La Jarreti�re's Dance

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK64sTi4mKc

>From the [pretty damn good] Wikipedia article on 
"Le Sacre du printemps"

The Ballets Russes staged the first performance. 
The intensely rhythmic score and primitive scenario—a 
setting of scenes from pagan Russia—shocked 
audiences more accustomed to the demure conventions 
of classical ballet. Vaslav Nijinsky's choreography was a 
radical departure from classical ballet. Different from the 
long and graceful lines of traditional ballet, arms and legs 
were sharply bent. The dancers danced more from their 
pelvis than their feet, a style that later influenced Martha 
Graham. Stravinsky would later write in his autobiography 
of the process of working with Nijinsky on the choreography, 
stating that "the poor boy knew nothing of music" and that 
Nijinsky "had been saddled with a task beyond his capacity.
"[1] While Stravinsky praised Nijinsky's amazing dance 
talent, he was frustrated working with him on choreography. 
This frustration was reciprocated by Nijinsky with regard to 
Stravinsky's patronizing attitude: "...so much time is wasted 
as Stravinsky thinks he is the only one who knows anything 
about music. In working with me he explains the value of 
the black notes, the white notes, of quavers and semiquavers, 
as though I had never studied music at all...I wish he would 
talk more about his music for Sacre, and not give a lecture 
on the beginning theory of music."[2]

The complex music and violent dance steps depicting fertility 
rites first drew catcalls and whistles from the crowd. At the 
start with the opening bassoon solo, the audience began 
to boo loudly due to the slight discord in the background 
notes behind the bassoon's opening melody. There were 
loud arguments in the audience between supporters and 
opponents of the work. These were soon followed by 
shouts and fistfights in the aisles. The unrest in the audience 
eventually degenerated into a riot. The Paris police arrived 
by intermission, but they restored only limited order. Chaos 
reigned for the remainder of the performance, and Stravinsky 
himself was so upset on account of its reception that he fled 
the theater in mid-scene, reportedly crying.[3] Fellow 
composer Camille Saint-Saëns famously stormed out of 
the première (though Stravinsky later said "I do not know 
who invented the story that he was present at, but soon 
walked out, of the premiere."[4]) allegedly infuriated over 
the misuse of the bassoon in the ballet's opening bars.
Stravinsky ran backstage, where Diaghilev was turning 
the lights on and off in an attempt to try to calm the 
audience. Nijinsky stood on a chair, leaned out (far enough 
that Stravinsky had to grab his coat-tail), and shouted 
counts to the dancers, who were unable to hear the orchestra 
(this was challenging because Russian numbers are polysyllabic 
above ten, such as eighteen: vosemnadsat).[5] . . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rite_of_Spring