Abstract

This thesis examines the image and role of the ballerina in pre-World War I works for the Ballets Russes in London. It argues that, despite the emergence of the central male figure in many of these ballets, the ballerina was also undergoing a modern metamorphosis of her own. The first section provides context for the arrival of the Ballets Russes in London in 1911. It is followed by a discussion of Michel Fokine’s approach to choreography and the resultant works he created for the company, with an eye to how his philosophy impacted women’s roles in these ballets. To better situate this “new ballet” that Fokine constructed, the third section highlights key aspects of the nineteenth-century Romantic ballerina and how she informed the roles danced by women in the Ballets Russes, drawing on critical assessments of her legacy. The ambivalent femininity portrayed through the Ballets Russes ballerina is considered in the section that follows, culminating in an image that straddles a Romantic-era heritage while incorporating aspects of modernity. As a backdrop to the company’s London performances, the fifth section considers the British suffrage movement and the ways in which women’s bodies became sites of debate, protest, and violence. Parallels are suggested between these corporeal aspects of the movement and women’s representation onstage through two of Fokine’s ballets, L’Oiseau de feu and Schéhérazade, notably through possible kinaesthetic connections between female dancers and audience members, as reflected in sketches and illustrations of the ballets. Finally, critics’ reviews of the London performances are extracted to demonstrate how the Ballets Russes generated a concept of the modern ballerina as a serious artist and accomplished professional.