This paper discusses the artist, Leon Bakst and his influences in the Ballet Russe as a costume and scenic designer and analyses its significant social message (political message, or etc.) as related to its time period. Leon Bakst, originally with the name of Lev Samuilovich, was born in Belarus on April 27,1866, into bourgeois Jewish family. He was the youngest of four children making him very overindulged with attention; he also always had his parent’s devotion due to his severe mood-sings and fragile state, the same ones that later play a major role in his life. Soon after Leon was born, him and his family moved to Russia’s capital, St. Petersburg and this would remain as Bakst’s home for nearly 30 years. Bakst was exposed to the theatre as soon as he was old enough to attend, which is what began his interest in addition to his constant exposure and encouragement to read. Bakst was known for incorporating the characters and ideas from the fantasies he read with the theatrical life his experienced in the theatres and created shows along with his sisters for his family. Bakst started painting at a very young age, when he was eleven Bakst entered a portrait of the poet Vasily Zhukovsky to an art competition, which he won. That awakened his parents into seeing that Bakst had a real talent in painting and drawing, yet they did not believe that a young man during this time could pursue a career in art. At the age of sixteen Bakst applied to the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg but failed the entrance exam, and after he was admitted a year later he was expelled from school due to a very realistic yet inappropriate rendition of the Pietà. Bakst remained in St. Petersburg, which had a rich and flourishing night and theatrical life... ... middle of paper ... ...costume design. Bakst was aware that the actors and dances had to perform very drastically on stage and knew that the costumes could not interrupt the choreography. Bakst was praised for his consciousness of the movements the body had to perform while in costume, and knowing how to design to make the dancer feel comfortable keeping the actor in mind. Bakst was still able to create very extravagant and highly decorated designs without feeling like he had any limitations. When Bakst designed a costume he viewed it more as creating a movement rather than clothes for a model to wear. This idea is evident in his sketches due to the fact that he never drew the models in a static pose they were always portrayed dancing. “A marvelously decorative artist with great taste, infinite imagination, extraordinarily refined and aristocratic.” Book leon bakst Russian inspiration
Another feature in his works was simplicity. For example, in 1977, in one of his productions called ‘Curious Schools of Theatrical Dancing: Part 1.’ This is reflected in costume, props and choice of music. He did not use any props but the production was effective in the choice of costume being a simple black and white unitard with big stripes going diagonally over his body. In this p...
Ballet has been an art form since the late fifteenth century, but society did not truly see the impact of ballet until the nineteenth century. Modern day thinkers possess the idea that ballet began with tutus and pointe shoes, but it wasn’t until the nineteenth century that this opinion was observed. Ballet has come a long way. It has survived the turmoil of many wars and has changed itself by accepting new ideas and impressing the audience with its unique stylistic views.
Theater, in our culture, have grown rapidly over the years that it has been occupied. In 17th and 18th centuries, dances were written as record. As our cultural evolved, in 19th and 20th century, dancing became a dance notation. Each era has a different type of dance that related to that period of time. In able for dancers to be organized and taught the moves, they needed some type of teacher, which in our modern we call them a choreographer. A choreographer have the role to design dances, which can also refer to the design itself. A choreographer is one who designs dances, which can also be called dance composition. Mats Ek is a ballet and Swedish choreographer that creates new elements of movement and expression of dances throughout his life
Harold Clurman was born in New York to Jewish immigrant parents in 1901. At six years old, he attended a production at the Yiddish Theatre. Though he neither spoke nor understood Yiddish, the experience had a transformative effect on him. He immediately had a passion for the theatre. At age twenty, Clurman was living and studying theatre in France. It was there he saw the Moscow Art Theatre and learned of Stanislavski’s teachings on realism. Clurman came back to New York in 1924, and began work as an actor, but he was disappointed in the kind of theatre produced.
The start of George’s interest in music and ballet stemmed from being the son of a composer. Balanchine started his piano studies at the age of five, was accepted into the ballet section of the Imperial Theater School, in St. Petersburg, at the age of nine. While dancing, Balanchine studied piano and music theory at the Petrograd Conservatory of Music, enrolling sometime during 1919-1921. It was during this time that Balanchine learned imortant skills that would later help him communicate with composers, as a choreographer, and connect the worlds of dance and music. He began to choreograph in his teens, and created his first work, La Nuit, at age 16.
It is difficult to imagine a play which is completely successful in portraying drama as Bertolt Brecht envisioned it to be. For many years before and since Brecht proposed his theory of “Epic Theatre”, writers, directors and actors have been focused on the vitality of entertaining the audience, and creating characters with which the spectator can empathize. ‘Epic Theatre’ believes that the actor-spectator relationship should be one of distinct separation, and that the spectator should learn from the actor rather than relate to him. Two contemporary plays that have been written in the last thirty years which examine and work with Brechtian ideals are ‘Fanshen’ by David Hare, and ‘The Laramie Project’ by Moises Kaufman. The question to be examined is whether either of these two plays are entirely successful in achieving what was later called, ‘The Alienation Effect”.
A Ballet Society Book. Portraits of Mr. B: Photographs of George Balanchine. New York: The Viking Press, 1984.
Bertolt Brecht was a German playwright, theatre critic, and director. He created and developed epic theatre with the belief that theatre is not solely for entertainment but also tools for politics and social activism. Previous theatre performances offered a form of escapism. The audience would become emotionally invested in the performance. In contrast to the suspension of disbelief, Brecht never wanted the audience to fall into the performance. He wanted the audience to make judgments on the argument dealt in the play. The aim of epic theatre is to detach the audience from any emotional connection in order for them to critically review the story. The ultimate goal of this theatre is creating awareness of social surroundings and encouraging the audience to take initiative on changing the society.
Learning about Dance: Dance as an Art Form and Entertainment provides visions into the many features of dance and inspires scholars to keep an open mind and think critically about the stimulating, bold, ever-changing and active world of dance. Learning about Dance is particularly useful for those who do not have a wide and diverse dance contextual, such as students in a preliminary level or survey dance course. This book consists of twelve chapters. Chapter one dance as an art form focuses on the basic structures of dance. Dance is displayed through the human body, it has the control to communicate and induce reactions. Dance can be found in many different places, it enables the participants and seekers to touch and knowledge the joy of movement. Dance is discovered as being one of the oldest art forms worldwide. Dance existed in early cultures was recognized in a sequence of rock paintings portrayed dance. Since this discovery of rock paintings, several other forms of art have been found that depict dance. People used rituals in order to worship the gods and believed that the rituals held magical and spiritual powers. During the ancient period civilizations sentient decisions began to be made with regard to dance. Other periods that had an impact on dance were the medieval period, the renaissance period, and the contemporary period. Chapter two the choreographer, the choreographer is a person who comes up with the movements created into a dance routine. The choreographer expresses themselves through choreography because this is their way of communicating with the audience. In order to be a choreographer you must have a passion for dance. Each choreographer has their own approaches and ways of making up a routine. Choreographers ...
At the first glimpse of Art and Vladek, there is a sharp view of Art’s childhood. Crying over b...
In the presented essay I will compare the style of work of selected artists in the montage of the film. I will try to point out some general regularities and features of Soviet cinema. At the same time I will try to capture especially what is common in their systems and similar or conversely what differ. For my analysis, I will draw on the feature films of the Soviet avantgarde, namely these are the movies - The Battleship Potemkin (S. Eisenstein, 1925), Mother (V. Pudovkin, 1926) and The Man with a movie camera (D. Vertov, 1929).
reached the age of 14. At 18 he became more serious about his art and
Konstantin Stanislavski was a well- renowned Russian-born seminal Russian Theatre practitioner. He was born on January 17, 1863 in Moscow, Russia. Growing up, Stanislavski had a very privileged life. He grew up in one of the wealthiest families of Russia, the Alekseievs. He used much of his inherited wealth towards his acting and directing pursuits. As a young child his however, his family didn’t really support much of his acting, yet he still had hopes in making a name for himself. At the tender age of 14, he joined a theatrical group organized by his family, and he soon gained attention by it. He slowly began to develop his theatrical skills over time, and he began to gain more experience by performing with other acting groups. In 1885, he decided to give himself the stage moniker of “Stanislavski”- after the fellow actor he’d met. Three years later he married the love of his life, Maria Perevoshchikova, and she
After I began to learn to dance ballet, I found out that these elegant movements actually require a lot of strength, flexibility of the bodies and brain’s participation to make it looked elegant. The dancers’ movements in the performance were so fluent and elegant and it is not hard to imagine how hard they had practiced, stretched and use the strengths to do all the ballet poses with their bodies look longer and longer. Their expressions also impressed me a lot. By looking at their expressions, the audience can easily understand the scenes and blend into the story. The performers actually not only are required to have good dancing skills but also are required to have some talents to be actors. Moreover, they also have to be good at expressing their feelings on the
Theatre as we know it now was born more than two thousand years ago and has gone through many streams until it reached the current modernity. Among these streams is the avant-garde theatre. This theatre achieved a break in the traditional theatre and became the forefront of a new experimental theatre. Therefore it is necessary to ask how this theatre started, what impact it had on society and if this type of theatre is still common in our modern era.