Mikhail Fokin: short biography, creativity, personal life, photo

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Modern ballet is impossible to imagine without Mikhail Fokine. He had a revolutionary influence on this art form. The outstanding ballet reformer, who became the basis for the glory of the Russian school throughout the world in the 20th century, is Mikhail Fokin. He lived a colorful life. The formation of the artist took place in difficult times, but this did not break his spirit and only strengthened his faith in the power of art.

Childhood

Mikhail Fokin, whose brief biography cannot fit in a few words - the progenitor of modern ballet, began his journey in an environment far from dance. He was born into the family of a we althy merchant, and his father categorically did not want to see his son as a dancer. But the mother, obsessed with ballet, managed to resist her husband's opinion. She sent her son to a choreographic school, to the class of Nikolai Legat, a representative of the famous ballet dynasty, especially since the boy had excellent natural inclinations. Also Misha's teachers were Pavel Gerdt and Platon Karsavin, outstanding dancers of their time. The Petersburg School attached exceptional importance to ballet technique, and the studentshours spent in classes, and also participated in productions of the Mariinsky Theater. Therefore, the main formation of Mikhail Fokin took place in the ballet environment, he was imbued with the spirit of the classical school, seeing its advantages and disadvantages.

Family education helped the little dancer get basic knowledge of music and drawing and develop his natural abilities, in the future Mikhail even seriously thought about an artistic career. And, of course, this knowledge was useful to him when working as a director.

Ballet career

Fokine began performing on the great stage of the Mariinsky Theater back in his school years, he was involved in the performances of The Nutcracker and The Sleeping Beauty. After graduating from college, he was enrolled in the troupe of the theater, and he quickly rose to the rank of soloist, performing parts in Corsair, Sleeping Beauty, Awakening Flora and other productions.

However, the dance did not give him a sense of the fullness of life, he saw himself as a choreographer. Watching the work of the outstanding choreographers M. Petipa and L. Ivanov, Mikhail Fokin developed his own view of classical ballet, and he developed a strong opinion about the need to modernize the dance.

Mikhail Fokin: innovative choreographer

Fokine was entrusted with the first productions while still studying at the school. But he became a real choreographer only in 1905, and later he would be officially accepted as a director at the Mariinsky Theater. Studying the dance system of M. Petipa, Fokine begins to formulate his own theory. Moreas a beginner dancer, he writes a letter to the theater management with proposals for reforming ballet productions, but then they simply did not pay attention to him.

The first notable works appear in 1907-08: Egyptian Nights, The Dying Swan, Chopiniana, when the outstanding choreographer Mikhail Fokin becomes more and more famous. The biography changes dramatically after his meeting with Sergei Diaghilev. The entrepreneur invited the director to take part in the creation of ballet performances for a tour in Paris. For three years, Fokin was the only choreographer of the Russian Seasons, over the years he was able to gather around him an outstanding team, which included A. Benois, L. Bakst, Anna Pavlova, V. Nizhinsky, I. Rubinstein, T. Karsavina. He creates his outstanding works, which still delight the audience. These are the performances "Scheherazade", "Carnival", "Firebird", "Underwater Kingdom", "Narcissus", "Blue God", "Phantom of the Rose", and the pinnacle of creativity - "Petrushka" to the music of I. Stravinsky.

Until 1918, Fokin combined work with Diaghilev with performances at the Mariinsky Theater, but events in Russia forced him to leave the country, over time he moved to the USA, where he opened the first ballet school and staged performances with Russian music: "Russian Holidays", "Thunderbird", "Paganini" to music by S. Rachmaninov and "Russian Soldier" by Prokofiev. In total, during his life, Fokine staged 70 ballets, each of which has its own finds. He instilled in America a love for classical ballet, forming a national school and tradition. Fokine's balletsbecame a real asset of the art of dance in the 20th century, he was able to create his own school and made a number of discoveries.

"Against the Current": reformist ideas of Mikhail Fokin

At the beginning of the 20th century, ballet was going through hard times, it was considered a dying art, it needed a new impetus for development. The dance needed a new creator-savior, and Mikhail Fokin became such a choreographer for the Russian ballet. The work of this artist forever changed the idea of classical dance and gave ballet a new impetus to development. Fokine's reform consisted in the fact that he proposed to create not separate dances, but integral works in which plastic, music and scenery were harmoniously combined. Also, his merit was the revival of male dance, which had completely disappeared by that time. He creates new genres: miniature ballets, plotless plastic sketches.

Collaboration with the greats

In his work, Fokin tried to cooperate only with like-minded people, people in love with art. He was imbued with the ideas of the circle "World of Art" and actively involved prominent creators in the creation of his performances. A separate topic in the biography of the choreographer is a tandem: Mikhail Fokin and Anna Pavlova. Together they began to work on the play "Chopiniana", which fully demonstrated the genius of both creators.

Another significant success of Fokine was the discovery of Vaslav Nijinsky, whom he saw in the classroom and invited to his performance. For several years the dancer was busy in everyperformance by Fokine.

Private life

The life of geniuses is often difficult to combine with family life, but there are lucky people who manage to combine it, that's exactly what Mikhail Fokin was like. The director's wife, ballerina Vera Antonova, participated in Fokine's productions, she gave birth to a son to the choreographer, and also helped her husband all her life.

In particular, with her help, a ballet school was opened in New York, where Fokine worked until the end of his life.