TERRY TEACHOUT
Dance Chronicle: The Course of Empire
O
NeE UPON A TIME,
ballets were occasional and disposable–
yesterday's flowers. Though a few full-evening works were
though t worth y of revi va I, usua II yin versions of q uestiona ble
authenticity, one did not normally go
to
the ballet
to
commune with the
"classics," but to revel in virtuoso dancing. (This is still the attitude of
certain choreography-blind patrons of American Ballet Theatre.) Serge
Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, which brought classical ballet into the age
of modernism, carried over some of its Illore popular pieces frolll sea–
son to season, but Diaghilev and his associates were in the business of
one-upping themselves, not building a repertory. Nor did they end up
creating one by happenstance: no more than a half-dozen Ballets
Russes dances now survive in danceable, stylistically convincing ver–
sions. We know more about the Ballets Russes' costumes than its
choreogra ph y.
This aesthetic of evanescence long set dance apart from most other
art forms. Indeed, a case can be made that until fairly recently, it was
the
defining characteristic of dance. Significantly, Diaghilev was not a
creator but a producer, a cultivated dilettante turned professional
impresario who was obsessed with the ideal of the
Gesallltkllllstwerk,
the synthesis of the arts beloved of perfect Wagnerites. "Parade," for
example, consisted of a libretto by .Jean
Cocte~1LI,
a musical score by
Erik Satie, decor by Pablo Picasso, and choreography by Leonide Mas–
sine, with all four elements coequal in importance. Moreover, the final
balance was struck not by librettist, composer, designer, or choreogra–
pher, but by Diaghilev himself, who chose his collaborators and had
the last word on the presentation of their joint creations.
Such collective undertakings are by definition fragile, and this very
fragility seems
to
have formed part of their appeal
to
the cultural
cognoscenti of the day; it also helps
to
explain the attraction exerted by
ballet on partisans of the camp sensibility. At the same time, the imper–
manence of ballet sharply limited its expressive potential. W. I-I. Auden,
no stranger
to
the dubious joys of camp, nonetheless dismissed classical
ballet as a "very, very minor an," and my guess is that he did so because
