Fokine, Michel (redirected from Michel Fokine)

Fokine, Michel (mēshĕl` fōkēn`, Rus. fô`kyĭn), 1880–1942, Russian-American choreographer and ballet dancer, b. Russia. He studied at the Imperial Ballet School (1889–98) and danced at the Maryinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg. In 1905 he created Le Cygne (The Dying Swan) for Pavlova to music of Saint-Saëns. He accompanied Sergei Diaghilev to Paris in 1909 and was choreographer for his company until 1914. Fokine, considered the founder of modern ballet, based his choreography on the old system of training but eliminated rigid traditions, thus paving the way for the new freedom to come with expressionism. He emigrated in 1919 to the United States, where he formed several companies and conducted a ballet school. In 1932 he became a U.S. citizen. Among the approximately 70 ballets created by Fokine are Les Sylphides (1909), Prince Igor (1909), The Firebird (1910), Scheherazade (1910), The Spectre of the Rose (1916), and Petrouchka (1916).

Bibliography

See his memoirs (ed. by A. Chujoy, tr. 1961).

---

Fokine, Michel

 orig. Mikhail Mikhaylovich Fokine

Fokine as Perseus in Medusa

(credit: Courtesy of the Dance Collection, the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations)

(born April 23, 1880, St. Petersburg, Russia—died Aug. 22, 1942, New York, N.Y., U.S.) Russian-born U.S. dancer and choreographer. He trained at the Imperial Ballet School in St. Petersburg and debuted at the Mariinsky Theatre at age 18. Following his creation of The Dying Swan for Anna Pavlova in 1905, he was in demand as a choreographer. When his ambitious scenario for a ballet on the story of Daphnis and Chloe was rejected, Sergey Diaghilev in 1909 engaged Fokine at the Ballets Russes in Paris, where he choreographed works such as The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), and Daphnis and Chloe (1912). In these ballets he strove for a greater dramatic and stylistic unity than had been previously known. He moved to New York City in 1923 and thereafter choreographed works for companies in the U.S. and Europe.