Mikhail Fokine

Fokine, Mikhail (in the West he called himself Michel Fokine;b St Petersburg, 5 May 1880, d New York, 22 Aug. 1942). Russian dancer, choreographer, teacher, director, and pioneering influence in 20th-century ballet. He studied at the Imperial Theatre School, St Petersburg, graduating in 1898 into the Maryinsky Theatre. He began teaching at the Theatre School in 1902 and was promoted first soloist in the company in 1904, partnering Karsavina and Pavlova. However, his interests lay primarily with choreography and ballet reform. He created his first ballet for the Theatre School graduation performance in 1905 and two years later created his first major ballet for the Maryinsky Theatre, Le Pavillon d'Armide (mus. N. Tcherepnin, 1907). Both works were made in accordance with his ambition to transform ballet into a serious and integrated artform, rather than the formulaic entertainment to which he felt it had descended.

His aims were based on five principles, which he later formulated in a letter to The Times (6 July 1914). (1) Individual ballets should be choreographed in styles which were appropriate to their subjects, rather than in a uniform classical language. Fokine himself choreographed Chopiniana (1907, later Les Sylphides) in a lyrical, Romantic style, Eunice (1907) in the style of ancient Greece, and Petrushka (1911) in a style of folk and character dancing appropriate to a Russian street fair. (2) Dance and mime should have no place in a ballet unless they were dramatically expressive. (3) Expressive mime should be incorporated into dance, involving, where appropriate, the whole body rather than being restricted to conventional hand gestures. (4) Group ensembles should be used to convey dramatic atmosphere rather than be used for purely decorative purposes. (5) Dance music and design should be equal partners in ballet, each reflecting the dance's subject-matter, setting, and historical period.

These crusading ideas met with hostility from the conservative Maryinsky directorate and Fokine accepted Diaghilev's invitation to join the Ballets Russes and there put his reforms into practice. During his period with that company (1909-14) he produced his most successful body of work including Les Sylphides (mus. Chopin, 1909), the Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor (mus. Borodin, 1909), Cléopâtre (mus. Arensky and others, 1909), Carnaval (mus. Schumann, 1910), Scheherazade (mus. Rimsky-Korsakov, 1910), Firebird (mus. Stravinsky, 1910), Le Spectre de la rose (mus. Weber, 1911), Petrushka (mus. Stravinsky, 1911), Le Dieu bleu (mus. Hahn, 1912), Daphnis and Chloe (mus. Ravel, 1912), Papillon (mus. Schumann, 1912), and The Legend of Joseph (mus. R. Strauss, 1914). He continued to work occasionally for the Imperial Theatres and returned to St Petersburg in 1914 after falling out with Diaghilev (due to the latter's promotion of Nijinsky as a rival choreographer). In 1918 Fokine left Russia for good and worked mainly in Scandinavia, performing, teaching, and staging his ballets with his wife Vera. In 1920 he began working in the US, occasionally with his own company which was called the Fokine Ballet in 1922, then between 1924 and 1925 the American Ballet or the Fokine Dancers. Otherwise, he was freelance working with, among others. Metropolitan Opera House and Ziegfeld Follies in the US, and abroad with Paris Opera (1921), His Majesty's Theatre, London (1923), Teatro Colón (1931), Ida Rubinstein's Co., Paris (1934-5), and La Scala, Milan (1936). He was chief choreographer for R. Blum's Ballets de Monte Carlo (1936-8) and for Ballet Theatre (1941-2). His ballets during this period include The Sorcerer's Apprentice (mus. Dukas, Petrograd, 1916), Bolero (mus. Ravel, Paris, 1935), L'Épreuve d'amour (mus. various, Monte Carlo, 1936), Don Juan (mus. Gluck, London, 1937), Bluebeard (mus. Offenbach-Dorati, Mexico City, 1941). He also founded a school in New York in 1921. He was married to the dancer Vera Fokina, their son Vitale Fokine was a ballet teacher in New York, and their granddaughter Isabelle Fokine danced with the Pittsburgh Ballet and staged several of his works for the Kirov and other companies.