Russian influences on the Danish Ballet, 1915–1932

Abstract

THE ROYAL DANISH BALLET is recognized today as the world's only ballet company with a continuous living tradition of style, technique, and repertoire dating from the early nineteenth century. This tradition can be traced back to 1829 when August Bournonville returned from Paris to his native Copenhagen and became ballet master at the Royal Theatre there. As a teacher, he imparted to the company the French classical style and technique he had studied with Auguste Vestris, but his choreography reflected a more Danish sensibility. Whereas most French romantic ballet stressed erotic, exotic, or demonic elements, Bournonville emphasized the bourgeois aspects of Danish romanticism: warmth, charm, domestic harmonyart to elevate the mind and refresh the senses. Bournonville ballets still have this uniquely Danish flavor, and a major reason for their survival through several crises in the last century has surely been the Danish public's identification with the tradition and pride in it. But while it has preserved its nineteenth-century heritage into the twentieth century, the Royal Danish Ballet has grown into a company of international stature, with a repertoire of works by foreign as well as Danish choreographers and the versatility to perform them. One of the most persistent and clearly traceable factors in the transformation of the ballet from Denmark's home team into the international company that it is today has been the influence, both technical and aesthetic, of the Russian ballet. Recently there has been much discussion about the effect of the introduction of Russian training-and especially the influence of the great Russian teacher Vera Volkova-on the purity of the Bournonville style. But there had already been an earlier Russian influence: the impact of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and the works of Michel Fokine and George Balanchine in particular.