Serge de Diaghilev - A Portrait [7]

This is a documentary divided into seven parts on the life of Serge de Diaghilev, founder and guiding creative force of the famed Ballets Russes company.

I'm uploading the film as it used to be on You Tube but no longer seems so and I think a lot of people would like to have access to it again.

The talking head is Ballets Russes dancer, Tamara Geva.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Serge de Diaghilev
• Ballets Russes
• Russian Ballet
• ballet

[balletnut]

Hi Nick,

Well, now I've seen all 7 and what a wonderful series this has been and I can't thank you enough.

The very end was so, so sad and even though he preferred classical ballet (like me), I always got the impression that he would try anything once particularly with his sister.

Ballet and his influence on it will never be the same again.

[nickwallacesmith]

@balletnut - they take some time to look at carefully, the best way to look for me. i've watched them a number of times. and he was so important outside the field of ballet - for modern dance, for theatre in general, for the selection of good music to set dance to, for deciding on stories or themes that are not trite for dancing. we owe, big time!

[Pearlaceous]

Many thanks for this wonderful documentary, Nick. Diaghilev was an extraordinary man whose legacy is still being passed on, unequalled, and who really can't be sufficiently feted imo. This detailed documentary is beautiful visually and accompanied, of course, by wonderful music: it should be seen by every ballet student. But the ending of the documentary, and the manner of his death - that made so sad.

[nickwallacesmith]

hi Pearlaceous - yes, the end was so early and i often wonder what more could have been achieved had he lived another ten years - what new directions he would have imagined in the new decade. there's a great great book which you may well know - 'Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes' by his last secretary, boris kochno - a big format book with lots of giant and rare images - i find myself going back to it over and over

[Edward245100]

All this blather and bother about an impresario seems excessive to me. My impression is that Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes were a bridge from classical ballet to modern dance. I hate modern dance and I love classical ballet. Maybe that is why my appreciation for him and for what he represented is extremely limited.

[nickwallacesmith]

hi Edward245100 - yes, i think an appreciation of diaghilev needs to be seen in the wider context of his influence on theatre production in general - the greater degree of realism and so on. and i like the neo-classic ballets that came out of his company, like 'apollon musagete'. but like you my love is of classical ballet. cheers

[BernardProfitendieu]

haha. 20th century! hahaha

[BernardProfitendieu]

thanks for posting this Nick, a nice New Year's present! I had never seen it before. Neo-classical ballet wasn't just a few Ballets Russes damces, it became a whole a school of dance, the American School which dominated ballet for the second half of the 30th century. Diaghilev didn't create it, Balanchine and Kirstein did, but we cannot underestimate the nuturing importance of the BR at just the right time.