''Afternoon of a Faun'' is a ballet made by

Danish Dance Theatre Danish Dance Theatre Danish Dance Theatre is the largest modern dance company in Denmark. The company was founded in 1981 by Randi Patterson, an English/Norwegian choreographer and innovator of modern dance. Patterson was succeeded by American W ...

balletmaster

Tim Rushton Timothy John Rushton MBE (born 18 March 1963 in England) is a British choreographer and from 2001 to 2018 artistic leader of the Copenhagen-based Danish Dance Theatre, Denmark's largest modern dance company. Tim Rushton was trained at The Royal Ba ...

Johan Kobborg Johan Kobborg (born 5 June 1972) is a Danish ballet dancer, choreographer, director and visual artist. He is most noted as a ballet dancer, having been a principal dancer with both the Royal Danish Ballet and the Royal Ballet in London, as well a ...

; principal dancer at the

Royal Ballet The Royal Ballet is a British internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, England. The largest of the five major ballet companies in Great Britain, the Royal Ballet was founded in ...

, London; to Debussy's ''

Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune ''Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune'' ( L. 86), known in English as ''Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun'', is a symphonic poem for orchestra by Claude Debussy, approximately 10 minutes in duration. It was composed in 1894 and first performed ...

''. The premiere took place in February 2006 at

New York City Center New York City Center (previously known as the Mecca Temple, City Center of Music and Drama,. The name "City Center for Music and Drama Inc." is the organizational parent of the New York City Ballet and, until 2011, the New York City Opera. and th ...

as part of the Kings of the Dance gala and subsequently at

Orange County Performing Arts Center Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower * Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum ...

Costa Mesa Costa may refer to: Biology * Rib (Latin: ''costa''), in vertebrate anatomy * Costa (botany), the central strand of a plant leaf or thallus * Costa (coral), a stony rib, part of the skeleton of a coral * Costa (entomology), the leading edge of t ...

, Calif. Kobborg performed it again in October 2007 as part of City Center's Fall for Dance festival. Both Rushton and Kobburg danced for the

Royal Danish Ballet The Royal Danish Ballet is an internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Royal Danish Theatre in Kongens Nytorv, Copenhagen, Denmark. It is one of the oldest ballet companies in the world and originates from 1748, when the Ro ...

earlier in their careers, Kobburg a principal there as well as in London. Rushton's setting differs materially from Nijinsky's

original Originality is the aspect of created or invented works that distinguish them from reproductions, clones, forgeries, or substantially derivative works. The modern idea of originality is according to some scholars tied to Romanticism, by a notion t ...

in its use of three pools of light produced by beam projectors which appear successively stage center, left and right (center, right and left from the audience's perspective), in which the faun / dancer capers and bathes; it resembles what is known of the original mostly in its costuming.

Reviews

NY Times
by

John Rockwell John Sargent Rockwell (born September 16, 1940) is an American music critic, dance critic and arts administrator. According to '' Grove Music Online'', "Rockwell brings two signal attributes to his critical work: a genuine admiration for all ...

, February 25, 2006
NY Times
by

Gia Kourlas ''Gia'' is a 1998 American biographical drama television film about the life and times of one of the first supermodels, Gia Carangi. The film stars Angelina Jolie as Gia and Faye Dunaway as Wilhelmina Cooper, with Mercedes Ruehl and Elizabeth Mi ...

, February 23, 2006
Ballet.co.uk Magazine
by Anjuli Bai, February 2006
NY Times
by

Roslyn Sulcas Roslyn Sulcas is a dance critic and culture writer for ''The New York Times''. She was raised in Cape Town, South Africa, and studied English literature at university, receiving post-graduate degrees from the University of Cape Town and Paris VII ( ...

, October 4, 2007 {{DEFAULTSORT:Afternoon Of A Faun, Rushton, Tim Ballets by Tim Rushton Ballets to the music of Claude Debussy 2006 ballet premieres Adaptations of works by Stéphane Mallarmé