The Spirit of Diaghilev
Academic Conference
Boston University, May 18-21, 2009

The Spirit of Diaghilev is a conference exploring the enormous cultural impact of Sergei Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes on the world. The symposium, organized by noted dance writer and scholar Lynn Garafola, features an impressive roster of international speakers known for their research and writings on 20th century culture. It is part of a weeklong festival in Boston celebrating the centenary of the Ballets Russes, and will be held at Boston University's George Sherman Union.

   The Ballets Russes (Russian Ballet) was established in 1909 by the Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev. It became one of the most influential ballet companies of the 20th century, and was renowned for its groundbreaking artistic collaborations among choreographers, composers, artists, and designers. The conference commences with a film screening on the evening of May 18, 2009 and the academic portion of it begins on May 19, 2009, which are the 100th Anniversaries, respectively, of the last dress rehearsal and official first performance of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes at the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris.

   The presentations will explore Diaghilev's impact on artists in the fields of Music, Visual Arts, Dance, and Choreography; examine the process and challenges of Restaging Ballet Russes works; and, finally, unveil new research about "Diaghilev the Man." Diaghilev's relationships with an astounding array of 20th century artists - Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Natalia Goncharova, Giorgio de Chirico, Enrico Cecchetti, Alexandre Benois, Michel Fokine, Vaslav Nijinsky, Leonide Massine, Bronislava Nijinska and George Balanchine, among others - will be explored in depth.

Monday, May 18

6:30-8:30   Diaghilev (1968), 118 minutes.

Tuesday, May 19

9:00-9:30   Welcome/opening remarks, registration
9:30-10:15  Keynote Address

Wednesday, May 20

9:00-11:00  Dance in the Age of Diaghilev

Thursday, May 21

9:00-11:00  Restaging Ballets Russes Works: A Conversation, with Video

Joan Acocella is the dance critic of The New Yorker and editor of Nijinsky's unexpurgated diaries.

Jack Anderson is a former dance critic of The New York Times and the author of The One and Only: The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and other books.

Juliet Bellow holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Pennsylvania. The title of her thesis is "Clothing the Corps: How the Avant-Garde and the Ballets Russes Fashioned the Modern Body."

John Bowlt is Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Sothern California and the author of numerous books about Russian art.

Maureen Carr is a Distinguished Professor of Music Theory at the Pennsylvania State University and the author of Multiple Masks: Neoclassicism in Stravinsky's Dramatic Works on Greek Subjects

Mary Davis is an Associate Professor of Music at Case Western Reserve University and author of Classic Chic: Music, Fashion and Modernism.

Lynn Garafola is a Professor of Dance at Barnard College, Columbia University, and the author of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and other books.

Beth Genné is a Professor of Dance and Art History at the University of Michigan and the author of The Making of a Choreographer: Ninette de Valis and "Bar aux Folies-Bergère".

Millicent Hodson has reconstructed Le Sacre du Printemps and other Diaghilev-era works and is the author of Nijinsky's Crime Against Grace.

Robert Johnson is the dance critic of the Newark Star-Ledger.

Stephanie Jordan is a Research Professor in Dance at the Roehampton University, London and the author of Stravinsky Dances: Re-Visions across a Century and other books.

Janet Kennedy is a Professor of Fine Arts at Indiana University and the author of The "Mir Iskusstva" Group and Russian Art, 1898-1912.

Bob Lockyer is the former Executive Producer for Dance programs at BBC television and founder of the BBC series Dance for the Camera.

Alastair Macaulay is the chief dance critic of the New York Times and the author of Matthew Bourne and his Adventures in Motion Pictures and other books about dance.

John E. Malmstad is Samuel Hazzard Cross Professor of Slavic Langages and Literatures at Harvard University and the author of books about Mikhail Kuzmin, Andrey Bely, and other writers of Russia's Silver Age.

Nicoletta Misler is the editor of several books about Pavel Filonov and co-author of Twentieth-Century Russian and East European Paintings.

Linda Nochlin is the Lila Acheson Wallace Professor of Modern Art at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts. She is the author of Courbet, Representing Women, The Politics of Vision, and other books.

Giannandrea Poesio is the dance critic of The Spectator, Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies and Performing Arts, London Metropolitan University, and author of the forthcoming Enrico Cecchetti: The Dancing Maestro.

Peter Rand is Executive Director of Ballets Russes 2009, and a professor of writing at Boston University. He is the author of numerous books of fiction and non-fiction, including most recently,China Hands.

Nancy Reynolds is Director of Research at the George Balanchine Foundation, and the author of No Fixed Points: Dance in the Twentieth Century and other books.

Harlow Robinson is a Professor of Modern Languages and History at Northeastern University and the author of Sergei Prokofiev: A Biography and numerous other works.

Sjeng Scheijen, an independent scholar and museum curator based in Amsterdam and Moscow, is the author of a biography of Diaghilev.

Tim Scholl is a Professor of Russian at Oberlin College and the author of Sleeping Beauty: A Legend in Progress.

Jane Sharp is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art History at Rutgers University and Research Curator of the Dodge Collection at the Zimmerli Art Museum. She is the author of Russian Modernism Between East and West: Natalia Goncharova and the Moscow Avant-Garde.

Marcia B. Siegel is a dance critic for the Boston Phoenix and the Hudson Review, and the author of the forthcoming collection of her dance writings, Mirrors and Scrims - The Life and Afterlife of Ballet.

Christine Temin Christine Temin holds degrees in both dance and art history. She was the staff art and dance critic at the Boston Globe for over 25 years. She has taught at Middlebury and Wellesley Colleges, the Harvard Summer Dance Program, and, most recently, Boston University.

Sarah Woodcock is the former curator of dance at the Victoria and Albert Theatre Collection, London.

Diaghilev in New York, 1916

Diaghilev arriving
in New York, 1916