More New Bal­lets Russes

Building on the success of New Ballets Russes, the mission of entering into a critical dialogue with the history of ballet, and reviving the spirit of Serge Diaghilev and his iconic campaign from the 1920s, Les Ballets Russes, continues with More New Ballets Russes. Drawing on Diaghilev’s passion for commissioning new voices, More New Ballets Russes presents premieres from two of the most promising choreographers of contemporary ballet. Mthuthuzeli November from South Africa offers a fresh approach to Stravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps that takes influence from both ballet and African dance in order to examine the tension between modernism and myth at the centre of this canonical work.

French-American choreographer Rachelle Scott reinterprets Debussy’s L’après-midi d’un faune, enriched with a new composition by Davidson Jaconello, and explores the fleeting nature of human memory and longing. The three-part work is rounded off by an act of historical revisionism: the premiere of Richard Siegal’s Le bœuf sur le toit.

Jean Cocteau’s original Le bœuf, inspired by the legendary Parisian cabaret of the same name, with music by Darius Milhaud, was offered to the Ballets Russes before Diaghilev ultimately declined. Siegal’s premiere continues Diaghilev’s imaginative and inventive spirit and in turn uses it to reflect on his legacy. Retroactively reinventing the history of the repertoire is precisely the contemporary significance of reviving Diaghilev’s spirit.