|
Michael Fokine
Michael Fokine, ''Mikhail Mikhaylovich Fokin'', group=lower-alpha ( – 22 August 1942) was a groundbreaking Imperial Russian choreographer and dancer. Career Early years Fokine was born in Saint Petersburg to a prosperous merchant and at the age of 9 was accepted into the Saint Petersburg Imperial Ballet School. That same year, he made his performing debut in '' The Talisman'' under the direction of Marius Petipa. In 1898, on his 18th birthday, he debuted on the stage of the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in ''Paquita'', with the Imperial Russian Ballet. In addition to being a talented dancer, Fokine was also passionate about painting and displayed talent in this area as well. He also played musical instruments, including mandolin (played on stage in ensemble led by Ginislao Paris), domra, and balalaika (played in Vasily Andreyev's Great Russian Orchestra). Transition to choreographer He became frustrated with the life of a dancer and began considering other paths, inc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), is the second-largest city in Russia. It is situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, with a population of roughly 5.4 million residents. Saint Petersburg is the fourth-most populous city in Europe after Istanbul, Moscow and London, the most populous city on the Baltic Sea, and the world's northernmost city of more than 1 million residents. As Russia's Imperial capital, and a historically strategic port, it is governed as a federal city. The city was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on 27 May 1703 on the site of a captured Swedish fortress, and was named after apostle Saint Peter. In Russia, Saint Petersburg is historically and culturally associated with t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and airbrushes, can be used. In art, the term ''painting ''describes both the act and the result of the action (the final work is called "a painting"). The support for paintings includes such surfaces as walls, paper, canvas, wood, glass, lacquer, pottery, leaf, copper and concrete, and the painting may incorporate multiple other materials, including sand, clay, paper, plaster, gold leaf, and even whole objects. Painting is an important form in the visual arts, bringing in elements such as drawing, composition, gesture (as in gestural painting), narration (as in narrative art), and abstraction (as in abstract art). Paintings can be naturalistic and representational (as in still life and landscape painting), photographic, abstract, nar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faun
The faun (, grc, φαῦνος, ''phaunos'', ) is a half-human and half-goat mythological creature appearing in Greek and Roman mythology. Originally fauns of Roman mythology were spirits (genii) of rustic places, lesser versions of their chief, the god Faunus. Before their conflation with Greek satyrs, they and Faunus were represented as nude men (e.g. the Barberini Faun). Later fauns, became copies of the satyrs of Greek mythology, who themselves were originally shown as part-horse rather than part-goat. By Renaissance times fauns were depicted as bipedal creatures with the horns, legs, and tail of a goat and the head, torso, and arms of a human; they are often depicted with pointed ears. These late-form mythological creatures borrowed their appearance from the satyrs, who in turn borrowed their appearance from the god Pan of the Greek pantheon. They were symbols of peace and fertility, and their Greek chieftain, Silenus, was a minor deity of Greek mythology. Origins Ro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Le Cygne (Saint-Saëns)
''Le cygne'', , or ''The Swan'', is the 13th and penultimate movement of ''The Carnival of the Animals'' by Camille Saint-Saëns. Originally scored for solo cello accompanied by two pianos, it has been arranged and transcribed for many instruments but remains best known as a cello solo. Music The piece is in 6/4 time, with a key signature of G major and a tempo marking ''andantino grazioso''. The slow cello melody is accompanied by almost constant broken chord figurations on the pianos. When performed as a separate movement, not in the context of ''The Carnival'', ''The Swan'' is frequently played with accompaniment on only one piano. This is the only movement from ''The Carnival of the Animals'' that the composer allowed to be played in public during his lifetime. He thought the remaining movements were too frivolous and would damage his reputation as a serious composer. Because of its slow tempo and mostly legato performance indications, the movement is suitable for perform ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anna Pavlova
Anna Pavlovna Pavlova ( , rus, Анна Павловна Павлова ), born Anna Matveyevna Pavlova ( rus, Анна Матвеевна Павлова; – 23 January 1931), was a Russian prima ballerina of the late 19th and the early 20th centuries. She was a principal artist of the Imperial Russian Ballet and the Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev. Pavlova is most recognized for her creation of the role of ''The Dying Swan'' and, with her own company, became the first ballerina to tour around the world, including performances in South America, India and Australia. Early life Anna Matveyevna Pavlova was born in the Preobrazhensky Regiment hospital, Saint Petersburg where her father, Matvey Pavlovich Pavlov, served. Some sources say that her parents married just before her birth, others—years later. Her mother, Lyubov Feodorovna Pavlova, came from peasants and worked as a laundress at the house of a Russian-Jewish banker, Lazar Polyakov, for some time. When Anna rose to f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Dying Swan
''The Dying Swan'' (originally ''The Swan'') is a solo dance choreographed by Mikhail Fokine to Camille Saint-Saëns's ''Le Cygne'' from ''Le Carnaval des animaux'' as a '' pièce d'occasion'' for the ballerina Anna Pavlova, who performed it about 4,000 times. The short ballet (4 minutes) follows the last moments in the life of a swan, and was first presented in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1905. The ballet has since influenced modern interpretations of Odette in Tchaikovsky's ''Swan Lake'' and has inspired non-traditional interpretations as well as various adaptations. Background Inspired by swans that she had seen in public parks and by Lord Tennyson's poem "The Dying Swan", Anna Pavlova, who had just become a ballerina at the Mariinsky Theatre, asked Michel Fokine to create a solo dance for her for a 1905 gala concert being given by artists from the chorus of the Imperial Mariinsky Opera. Fokine suggested Saint-Saëns's cello solo, ''Le Cygne'', which Fokine had been playing at h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bronislava Nijinska
Bronislava Nijinska (; pl, Bronisława Niżyńska ; russian: Бронисла́ва Фоми́нична Нижи́нская, Bronisláva Fomínična Nižínskaja; be, Браніслава Ніжынская, Branislava Nižynskaja; – February 21, 1972) was a Polish ballet dancer, and an innovative choreographer. She came of age in a family of traveling, professional dancers. Her own career began in Saint Petersburg. Soon she joined Ballets Russes which ventured to success in Paris. She met war-time difficulties in Petrograd and revolutionary turbulence in Kiev. In France again, public acclaim for her works came quickly, cresting in the 1920s. She then enjoyed continuing successes in Europe and the Americas. Nijinska played a pioneering role in the broad movement that diverged from 19th-century classical ballet. Her introduction of modern forms, steps, and motion, and a minimalist narrative, prepared the way of future works. Following serious home training, she entered t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Desha Delteil
Desha Delteil (March 18, 1899 – July 17, 1980) was a Slovenia-born dancer and artists' model. Biography She was born Desha Eva Podgoršek in Ljubljana, Austria-Hungary (present-day Ljubljana, Slovenia), emigrated to the US with her sister Leja in 1913 and studied under Michel Fokine, eventually becoming first dancer in his company. In 1920 she appeared in a solo short movie, ''The Bubble,'' which was about a young girl dancing with a balloon, and was an uncredited cabaret dancer in the 1924 motion picture ''Isn't Life Wonderful''. A few years later, her "bubble dance" in the 1929 Hollywood musical ''Glorifying the American Girl'' made her well known. In 1916, she was hired to pose for sculptor Harriet Whitney Frishmuth and modeled for several of Frishmuth's female bronzes, one of which Frishmuth entitled ''Desha''. She became Frishmuth's favorite model, posing not only for a number of her best pieces but also for her studio art classes. She is known to have posed for ''Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Choreography
Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which Motion (physics), motion or Visual appearance, form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A choreographer is one who creates choreographies by practising the art of choreography, a process known as choreographing. It most commonly refers to dance choreography. In dance, ''choreography'' may also refer to the design itself, which is sometimes expressed by means of dance notation. Dance choreography is sometimes called ''dance composition''. Aspects of dance choreography include the compositional use of organic unity, rhythmic or non-rhythmic articulation, theme and variation, and repetition. The choreographic process may employ improvisation for the purpose of developing innovative movement ideas. In general, choreography is used to design dances that are intended to be performed as concert dance. The art of choreograph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Little, Brown And Company
Little, Brown and Company is an American publishing company founded in 1837 by Charles Coffin Little and James Brown in Boston. For close to two centuries it has published fiction and nonfiction by American authors. Early lists featured Emily Dickinson's poetry and ''Bartlett's Familiar Quotations''. Since 2006 Little, Brown and Company is a division of the Hachette Book Group. 19th century Little, Brown and Company had its roots in the book selling trade. It was founded in 1837 in Boston by Charles Little and James Brown. They formed the partnership "for the purpose of Publishing, Importing, and Selling Books". It can trace its roots before that to 1784 to a bookshop owned by Ebenezer Battelle on Marlborough Street. They published works of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington and they were specialized in legal publishing and importing titles. For many years, it was the most extensive law publisher in the United States, and also the largest importer of standard English law a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vasily Andreyev
Vasily Vasilievich Andreyev (russian: Василий Васильевич Андреев; 26 December 1918) article on the city site of was a Russian musician responsible for the modern development of the and several other traditional Russian folk music instruments, and is considered the father of the academic |
Balalaika
The balalaika (russian: link=no, балала́йка, ) is a Russian stringed musical instrument with a characteristic triangular wooden, hollow body, fretted neck and three strings. Two strings are usually tuned to the same note and the third string is a perfect fourth higher. The higher-pitched balalaikas are used to play melodies and chords. The instrument generally has a short sustain, necessitating rapid strumming or plucking when it is used to play melodies. Balalaikas are often used for Russian folk music and dancing. The balalaika ''family of instruments'' includes instruments of various sizes, from the highest-pitched to the lowest: the piccolo balalaika, prima balalaika, secunda balalaika, alto balalaika, bass balalaika, and contrabass balalaika. There are balalaika orchestras which consist solely of different balalaikas; these ensembles typically play Classical music that has been arranged for balalaikas. The prima balalaika is the most common; the piccolo is rare. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
