Karl Lagerfeld designs for the National Ballet
"The Dying Swan" has always been one of my most favourite ballet performance. I first saw it when I was four or five in a movie about Anna Pavlova who worked with Mikhail Fokine who created the solo ballet dance in 1907. Accompanied by Camille Saint-Saens's The Swan (the thirteen movement of the Carnival of the Animals) it was incredibly moving, beautiful and very sad. 
Anna Pavlova
Since then I saw this magical dance many times as it was always performed after "The Swan Lake". Should I also mention that as a little girl I always dreamed of having this costume? I even created something out of what was available (probably, my grandma's curtains) and vividly remember attaching a finishing touch to the top bit - a big ruby brooch, which was also borrowed from my grandma (I don't think she ever found out though).
This year Karl Lagerfeld designed a dream costume for Senior Principal Dancer Elena Glurdjidze who performed the Dying Swan as a part of the English National Ballet's season of Ballet Russes at Sadler's Wells in London in June. The costume took 3 women and 100 hours to make and is a work of art, a true masterpiece. As a part of her final fitting, Elena danced The Dying Swan for Lagerfeld in his Chanel studio. The video of the beautiful dance was made by Karl Lagerfeld himself and you can watch it here.
"As a child I was already impressed by old images of Anna Pavlova dancing the ballet," Lagerfeld said in his interview, adding that, "the Ballet Russes were an influence for me". It looks like the history is repeating itself as Lagerfeld seems to be following the steps of Coco Chanel herself, who supported Sergey Dyagilev while he was staging The Dying Swan in 1919.
Here I also include videos of Anna Pavlova and Maya Plisetskaya (I adore her and think that her Swan is the most beautiful ever).
Translation: ....the Dying Swan became famous. This short 2-minute dance was choreographed for a young ballerina Anna Pavlova in 1907. The Dying Swan was an impromptu idea and is considered to be one of the most inspirational Fokine's works, a dramatic symbol of rebellion against death.
Sources: youtube.com, chanel.com, vogue.co.uk, bloomacious.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment