Australia Dancing - de Basil, Wassily (1880

de Basil, Wassily (1880 - 1951)

Dupain, Max: Portrait of Colonel Wassily de Basil, 1940

Colonel Wassily de Basil came to Australia to oversee the visit by the Original Ballet Russe on a tour that began in 1939 and continued into 1940. Two other tours by the Russian Ballet companies, those by the Monte Carlo Russian Ballet (1936-1937) and the Covent Garden Russian Ballet (1938-1939), were directly related to his entrepreneurial activities although de Basil did not tour to Australia with these companies.

In a program introduction to de Basil and his mission, written for Australian audiences, the British dance writer Arnold Haskell stated:

He is ever eager to preserve the great tradition, to add to it and, especially, to see that youth has its say. It is, perhaps, in his uncanny flair for talent and in his courage that Colonel de Basil excels. When he re-animated Ballet, he did not depend upon names but on quality. He was prepared to face a public known to be snobbish with a handful of youngsters in whom he believed, and he was right. Those youngsters have made names, but de Basil has not been content to rest on his laurels. He believes that when once he has ceased "discovering", his mission will be at an end. The general public values, and rightly so, the entertainment value of Ballet, but the connoisseur recognises what can only be called The Basil touch; flair, courage and a touch of adventure that stops one taking his offerings for granted.

During his visit to Australia de Basil made efforts to commission work from Australians, especially from designers, who included Sidney Nolan and Kathleen and Florence Martin. In addition, he instigated a design competition for an original Australian ballet, which was won by Donald Friend with designs for a ballet based on a fictitious event in the life of Ned Kelly. He also auditioned Australian dancers and one, Valrene Tweedie, joined the Original Ballet Russe in Sydney in 1940.

Born in Kaunas as Vasily Grigorievich Voskresensky, de Basil first engaged in entrepreneurial activities in Paris in 1919 as a demobilised Russian refugee. He is said to have been a colonel in the cossack army although his claim to the title Colonel is disputed by some. Towards the end of 1931 he began issuing contracts for a ballet company, the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, which gave its first performance in Monte Carlo in 1932. From then on he directed Ballets Russes companies, which performed under a variety of different names, until the mid decades of the twentieth century.

Research Materials

Moving picture | Oral history | Picture | All

Other resources

Find more about de Basil, Wassily in:

Internet - Google
Articles - New York Public Library Dance Collection
Pictures - Picture Australia