Fall for Dance at City Center

. Celebrating 100 Years of the Ballets Russes

Sergei Diaghilev set the European cultural scene ablaze with his creation of the Ballets Russes, a collaboration of the continent’s most talented musicians, designers and dancers who more than rejuvenated the performing arts of their time. From 1909-1929, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes served as a canvas for Europe’s brightest artists to display their works, nurturing choreographers like Michel Fokine, Vaslav Nijinsky, Bronislava Nijinska and George Balanchine as well as composers like Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Francis Poulenc. The Ballets Russes reclaimed the importance of the arts and forever changed the way people viewed dance.

To pay tribute to its extraordinary contribution to the arts, the 2009 Fall for Dance Festival includes eight companies presenting Ballets Russes classics or contemporary interpretations of its great works. New York City Center and The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy & Lewis B. Cullman Center, will exhibit portions of Diaghilev's Theater of Marvels: The Ballets Russes and Its Aftermath at New York City Center during the Festival. In addition, Fall for Dance’s annual DanceTalk series will provide attendees with the opportunity to hear from dance experts about creative collaborations during the Ballets Russes era and influences this seminal period in dance has had on today’s artists.

Vaslav Nijinsky

1889 -1950

Serge Diaghilev1872 1929

Giselle

Scheherezade

The Talisman 1910

AFTERNOON OF A FAUN 1912

Til Eulenspiegel 1916

Til Eulenspiegel 1916

Petrouschka

Tombstone at Cimetiere de Montparnasse, Paris