Diaghilev Performance Observation

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of visiting the exhibit Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes, 1909-1929: When Art Danced with Music at the National Gallery of Art. But this was not my first experience with this exhibit, no for I had the opportunity to perform in honor of this exhibit this past summer where I performed right outside the entrance the to the showcase. I performed the roles of the Faun in Vaslav Nijinsky’s Afternoon of a Faun, and Prince Ivan in The Firebird. The two performances we did were received very well by over 1000 people. The exhibit was quite inspiring for these performances, like seeing the costumes for the Nymphs in Afternoon of a Faun gave me chills. Though the video of the restaged version of the ballet with Nureyev as the title role seemed overdramatic to me, and the Paris Opera version I learnt the ballet from was much more subtle with the characteristics. Our version of Afternoon was updated for a modern audience since we were in the east building of the Gallery, with white sheer dresses for the Nymphs, a black pentagon for the Fauns’ …show more content…
This ballet is a masterpiece as you can tell in the beautiful backdrop for the final scene in the ballet created by Natalia Goncharova. This is a russian ballet and it needed a lot of russian bravura which was technically, and stamina wise very demanding. Not to mention my costume was a heavy, but beautiful red velvet jacket with pearls and gold embellishments. The room in which the Goncharova backdrop was displayed was incredibly moving with the music from the ballet rejoicing in your ear, and then you turn around to see a video presented by the English National Ballet that though was creative, seemed very distracting and