchew and Emilio
Terry was important both for the company in 1933 and
indeed justifies an exhibition on the work of the Company
today. The range of the ballets Balanchine created for
the Company's one season came about largely because his
collaborators had such different ideas for each work. The
fact that his leading dancers - baby ballerina Tamara
Toumanova, who was trained in classical technique, and
the exotic Tilly Losch, who favoured a much freer form of
dance - offered such a variety of movement also
contributed to the richness of the programmes. It can be
said that many theatrical trends of the 1930's merge
within this company's activities. The repertory included
the Neo-Romantic ballet d'école, Mozartiana; the
expressionist L'Errante with its innovative
lighting; the German ballet-chanté Les Sept Pêch
és capitaux (The Seven Deadly Sins) the final
collaboration by Kurt Weill, Bertold Brecht and Caspar
Neher; and the colourful fantasies of Derain's dream, Les
Songes and reconstructed Etruscan world (derived from
antique murals) in Fastes - two wonderful examples
of what can be achieved when an artist designs for the
theatre.
That is only an indication of what the company
performed.Why suddenly this succession of exhibitions? My
own interest in Les Ballets 1933 was aroused when I was
documenting the early part of Rambert's history in my
capacity as archivist for Rambert Dance Company. I
discovered that several Rambert dancers had appeared with
Les Ballets 1933 and as no reference books presented a
clear picture of the Company I delved a little further
and - to cut a long story short - discovered that
Brighton Museum owned sets, props and costumes for most
of Les Ballets' productions.
They had been given the collection by the millionaire
Edward James, the British Patron of the Company who lived
in Sussex. James had developed links with the museum when
he loaned his collection of Surrealist art for display
and had felt that the museum with its interesting costume
collection and wealth of twentieth century applied art
would provide a good home for the material he had stored
in his motor-shed for nearly 40 years after the Company's
demise.
Although the collection had been privately listed, the
museum never received a copy of the list identifying the
material and although a few items conveniently filled a
display case on theatrical and fancy dress in the costume
gallery ,most of it went straight into store unidentified
and with no recognition of its significance. Although
Brighton Museum has mounted exhibitions of theatrical
material, usually in conjunction with the annual Brighton
Festival (indeed they showed the very successful Set
Before a King of materials from Drottningholm theatre
in May 1987), there is no theatre-specialist on their
staff and the Les Ballets 1933 collection is something of
an orphan within the museum.
I may not have been the first to recognize the importance
of the collection but I believe I was the first to alert
the dance world generally to the existence and
whereabouts of this collection. To that end I presented a
paper to the Dance History Scholars in the United States
of America describing the collection and this stimulated
Brigthon to respond. They agreed to fill their vacant
Christmas exhibition slot the following year with a
display of the collection. The exhibition justified the
complete cataloguing of the collection by the curator of
the costume collection for which she drew extensively on
my research. It also enabled fund-raising to conserve
some of the more fragile items. (I say more fragile not
most fragile as I fear that some items were already
beyond saving after their 40 years in hampers in garage).
The Brighton exhibition was simply a display of their
holdings - posters, sets, costumes, masks, properties -
supported by photographs and designs that they borrowed
from private and public collections (most notably from
West Dean, the late Edward James' Estate). It was a
treasure-trove exhibition ,a display that showed off what
they had. It provided a rare opportunity to see sets and
costumes re-united in a way that they were intended to be
seen, giving a real impression of André Derain's use of
colour for Fastes. But the visitor needed to have
read the introductions to the catalogue or have come with
previous knowledge to gain much from the exhibition
beyond being fascinated by the individual items.
Given that Brighton was simply showing off its
collection, this approach was valid; but one felt that
the material could have been shown in a more informative
manner. It must be said that the exhibition did provide
the opportunity for a symposium on the Company, organized
jointly by the Museum and the Society for Dance Research.
At this members of Les Ballets 1933 spoke along with
scholars, resulting in the publication of a number of
articles and memoirs. The Brighton Exhibition was
followed by a selection of costumes, masks and
photographic and text display panels touring to three
other regional museums in England under exchange schemes
with costume galleries. This allowed part of the
collection to be viewed more widely, but again served
those already interested in dance or theatre design
rather than arousing new interest.
This is why I welcomed the opportunity to re-stage the
exhibition for American viewers. Brighton co-operated
lending publicity material, costumes and masks and
allowing other itmes (at last) to be photographed as they
were too large or too fragile to cross the Atlantic. The
Brighton material was displayed this time with designs
from American collections (and photographs of a few of
Dérain's designs from Paris which we were unable to
borrow).
The selection of photographs included some material I had
only discovered since the Brighton showing. With the aid
of a sympathetic, imaginative and ingenious designer, the
exhibition does explain the range of productions mounted
by the company. It shows who was involved, why and their
former professional relationships; it also hints (perhaps
fails to explain as clearly as it might) at the
subsequent and lasting influence on British
choreographers such as Frederick Ashton and the coming
together again of several of the collaborators to carry
out a further experiment with the post-war Ballets des
Champs-Elysées, its focus inevitably on Balanchine's
contribution to American dance.
It was because of his work for Les Ballets 1933 that he
was invited to go to the U.S.A., which accounts for
American interest in this specific company. It is worth
noting that Balanchine re-worked four of his creations
for Les Ballets 1933 for American audiences.
Before concluding, I would like to emphasize some lasting
results of these exhibitions. Firstly although the
collection is now likely to return to store; its storage
conditions have been considerably improved as a result of
its importance being acknowledged. Although the material
itself will be in store there is now a published
catalogue of the collection so that subsequent
researchers will know what survives.
The catalogue is well-illustrated providing visual
records of the Company which were not readily available
before. However, Brighton Museum remaindered their stock
of catalogues of the collection after the British
exhibitions so it is already a hard-to-obtain volume.
This also meant that few were available for sale at
Saratoga so a second small catalogue was produced for
America. This is a simple checklist with three fresh
essays, notably an important discussion of the company by
Boris Kochno and an undoubtedly useful reprint of Lincoln
Kirstein's 1933 review of the Paris season (including Les
Ballets 1933) for Vogue which places the Company
in a contemporary context for American readers.
Most historians unearthing an unknown collection would
produce articles and books to pass on their discoveries.
Naturally with Les Ballets 1933 there is more to
investigate, but in their own way the two catalogues and
the attendant articles have documented the Company's work
and it has now secured its own little niche within
histories of twentieth-century ballet and theatre design.
Equally important to me - and to you - is that by
mounting the exhibitions the material itself has been
saved. To some the inclusion of theatrical material may
seem out of place in a general, local, museum (especially
when the company never performed in that town) and may
clash with significant fashion collections and the
display of fine and applied arts. But certainly in this
instance the collection has justified its place within
the same museum. It may be an orphan ,but it can hold its
own next to other collections, it can travel abroad and
arouse interest and with a little help can be encouraged
to tell a fascinating story.
18th Congress
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