All about Les Biches!

Index
- The ballet
- The plot
- Bronislava Nijinska
- Francis Poulenc
- Mara's point of view

THE BALLET

Bronislava Nijinska created this one act ballet on Francis Paulenc's music in 1924 for the Ballets Russes. Staged for the very first time in Monte Carlo, the sparkling choreography had in its original cast, none other than Bronislava Nijinska herself (as the Hostess, a role created with collaboration from Ninette de Valois, a young joiner in the company), Vera Nemchinova (the garçonne), Lioubov Tchernicheva, Lydia Sokolova, Nicolas Zvereff, Anatole Vilzak and Leon Woizikovsky. Original set and costumes are by Marie Laurencin.
Sir Frederick Ashton invited Bronislava Nijinska to stage Les Biches for the Royal Ballet in 1964: that is the final version of the work.

THE PLOT

The music, rich with jazz nuances, the pastel colour of the sets and the dazzling light; all of these take us to the shining parties of the French Riviera, the fashionable destination of the international 'jeunesse' in the '20s. The merit of this work is its ability to recreate, in a humorous and light way, the unconcerned atmosphere and the spirit of freedom of that age: the world is awakening, leaving behind the tragedies of the Great War, ready to leap into the short, but intense "jazz age".
We are in the hall of a rich home, attending a charming party. The intriguing guests are moving in a linear and clear choreographic structure.
Before our eyes we see a mysterious and sophisticated 'garçonne', an androgynous character wearing a blue velvet jacket (really bold for that age), three boys showing their tanned muscles, the inscrutable hostess (the lady of the house or a 'Madame'?) with her infinite cigarette holder and long pearl necklace, the two ambiguous girls in grey and the jolly and carefree "biches" with their long feather plumes.
The ballet suggests connections between the characters without a defined plot; there is no narrative aim, but simply an evocation of a glad carefree world, now in the distant past.

BRONISLAVA NIJINSKA

Dancer and choreographer, Bronislava Nijinska, legendary Vaslav's little sister, is born in Minsk, Russia, to Foma Nijinsky and Eleonora Bereda, both dancers, on January 1819.
In 1900 she starts, together with her brother, her academic studies at the Imperial Ballet School in Saint Petersburg and, eight years later, she joins the Marinsky Company.
In 1910 she joins Diaghilev's Ballet Russes in Paris, where she dances Fokine's Carnival and Petrouchka and creates the role of the nymph in his brother's Apres midi d'un faune. The following year she leaves the Marinsky. Not until 1913, the year of Diaghilev and Nijinsky's artistic and sentimental break, after an unlucky season directed by her brother, does she come back to Saint Petersburg.
In 1914 she starts her choreographic career creating her first ballet, La Tabatière. The same year she founds her own school in Kiev: among her students there is a young Serge Lifar.
Away from Russia, in 1921 she joins again the Ballet Russes as Principal dancer. This time she also has the chance to create her new ballets, due to Massine's leaving: those are the years of masterpieces such as Renard, Les Noces, Les Tentations de la bergère, Les Biches, Les Fâcheux, Le Train Bleu and a Romeo and Juliet on Lambert's music.
On leaving Diaghilev, Nijinska starts a rich career as choreograph, teacher and director. After a collaboration with Paris Opéra and Colon in Buenos Aires, back to Europe, she creates Stravinsky's Le Baiser de la Fée (1928) and Ravel's Bolero (1928) and La Valse (1929) for Ida Rubinstein's company. She collaborates with a lot of companies, such as the Ballet Russe de Montecarlo, the Polish Ballet in Paris, the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas and the Ballet International. In 1938 she opens a school in Los Angeles.
At last, Sir Frederick Ashton invites her to restage Les Biches (1964) and Les Noces (1966) for the Royal Ballet. In 1967 she is appointed artistic director of the Buffalo Ballet.
She dies in Los Angeles on February, 22nd 1972.

FRANCIS POULENC

Born in 1899 to Emil Poulenc, businessman owner of the homonymous pharmaceutical company, Francis Poulenc studied on his own, never attending a Conservatoire: this fact, seen as a lack of musical knowledge, caused him a lot of distrust and underestimation among his colleagues, who considered him an amateur.
His first success was the Les Biches score. Then a lot of his works were used to stage ballets: Aubade (used by Nijinska and Balanchine), Les Animaux modèles (choreographed by Lifar for the Paris Opéra), Gloria (staged by MacMillan), Organ concerto (Tetley); among the other choreographers who have been inspired by Poulenc are Ashton, Page and Wright.
Anyway, he gained most of his fame through the opera. The owner of Italian Casa Ricordi commissioned an opera based on George Bernanos's drama Dialogues des Carmelites, based in turn on a novel by the German Gertrud Von Le Fort. The score was completed in 1955 and it was first executed at Teatro alla Scala on January 26th, 1957 acclaimed by both the critics and the audience.
In 1959 another big goal followed, La Voix Humaine, based on Cocteau's libretto.
Poulenc died in 1963 in Paris.



MARA'S POINT OF VIEW

Les Biches is a ballet I love very much, since I danced it for the very first time in 2000, opposite Jonathan Cope. My character is the Lady in Blue, a mysterious 'androgyne' role. Though it could seem really simple, the choreography contains lots of hidden dangers.
The first is certainly the pirouettes in coupé: the tours start from a little fourth position, plié must be quick, almost undetectable, the arms, one folded, with the hand resting on the chest, the other one lying down the side, don't help.
The quick and undetectable plié is a characteristic of the whole work, also in the male roles, with the 'heavy' tour en l'air, started with a very little push, the arms stopped at the side and fist hands.
Back to my role, the quick start and the particular position of the foot (coupe) make the tour really fast (three tours are quite natural), so it is really difficult to stop in a perfect fifth position en pointe, as required by the choreography.
The position of the trunk is another important characteristic. The arabesque figures, which appears very often both in the solo and the pas de deux, are taken with the trunk in torsion. This particular position of the upper part of the body is very restricting: for this reason, arabesques are always under 90° degrees. The legs line should be parallel to the arms, which form a diagonal line. The fingers of the hands are always shut.
About the acting, the Lady in Blue shouldn't be tempting: her mysterious attitude charms and defeats her muscle man.