Artistic & Production Credits - San Francisco Ballet

MICHEL FOKINE
CHOREOGRAPHER
Michel Fokine was born on April 25, 1880 in St. Petersburg, Russia, the seventeenth of eighteen
children. In 1889 Fokine entered the selective Imperial School of Ballet at St. Petersburg where
dance instruction was intense and academic subjects secondary. Upon graduating in 1898
Fokine joined the Maryinsky Imperial Ballet at St. Petersburg, the home of opera and ballet in
Russia, as a soloist, and began dancing with the famous Anna Pavlova. Hired in 1902 to teach the
girls junior class, he became the youngest faculty member ever.
The first two years at the Maryinsky were depressing for Fokine and he considered abandoning
ballet. He believed that ballet at that time was too absorbed with technique and gymnastics
execution and that there was too much emphasis on the legs. He also did not approve of always
using ready–made dance steps, short skirts, and pink dancing shoes. Michel thought the timeperiod
and character of the nation represented should be researched and reflected in the dance,
and that the troupe of dancers should be used for expression and not just ornamentation. This
philosophy was summed up in his “Five Principles” as explained in a letter to the London Times
on July 6, 1914. These principles revolutionized ballet and were applied to his creations during
the early 1900’s, performed at the Maryinsky Imperial Ballet and, under Serge Diaghilev, at the
Ballets Russes. They include: The Dying Swan, Le Vigne, Le Pavilion d’armide, Les Sylphides,
Prince Igor, Cleopatra, Carnaval, Firebird, Scheherazade, Le Spectre de la rose, Petrouchka,
Daphnis and Chloe and Le Coq d’or.
In 1905 Anna Pavlova, the great Russian ballerina, came to Fokine and asked him to suggest
some music for her to dance to in the Hall of Nobles. At the time he was playing Camille Saint-
Saëns The Swan at home on the mandolin and choreographed a ballet to it in a matter of
minutes. That ballet remained in Pavlova’s repertory for the rest of her life. Her dying statement
on August 23, 1931 was “Prepare my Swan costume.” Pavlova appeared in many of Fokine’s early
ballets as did the dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. In 1905 Fokine married one of his students, Verotchka
(Vera) Antonova, and they would later have a son, Vitale. When creating the ballets Firebird and
Petrouchka, Fokine collaborated with Igor Stravinsky and with Maurice Ravel for Daphnis and
Chloe. He also worked closely with Serge Rachmaninoff to present Paganini in 1939.
The Bolshevik Revolution caused the Fokines to move from Russia in 1918 and in 1919 they came
to the United States, having been contracted by Morris Gest to stage the Bacchanal in Aphrodite.
Very few ballet schools existed outside of New York City and for Aphrodite the Fokines used
semi–amateur ballet dancers and ballroom dancers.
In the 1920’s the Fokines toured many of the largest cities in the United States and Michel did
work on and off Broadway. He choreographed musical numbers for the Ziegfeld Follies, among
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