Dance/Music 345: Stravinsky and the Ballets Russes

Class Meetings: MWF 2:10-3 in Eliot 416

Hannah Kosstrin Office hours T 2:45-4:15 and W 3:15-4:15 Eliot 101D
David Schiff Office hours MW 3:10-4:30 Prexy 303

Course Description
The Ballets Russes, founded by Serge Diaghilev, was a center for the development of modernist
ideas about music, dance, theater, and the visual arts from its founding in 1909 to Diaghilevs
death in 1929. We will study the collaboration of composer Igor Stravinsky with the Ballets
Russes from the folkloristic Firebird of 1910 to the neo-classical Apollo of 1928. We will trace
the evolving aesthetic, cultural and political frameworks for Diaghilevs dance company, paying
attention to the choreographic languages of Fokine, Nijinsky, Massine, Nijinska and Balanchine
as well as the scenic designs.

This course is an exciting collaboration among the fields of dance and music, wherein we will all
learn from each other and from the course materials.

Course Assignments and Assessment
There will be four short papers and a research paper. Grading will be based on attendance,
informed participation in class discussion and written works; late papers will be penalized.

Reed Honor Principle
The Reed Honor Principle is present in this course. The Honor Principle is based on the
following. A full explanation can be found on: http://web.reed.edu/honor_principle/

The Honor Principle is not a static document housed in a leaflet, but rather an active dedication
to a set of principles followed by all members of the Reed community, including students,
alumni, faculty and staff members. It is constantly redefined and kept alive by the community
through our actions and continuous discussion. In consequence, its dynamic nature defies a
particular satisfactory definition.

Plagiarism, fabrication, or otherwise presenting someone elses work as your own goes against
the Honor Principle and will be addressed as such.

If you have any questions, please ask.

Disability Support and Special Accommodations
Students with disabilities or who need special accommodations will be appropriately
accommodated. If you believe you will need accommodations for this class, it is your
responsibility to contact and register with Disability Support Services (DSS) and provide them
with documentation of your disability, so they can determine what accommodations are
appropriate for your situation. Please inform us of your needs within the first two weeks of class
for assistance in developing a plan to address your needs in this course. You can reach DSS at
disability-services@reed.edu and 503/517-7921 (x7921). For information about disability
documentation, please visit http://www.reed.edu/disability_services/index.html. Please note that
accommodations are not retroactive and that reasonable disability accommodations cannot be
Ballets Russes Spring 2013 | 2
provided until we receive an accommodation letter from and discuss your case with you and the
DSS office.

Campus Resources
Erin Conor, Performing Arts Librarian p: 503.517.7413 (x7413), e: econor@reed.edu
http://guides.library.reed.edu/subject-guide/17-Dance-Research-Guide

Academic Resource Center and Support Services http://www.dojo.reed.edu

Writing Center and Doyle Online Writing Lab (OWL) http://academic.reed.edu/writing/

Disability Support Services http://www.reed.edu/disability_services/index.html

Health and Counseling http://www.reed.edu/health_center/

Student Services http://www.reed.edu/student_services/index.html

CIS Help Desk (general) http://www.reed.edu/cis/help/

Community Safety Services http://www.reed.edu/community_safety/services/index.html

Community Safety 503/771-1112, x0 (non-emergency); 503/788-6666 or x6666 (emergency)


Required Texts
Garafola, Lynn. Diaghilevs Ballets Russes. New York: Da Capo Press, 1989.

Garafola, Lynn, and Nancy van Norman Baer, eds. The Ballets Russes and Its World. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.

Stravinsky, Igor. Igor Stravinsky: An Autobiography. New York: W. W. Norton & Company,
1998.

You will find other course readings on the Librarys Main Reserve and on Moodle. An asterisk *
indicates readings that will be discussed in class; other readings are for background, but are not
optional. You will find listening materials in the Instructional Media Center (IMC).

Course Outline (subject to change)

Week I: Developing a vocabulary with Dance of the Adolescents from Le Sacre du Printemps

Monday, January 28: Talking about music.
Reading:
[Main Reserve] *Igor Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring, orchestra score, Dover edition, ppxiii, 1-
31. Make a list of all verbal indications in the score and their translations.

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Wednesday, January 30: Talking about dance.
Reading:
[Moodle] *Beyond Description: Writing beneath the Surface by Deborah Jowitt in Moving
History/ Dancing Cultures, ed. Ann Dils and Ann Cooper Albright, pp. 7-11
[Moodle] *Reading Choreography: Composing Dances in Reading Dancing: Bodies and
Subjects in Contemporary American Dance by Susan Leigh Foster, pp. 58-98

Thursday, January 31: Attend Marie Chouinard at Lincoln Hall, PSU. Vans leave Eliot Circle at
6:30. Show begins at 8:00 p.m. Please let Hannah know if you plan to get there on your own.
[Moodle] Background reading on Marie Chouinard: Incalcuable Choreographies by Ann
Cooper Albright in Choreographing Difference, pp. 93-118

Friday, February 1: Talking about the totality: representation/performance/reception. Also
discuss Marie Chouinard.
Reading:
[Main Reserves] *Nietzsche: The Birth of Tragedy, sections 1-6. B3313.G42 E55
[Moodle] Incalcuable Choreographies by Ann Cooper Albright in Choreographing Difference,
pp. 93-118

Week II: Diaghilev and Mir iskusstva

Monday, February 4: Realism and symbolism in Russia with Zhenya Bershtein
Reading:
[Main Reserve] Taruskin, Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions (SRT), pp 423-447.
ML410.S932 T38 1996
Garafola and Baer *Diaghilevs Musical Education by Israel Nesteev, pp. 23-42
[Moodle] Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde p. 17 in Complete Works of
Oscar Wilde
[Main Reserve] *Chapters 8 and 9, The Veiled Woman and Decadence, Homosexuality, and
Feminism, pp. 144-187 in Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Sicle by Elaine
Showalter, PR468.S48 S56 1990

Wednesday, February 6: Classical ballet in Russia
Reading:
[Moodle] *Russian Ballet in the Age of Petipa by Lynn Garafola in The Cambridge
Companion to Ballet, ed. Marion Kant, pp. 151-163
In-class viewing: Selections from Swan Lake

Friday, February 8: The two schools of Russian music
Listening:
[IMC] Glinka: Kamarinskaya, Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings: Mussorgsky Boris Godunov
Act I Scene III (Coronation scene); Rimski-Korsakoff: Introduction to Le Coq dor;
Reading:
[Main Reserve] Taruskin SRT pp. 1-52, ML410.S932 T38 1996

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Weeks III and IV: Firebird (Otherness and Identity)

Monday, February 11: Michel Fokines background and innovations
Reading:
Garafola Chapter 1, The Liberating Aesthetic of Michel Fokine, pp. 3-49
Garafola and Baer *Isadora Duncan and Prewar Russian Dancemakers by Elizabeth Souritz,
pp. 97-115
In-class viewing: Les Sylphides
Assignment due: First paper

Wednesday, February 13: Stravinskys musical background
Reading:
*Stravinsky: Autobiography, pp. 3-53.
[Main Reserve] Taruskin, pp. SRT 77-113; 307-315; 333-345, ML410.S932 T38 1996

Friday, February 15: Musical exoticism in Paris: Ravel: Shehrezade; Mother Goose; Rapsodie
espagnole; Daphnis et Chloe, Suite #2.

Sunday, February 16: Class viewing of Firebird, 1:00-2:00 p.m., Eliot 416

Monday, February 18: Concept, creative team, characters and movement
Reading:
[Main Reserve] *The Firebird: Diaghilev, Fokine, and Stravinsky pp. 26-47 in Stravinskys
Ballets by Charles M. Joseph, ML410.S94 J675 2011
[Main Reserve] Tamara Karsavina pp. 60-90 in Dancing Lives: Five Female Dancers from
the Ballet dAction to Merce Cunningham by Karen Eliot, GV1785.A1 E55 2007

Wednesday, February 20: Musical idioms and structure
Reading:
[Main Reserve] Taruskin, SRT, pp. 555-650, ML410.S932 T38 1996

Friday, February 22: Nationalism and exoticism; identity and otherness
Reading:
Garafola and Baer *Firebird and the Idea of Russianness by Sally Banes, pp. 117-134

Weeks V and VI: Petrushka (The Artist as Puppet)

Sunday, February 24: Class viewing of Petrushka, 1:00-2:00 p.m., Eliot 416

Monday, February 25: Puppets in ballet
Reading:
[Main Reserve] *Fokines Petrushka by Tim Scholl pp. 41-50 in Petrushka: Sources and
Contexts, edited by Andrew Wachtel, ML410.S932 P43 1998
Assignment due: Second paper

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Wednesday, February 27: Petrushka and Pierrot: emasculation and art (Kosstrin away 2/27)
Listening:
[IMC] Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire op. 21 and * read the text.

Friday, March 1: The real and the fantastic in movement and visual design
Reading:
[Main Reserve] *Shrovetide Revelry: Alexandre Benoiss Contribution to Petrushka by Janet
Kennedy pp. 51-65 in Petrushka: Sources and Contexts, edited by Andrew Wachtel,
ML410.S932 P43 1998

Monday, March 4: The real and the fantastic in music
Listen to Scenes 2 and 4; read the Dover orchestral score pp63-77 and 96-156 and make a list of
all verbal indications.

Wednesday, March 6: The three puppet characters
Reading due:
[Main Reserve] *Petrushka and Petrouchka: Fairground and Carnival in High Literature pp.
140-178 in Petrushka: The Russian Carnival Puppet Theatre by Catriona Kelly, PN1978.S6 K45
1990

Friday, March 8: Petrushkas ghost; interpreting the ending
Reading:
[Main Reserve] *Wallace Fowlie: Petrouchkas Wake in the Norton Critical Score of Petrushka

Weeks VII and VIII: The Rite of Spring (ritual or representation?)

Sunday, March 10: Class viewing of Le Sacre du Primtemps, 1:00-2:00 p.m. in Eliot 416

Monday, March 11: Vaslav Nijinsky background: Lapres-midi dun Faune and Jeux
Reading:
Garafola *The Vanguard Poetic of Vaslav Nijinsky pp. 50-75
[Moodle] Lapres-midi dun Faune by Mallarme, pp. 39-43 (French) and 45-48 (English) in
Lapres-midi dun Faune: Nijinsky 1912
[Main Reserve] *Afternoon of a Legend pp. 6-15 in Mirrors & Scrims: The Life and Afterlife
of Ballet by Marcia B. Siegel, e-book.
In-class viewing: Lapres-midi dun Faune
Assignment due: Third paper

Wednesday, March 13: Ritual and the primitive in Russia and the West: Fraser and Freud
Reading:
[Main Reserve] *Stravinsky on the Rite in Albright, Modernism and Music pp. 234-242.
ML197 .M58 2004
[Moodle] Dance, Memory!: Tracing Ethnography in Nicholas Roerich by Nicoletta Misler pp.
75-79 in A Feast of Wonders: Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, edited by John E. Bowlt,
Zelfira Tregulova, and Nathalie Rosticher Giordano
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Friday, March 15: Movement vocabulary and design
Reading:
[Main Reserve] *Igor Stravinsky, Le sacre du printemps pp. 256-334 in First Nights: Five
Musical Premieres by Thomas Forrest Kelly, ML63.K44 2000
[Moodle] *Ritual Design in the New Dance: Nijinskys Le Sacre du Printemps by Millicent
Hodson in Dance Research 3.2 (1985): 35-45

March 1624: Spring Break no classes

Monday, March 25: Musical idiom and form
Reading:
[Main Reserve] Taruskin, SRT pp. 849-966, ML410.S932 T38 1996

Monday, March 27: Ritual in movement and music
Reading:
[Main Reserve]*Jann Pasler, Confronting Stravinsky, Chapter 4, ML410.S932 C75 1986
[Main Reserve] *Adorno: Philosophy of New Music pp. 153-170.

Thursday, March 28: Lynn Garofola Lecture: The Rite of Spring at 100, 5:30-6:30, place TBA.

Friday, March 29: Reconstruction and Recreation of Sacre with Lynn Garafola in class
Reading:
[Moodle] Le Sacre du Printemps by Jacques Riviere, pp. 82-107 in The Ideal Reader, ed.
Blanche A. Price (1962)
[Moodle] *Searching for Nijinskys Sacre by Millicent Hodson in Moving History/ Dancing
Cultures, ed. Ann Dils and Ann Cooper Albright, pp. 17-23

Week IX Parade (Cubism as realism)
(Schiff away 4/2-4/8)

Monday, April 1: Satie
Reading:
[Main Reserve] *Jean Cocteau, excerpt from The Cock and The Harlequin in Albright pp. 324-
327. ML197 .M58 2004
[Main Reserve] Nancy Perloff Art and the Everyday, Chapter 5.
Assignment due:
Paper four

Wednesday, April 3: Leonide Massine
Reading:
Garafola *The Making of Ballet Modernism pp. 76-97 and The Twenties pp. 98-115
Viewing due:
[Moodle] *Excerpts from Parade YouTube (5 minutes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Chq1Ty0nyE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM0U5-dLujY
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Friday, April 5: Picasso
Reading:
[Main Reserve] *Moving Pictures: Pablo Picasso and Parade in Modernism on Stage: The
Ballets Russes and the Parisian Avant-Garde by Juliet Bellow

Weeks X and XI Les Noces (Sex and the machine)

Sunday, April 7: Class viewing of Les Noces, 1:00-2:00 p.m. in Eliot 416

Monday, April 8: Development of the music from 1914-1923
Reading:
*Stravinsky: Autobiography, pp. 53-176
[Main Reserve] Taruskin, SRT, pp. 1319-1422, ML410.S932 T38 1996
Assignment due: Research paper topic and bibliography

Wednesday, April 9: Bronislava Nijinska
Reading:
Garafola *The Twenties pp. 122-135
Garafola and Baer Reconfiguring the Sexes by Lynn Garafola, pp. 245-268
[Moodle] *Choreography by Nijinska by Lynn Garafola in Legacies of Twentieth Century
Ballet, pp. 194-204

Friday, April 11: Folk elements in the dance and music
Reading:
Garafola and Baer *Bringing Les Noces to the Stage by Drue Fergison, pp. 167-187

Monday, April 15: Modernistic elements in the dance and music
Reading:
Garafola and Baer *Reread Fergison from Friday

Wednesday, April 17 and Friday, April 19: The birth of percussion music: Milhaud, Antheil,
Varse, Cage
Reading:
[Main Reserve] *Albright pp 172-192. ML197 .M58 2004
Listening:
[IMC] Milhaud: Lhomme et son dsir; Antheil: Ballet mcanique; Varse: Ionization; Cage:
First Construction in Metal.

Weeks XII and XIII Apollo (Neo-classicism and male hegemony)

Monday, April 22: George Balanchine
Reading:
Garafola *The Twenties pp. 134-143
[Moodle] Working with Stravinsky by Lincoln Kirstein pp. 159-163 in By With To & From: A
Lincoln Kirstein Reader, edited by Nicholas Jenkins
Ballets Russes Spring 2013 | 8
In-class viewing: Excerpts from Apollo

Wednesday, April 24: Neo-classicism in music
Reading:
[Main Reserve] *Albright pp. 277-305. ML197 .M58 2004

Friday, April 26: Concept, characters, movement vocabulary of Apollo
Reading:
[Main Reserve] *The Evolution of Apollo: Poetry, Musical Architecture, and Choreographic
Equilibrium pp. 94-123 in Stravinsky & Balanchine: A Journey of Invention by Charles Joseph,
ML410.S932 J665 2002 (also available as an e-book)

Monday April 29: There are no mothers-in-law in ballet: non-narrative dance
Reading:
Garafola and Baer *Classicism and Neoclassicism by David Vaughan, pp. 153-165
[Moodle] *Balanchine and the Deconstruction of Classicism by Juliet Bellow in The
Cambridge Companion to Ballet, ed. Marion Kant, pp. 237-245
Assignment due: Required first draft of research paper

Wednesday, May 1: Audience, Box Office, and Legacy
Reading:
Garafola *Into the Marketplace pp. 177-200 and *Paris: The Cultivated Audience pp. 273-
299

Friday, May 3: Thesis Parade No class
(Kosstrin away 5/3)

May 6-12 Reading Week

Thursday, May 16: Final paper due by 5:00 p.m. No exceptions.