The LA Passage of “Rite”
by Lorin Johnson
The 2013 season marks the 10th anniversary of Glorya Kaufman presents Dance at the Music
Center, a milestone that will be celebrated by activities throughout the year, including public
exhibitions, installations, talks, and dance and music performances by local schools and companies. The
festival LA’s Rite: Stravinsky, Innovation and Dance pays tribute to Igor Stravinsky’s creative period in Los
Angeles and the vibrancy of dance in the city, including the legacy of Russian ballet and the atmosphere
of innovation that has prospered in LA since the early 20th century. This spirit is reflected in the Joffrey
Ballet’s reconstruction of the 1913 The Rite of Spring (celebrating its 100th year anniversary in 2013.)
Characterized by the innovative repertoire established by co-founders Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino,
the Joffrey Ballet is today led by Artistic Director Ashley C. Wheater. It seems entirely fitting that for the
2013 season the Joffrey Ballet will be once again performing Rite, a production that originally premiered
at the Music Center in 1987 and which is celebrating its own 25th anniversary.
Originally choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky as Le Sacre du printemps in 1913 to Stravinsky’s
ground breaking score and with set and costume designs by Nicholas Roerich, The Rite of Spring is
considered a watershed of modernism. The controversial premiere at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées
on May 29 by Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes shocked Parisian audiences with Nijinsky’s anti-balletic style and
Stravinsky’s audacious score, causing a near riot in the theatre. Depicting a Slavic tribe’s pagan ritual of
spring sacrifice, during which a virgin maiden is chosen to dance herself to death, the dancers moved
with inverted feet positions in a rhythmic fashion that completely threw off the conventions of the
Russian Imperial Theatre. Hearing Stravinsky play the new score for the first time, music critic Louis
Laloy exclaimed that “we were dumbfounded, overwhelmed by this hurricane which had come from the
depths of the ages and which had taken life by the roots.”
Research on the Joffrey Ballet reconstruction began in the late 1970s when Millicent Hodson
was a doctoral candidate in dance history at Berkeley and was working on her dissertation. Hodson and
her partner, Kenneth Archer (an English art historian researching Nicholas Roerich) worked for over
seven years researching the choreography, sets and costumes, gathering materials in five countries and
meticulously organizing their research from a variety of fragmentary sources, including backstage
photos, drawings of rehearsals by Valentine Gross, reviews, Stravinsky’s rehearsal score and notes by
Nijinsky’s assistant (Marie Rambert). Perhaps one of the most intriguing materials to survive is a letter
from Nijinsky’s sister, Bronislava Nijinska, describing in detail the death dance of the sacrificial maiden,
written nearly fifty years after the piece premiered.
The exhaustive work of Hodson and Archer on reconstructing The Rite of Spring can be
considered as bold an undertaking as the original creation, and the Joffrey’s production was the
highlight of the Joffrey Ballet’s Los Angeles season in 1987 when in the company was in residence at the
Music Center. Many Angelinos still hold the Joffrey production close to their hearts as “LA’s Rite,” and
the ballet provides a fascinating lens through which to view the unique rite of passage for dance in Los
Angeles. Since 1913, Rite has inspired artists world-wide (in fact, nearly 200 separate productions of Rite
had been recorded by 2008), including such choreographers as Los Angeles modern dance pioneer
Lester Horton, who presented his unique version of Stravinsky’s score in 1937 at the Hollywood Bowl. In
this sense, The Rite of Spring offers a bridge between past and future that is unique to Los Angeles,
highlighting Stravinsky’s creative presence in Los Angeles alongside the dance experimentation that
occurred in the city.
From its early history, Los Angeles offered the lure of “instant transformation,” where artists
could find a fresh creative voice within the diverse mosaic of the community. Such was the case with
Igor Stravinsky, who first moved to the city in 1940 and spent more time living in Los Angeles than in any
other city in the world. Stravinsky had already toured Los Angeles as early as 1935 and had a network
of friends and many exciting possibilities for new ventures, including prospects to work in film with
Charlie Chaplin. Stravinsky also believed the fair climate of Southern California would remedy his poor
health. He stated that “It seemed a good place to begin a new, clean-slate life.”
In Los Angeles, he was surrounded by artists, writers, and musicians, including Thomas Mann,
Arthur Rubinstein, Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, Nadia Boulanger, George Balanchine, and
Adolph Bolm. Stravinsky had known Balanchine since 1925 when they worked together on The Song of
the Nightingale in Paris, and Bolm since 1910 when he performed a solo role in The Firebird with the
Ballets Russes. Stravinsky relied heavily on Bolm in order to adapt to the lifestyle of Los Angeles. In fact,
Stravinsky agreed to conduct Bolm’s 1940 version of The Firebird in exchange for a letter of reference
for American citizenship.
Balanchine and Bolm were part of a Los Angeles dance scene that had been burgeoning since
1915, when Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn founded their groundbreaking school and company,
Denishawn. In the following decades, Los Angeles was a mecca of dance experimentation. Traveling
companies carried the latest European avant-garde aesthetics and a number of important Russians
immigrated to Los Angeles following tours of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes (such as Bolm and Bronislava
Nijinska). In her book Dancing in the Sun: Hollywood Choreographers 1915-1937, Naima Prevots notes
that by the 1930s thousands of dancers were training and performing in Los Angeles, and a headline
from the Los Angeles Times in 1929 even stated “L.A. Takes Lead as Dance Center.”
Though Balanchine eventually returned to New York City, his work in Hollywood films during the
1930s-1940s was significant. Against this backdrop, he and Stravinsky visited on an almost daily basis,
with Stravinsky attending film rehearsals and Balanchine accompanying Stravinsky to the Disney studios
for a prerelease screening of Fantasia. Their bi-coastal relationship featured informal rehearsals in
Stravinsky’s home, which was also the site of important discussions about future works. In 1954 while
the New York City Ballet was performing in Los Angeles, they conceived one of their most important
works, Agon.
Their creative relationship was both prolific and durable, perhaps partially due to the sense of
humor they shared, illustrated by an early conversation between the two when Ringling Brothers Circus
requested a ballet, Circus Polka. According to Balanchine, he approached Stravinsky to compose by
asking: “I wonder if you’d like to do a little ballet with me, a polka perhaps.” “For whom?” Stravinsky
asked. “For some elephants,” Balanchine replied. “How old?” inquired Stravinsky. “Very young,” was
Balanchine’s reply. After a pause, Stravinsky said: “All right. If they are very young elephants, I will do it.”
The film industry provided a goldmine of opportunity and attracted high profile Russian ballet
stars to California. Former Ballets Russes company member Theodore Kosloff, who appeared in many
Hollywood films, was also a regular at the Hollywood Bowl (where Bolm was the resident ballet master.)
In Los Angeles, Kosloff introduced the training and aesthetics from the Russian Imperial School. When
he opened the Kosloff School of Imperial Russian Ballet one of his students was Agnes de Mille. Kosloff
created his staging of Stravinsky’s Petrouchka in 1937, arranging rehearsals during radio broadcasts of
Stravinsky’s performances so that the correct tempo would be set!
On the centenary of The Rite of Spring, it is interesting to reflect upon an American
choreographer who was born closer to home and yet who could not help but be influenced by
Stravinsky’s score and Russian modernism—Lester Horton. Horton is one of LA’s great dance success
stories, having created a dance company in Los Angeles that forged new pathways in modern dance,
rivaling companies in New York with its progressive vision. Horton’s fascination with American Indian
arts and artifacts was later combined with his an interest in dance that arose upon witnessing
performances of Denis and Shawn in the 1920s. Horton first came to Los Angeles in 1928 to present his
work, The Song of Hiawatha, and during the next decade Horton witnessed experimental dance in LA
ranging from German expressionism to the Russian avant-garde. Horton’s California Ballets premiered
an evening of his work at the Shrine Auditorium in 1934, and the company existed in various forms until
1960 (Horton Dance Group and then Dance Theatre of Los Angeles with Bella Lewitzky.)
In 1937, Horton was commissioned by the Hollywood Bowl to choreograph Le Sacre du
printemps to Stravinsky’s score, a major launching point for Horton’s company and career. This was the
sixth production of Sacre created internationally. Visually, Horton’s Sacre was more uplifting than
previous versions, designed in bright yet earthy tones—reds, yellows, blues and browns that were offset
by geometric lines, adding a touch of abstract formality to the sensuality of exposed midriffs and the
men’s bare chests. As Prevots describes: “This was a ritual of spring that celebrated a California
landscape, where flowers bloomed all year and the sun was only intermittently broken with rain and
gentle cold. The energy of spring was not a sudden awakening but a continuance of the eternal promise
of a utopian environment.”
Though Horton’s production received complimentary reviews from the press, the audience’s
reaction at the Bowl ranged from nervous giggles to outrage, bringing to mind the controversy of the
original 1913 Rite. Horton’s choreography, described as tribal and erotic, was difficult for many in the
audience to digest alongside the dissonance of Stravinsky’s music. Bella Lewitzky, who joined Horton’s
group in 1934 and performed the role of the Chosen One, stated that the “audience reaction was violent
and controversy raged pro and con. I remember the pounding rhythms and a great deal of angularity.”
However, the performance at the Hollywood Bowl heralded Horton as a major Los Angeles based
choreographer, and artists inspired and trained by Horton went on to change the face of dance in
America, including Lewitzky (whose own Los Angeles company existed for some thirty years), Carmen de
Lavallade, Alvin Ailey, James Truitte and others.
Today, countless artists continue to be inspired by Stravinsky’s score and the passage of Rite
continues around the world. Many productions of Rite have been created since Horton’s, and several
have traveled through Los Angeles, from Glen Tetley’s 1974 version for American Ballet Theatre (danced
by this author) to Shen Wei’s in 2003. Yet none resonate with LA audiences quite like the Joffrey Ballet’s,
welcomed back to LA for its 25th anniversary as we begin the 2013 festival!
Lorin Johnson, Artistic Advisor for LA’s Rite