Australia Dancing

Icare

Photographer unknown: Serge Lifar in the title role in 'Icare', Ballets Russes, c. 1940

Serge Lifar's one-act ballet Icare was first performed by the Paris Opera Ballet at Palais Garnier on 9 July 1935. Lifar left Paris after the outbreak of war in Europe and toured to Australia with Colonel de Basil's Original Ballet Russe from 1939-40. He produced a new staging of Icare for this Australian tour which premiered at the Theatre Royal, Sydney on 16 February 1940. The theme of Icare was taken from the Greek myth of Icarus, the tragic hero who attempted to fly with wings attached with wax. As he flew higher the wax was melted by the sun's rays and Icarus fell to his death.

In the Original Ballet Russe production of Icare, Serge Lifar danced the role of Icarus and Dimitri Rostoff that of his father, Dedalus. Lifar was recalled to Paris a week after the premiere and the role of Icarus was taken up by Roman Jasinsky. The performances of both Lifar and Jasinsky were extremely well received.

In his Manifeste du choregraphe, published in 1935, Lifar declared the independence of dance from music. He described the creator-choreographer with his own term 'choreauteur' and explained that 'ballet music be before anything else danceable and borrow its rhythms from nowhere but find them in its own divine essence...' Lifar was eager to put his theory into practice and in the same year created Icare, the first of his works to have been choreographed before the music was composed. On his arrival in Australia, Lifar made the following comments about Icare:

'My main reform is that I put the musician in his place. In the past, the creators of ballets have been far too subservient to orchestral scores. They have fitted the steps, the motions, the gestures to the melodies a composer has provided for them. It should be the other way about. The choreographer should create the scheme of dancing and the musician should then be asked to provide a score to fit that scheme'.

In keeping with this principle, the staging of Icare in Australia was accompanied by a percussive score orchestrated by Antal Dorati, which was based on rhythms devised by Lifar. Loudon Sainthill was initially approached to design the work in Australia, however the commission was eventually given to a 23 year-old Sidney Nolan. Nolan conceived a unified performance space that would blur the boundaries between the dancer and design. The backdrop was to be mainly black and white, with Lifar in a zebra-like costume in front of the striped background. Nolan's ideas were, however, contrary to Lifar's belief in the hegemony of dance over music and design. His first designs were rejected and Nolan had less than a week to redesign the work. The eventual design consisted of Grecian style costumes and a backcloth divided into two unequal parts, the lower in blue and the upper in red. The horizontal divisions were broken by a series of black bars and a rainbow on which a stylised image of Icarus was suspended. While the designs were received with some controversy they were successful in realising Lifar's ideals.

Lifar later commissioned Picasso to create new set and costume designs for a revival of Icare in 1962 by the Paris Opera Ballet. Picasso's design was of a striking yellow backdrop which rose climactically to reveal an image of Icarus hanging from the base of the sun. The Paris Opera Ballet staged Icare again in 1993 with Charles Jude in the title role. As artistic director of the Ballet de Bordeaux, Jude has since brought Icare into that company's current repertoire.

Bibliography:

Michelle Potter, 'Spatial boundaries: Sidney Nolan's ballet designs', Brolga, 3 (December 1995), pp. 53-67

Serge Lifar, 'Ma Vie: from Kiev to Kiev' (London : Hutchinson & Co., 1970)

'Serge Lifar arrives. A new style in Ballet', The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 December 1939, p. 11

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Find more about Icare in:

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