The Dances: Ballets Suedois and Mahler's Third Symphony

In the 1920s, the artistic avant-garde crowded into Paris, their grand experiments changing the way people looked at art. Dance was no exception, and among the most daring and influential companies was the legendary Ballets Suedois, formed by the Swedish art patron Rolf de Mare as an alternative to Diaghilev's Ballet Russes.

Ballets Suedois innovative works were a fusion of the long-standing theatrical ballet practiced at the Royal Swedish Ballet and the new expressionism and fluidity of early 20th century choreographers like Michel Fokine. Jean Börlin, the company's star and ballet master, choreographed nearly 25 works to designs and scores commissioned from some of the most groundbreaking artists in Paris. Leading avant-garde painters, poets, and musicians -- including Giorgio de Chirico, Jean Cocteau, and Fernand Léger--created costumes, sets, books and music, and its experimental stagings and theatrical spectacle drew artists as both audience and collaborators.

However illustrious, Ballets Suedois' history was brief, and the groundbreaking dances they created were lost to modern audiences until the Royal Swedish Ballet began an ambitious reconstruction project to preserve them as part of its 225th Anniversary Jubilee in 1998.

	El Greco 1920's El Greco was one of the first ballet's performed by the newly formed company, it is a synthesis of music, art, and ballet in which the dancers mime the works of the great 16th-century Spanish artist. The turbulent score, written by Ballet Suedois' conductor Desire Emile Inghelbrecht, drives a revised choreography by Ivo Cremer, under the backdrop of two works by El Greco, Storm over Toledo and The Burial of Count Orgaz.
Click here to learn more about the life and work of El Greco

	Skating Rink 1922's Skating Rink was inspired by the Italian Futurist poet Riciotto Canudo's 1920 work in which he describes a skating rink in the poorer section of Paris, where ordinary people can enter a world of fantasy. It features a striking backdrop by the famed painter Ferdinand Leger, whose post-Cubist forms and use of color contributed greatly to the choreography. The minimalist score is by by Arthur Honegger, one of Les Six.
Click here to learn more about Paris of the 1920's

	Within the Quota Within the Quota (1923) is a stylized portrayal of a new immigrant's arrival in New York. Conceived by American painters Sara and Gerald Murphy, who worked jointly to develop the characters and costumes, it features a score by Cole Porter, Gerald's friend from his school days at Yale. The story is of a young Swedish man arriving in New York and his encounters with Hollywood and American archetypes of all sorts, a role that pays homage to the Charlie Chaplin character in the 1917 film The Immigrant. Porter's score for Within the Quota was considered his first hit and has proven to be his sole symphonic composition, but it also is remarkable for ushering in the jazz ballet genre.

	Third Symphony by Gustav Mahler Separate from the Ballet Suedois programme is the American premiere of another ballet for which the Royal Swedish Ballet is rightly famous. John Neumeier created this epic ballet for the Hamburg State Opera Ballet in 1975. A large-scale work featuring the entire company of dancers, it uses Mahler's famous masterpiece "to portray man's unceasing desire for beauty in a world that is falling apart, " and is considered one of the finest works of one of the century's most influential choreographers.

 

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