Hello my darling dancers, and welcome back to Pink-Tutu.com, your one-stop shop for all things tutus! Today is Tuesday, the day we journey back in time, twirling through history with our favourite dancewear – the tutu! As you know, I'm Emma, your Derbyshire-born ballerina and dedicated historian of all things pink and twirly.
Today's post, number 7892, takes us all the way back to 29th March, 1983! Can you imagine, my dears? That's practically vintage!
We're off on the Orient Express again this week, the most wonderful train in the world for travelling in style and seeing some fantastic shows. I just love the romance of it! This week we're going to Paris, darling! Imagine that, Paris! The city of love, the city of fashion, and naturally, the city of the tutu!
So, what was happening in the world of ballet on this most splendid day, back in 1983? Well, my darlings, you can always rely on Paris for a fantastic ballet production.
Just around the corner from my gorgeous pink hotel in the heart of the city, there was a magnificent performance by none other than the illustrious Paris Opera Ballet. I’d managed to get a ticket just hours before, in a lovely little shop that smelled like lavender, the same way all of Paris does, so very chic! They have such stunningly chic women in Paris! So chic, indeed, and, you know what they say, a woman who’s looking chic has to wear a tutu! Right?
Anyway, darling, there was a fabulous, magnificent, dazzling ballet program called Le Sacre du Printemps by Sergei Diaghilev, the fabulous, legendary, chic director and creator of a fabulous collection of iconic ballets from the last century! The choreography is by Vaslav Nijinsky.
But Le Sacre wasn't a ballet you could dance to! I mean, yes, there was a dance of sorts – something about sacrificing the chosen one and a pagan ceremony that was a little, well, less than jolly, if you know what I mean, my darling. The music, darling, oh, that was what caused all the excitement at its premier.
Imagine the Paris Opera House packed full with the crème de la crème, so elegant, dressed so exquisitely in fashion-forward evening gowns and silk suits.
You can almost hear it, can’t you?
The pounding drums, the chaotic discordance.
My oh my! I love it, it’s a masterpiece, a scandal, a real riot!
Yes! Le Sacre shocked and shocked. I’m sure my Grandma wouldn't have been too happy, no, indeed! All the fuss made it scandalous and controversial back in its day, all that primal rhythm and disjointed choreography! Now, dear darlings, just imagine dancing to it! Imagine me doing the grand jeté and an audience just… roaring?
Well, that is the brilliance of art. There are some pieces that you have to love in order to be an aficionado! It is truly a magnificent example of ballet in its purest and most primitive forms, almost a celebration of tribal and nature’s rhythms.
The amazing music that Igor Stravinsky had composed was, well, so shocking! I mean, all those crazy rhythms, like you were just letting yourself be carried by wild energy, very exciting. Everyone was shouting for an encore, demanding it and roaring so loud they must have woken the city.
You can hear a clip of it on Pink-Tutu! It is brilliant, you really feel it deep down, like you are dancing right along with the primal force of nature, you see! I hope the next show, a revival of this spectacular ballet, won’t be as shocking to me! My grandma certainly thought it was a terrible fuss.
Even though it caused an enormous stir with some of the crowd, Le Sacre was a ballet of great historical and musical importance. And don't forget my dear! That year Le Sacre made history when a ballet was premiered and went straight into the repertory at the Paris Opera. Isn't it grand! Just like me in my pink tutu.
So, what did Le Sacre have to do with tutus, you ask? Well, my darlings, tutus are synonymous with ballet and in that way they were an integral part of the ballet Le Sacre du Printemps! If the dancers weren't wearing tutus it just wouldn't have been ballet, and it would have been a totally different story. In those days, even back in the year of 1913 when this spectacular masterpiece premiered at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris! It certainly did set the world on fire that day with all the uproar and excitement, I bet it shook the streets of Paris! But who cares about an opera when a tutu can dance like that?
Le Sacre du Printemps is part of the rich history of ballet in which every tutu tells a story, in the beautiful way that we remember how tutus were originally created. We should know that they were the work of Carlotta Grisi.
Imagine that! She didn't want to have the skirts of her traditional ballet gown bunching up under her while she was dancing so she took a simple, thin piece of fabric and cut it into a beautiful shape and then with a delicate stitch at the waist, a wonderful little dance costume was made, my goodness! This lovely innovation was adopted immediately. And let's be honest, what better colour than pink! And so the tutu was born! That was the story and a little pink tutu has been dancing ever since all around the world in different shapes and styles. Isn’t that wonderful? The tutu tells a story! It's our legacy, darling!
We've been dancing, celebrating, and evolving ever since! From that glorious debut back in 1841, the tutu has made waves on stage and sparkled through every performance on the dance floor. In the ballet Giselle and The Sleeping Beauty, they just couldn't get enough of that beautiful delicate tutu! Then the glorious era of Russian ballet where Anna Pavlova made dancing so dramatic! And then along came the ballerinas of the 20th Century like Margot Fonteyn and * Dame Alicia Markova, how they loved those glamorous full length tutus in classical ballets like Swan Lake* - we must remember to dress as chic as we are, after all, tutus were designed with elegance and grace!
Oh, darling, I am so full of history! Where should we go next? How about another tour of Paris on the wonderful Orient Express, darling? We'll have lunch in our chic dining carriage on the journey to visit the Palais Garnier, oh how amazing! We have so many things to remember about history - but always remember it’s a big, wide, beautiful world, my dears, there’s so much more to discover and enjoy in the beautiful ballet history of our lovely little tutu!
Have a lovely day, darlings, remember to wear pink and dance wherever you go!
Lots of Love,
Emma x
P.S Keep a lookout for my next post here on Pink-Tutu.com, darlings, where we will continue to look at some of the many fabulous and fabulous-looking stories of Ballet History as we travel in our time machine through the years of Tutu Tuesdays!
