THE BALLET RUSSES & THE CLASSICS DANSOX Inaugural Summer School, July 8, 2019 Tom Sapsford, Bates College Introduction: This paper focuses on the use of classical antiquity by one dance company in particular, the Ballet Russes, through an exploration of how a series of mold-breaking choreographers turned to the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean in order to move dance initially away from the type of ballet being performed in Russia at the end of the 19 th century then back towards it and beyond. Lead by the impresario Serge Diaghilev between 1909 and 1929, the Ballet Russes, not only presented some of Russia’s great dance talents: Fokine, Nijinsky, Kasarvina, and Balanchine; but with its aim to create the total artwork, Gesamtkunstwerk, it also drew on the talents of many great artistic figures of the twentieth century: Stravinsky, Bakst, Picasso, Debussy, Ravel. 1 Throughout the twenty years of the Ballet Russes’ existence time and again its creators made works engaging with the cultures of the ancient world from Cléopâtre, Mikhail Fokine’s Roman-Egyptian fantasy performed in its first Paris season, to Apollon Musagète, George Balanchine’s essay on neoclassicism which premiered in the company’s penultimate year. In the following discussion, I plan to situate this 1 1910 if we take the creation of the company as beginning with the signing of dancers’ contracts (Garafola 1989: 180). Léon Bakst, Set design for Act I from Daphnis and Chloe, 1912. MS Thr 414.4 (9), Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University