L’adoration de la terre. Le Sacre du Printemps, better known as The Rite of Spring, or translated more literally as Sacred Spring, is the 1913 ballet and orchestral work written for the Ballet Russes by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It rocked the ballet world and the art scene, avant-garde and later described as a near riot reaction. The concept is suggested by its subtitle, “Pictures of Pagan Russia in Two Parts”. The ballet itself doesn’t follow a narrative but rather depicts various primitive rituals celebrating the advent of spring, after which a young girl is chosen as a sacrificial victim and dances herself to death. Although Stravinsky denied it, there are many elements of Russian folk music, and it’s also got roots in a poem, “Yarila”, in Sergey Gorodetsky’s anthology, which Stravinsky had previously written music for. This photo is my interpretation of the first part, the Adoration of the Earth, parts of which include young girls dancing in circles, the “Khorovod”, or Spring Rounds, and then becoming one, in the Dance of the Earth. See my stories for a breakdown of this photo, and obvs music recommendation is The Rite of Spring, which is one of the most performed concert pieces too.
Réalisation. I watched the Scottish Ballet’s The Rite of Spring, choreographed by Christopher Hampson, earlier this year during lockdown, though I have listened to it many times as an orchestral concert piece. Spring in particular has been an absolute balm this year. So my inspired portraits are a realisation of sorts. The music is vivid and evocative and wild. Not quite comprehensible. Like spring in many ways. The story is representative and mysterious and expressive. Something perhaps ugly, primitive, irrational. Not spring at first glance, but wholly natural. Stravinsky (original composer) and Nijinsky (original choreographer) intended to celebrate pagan Russia, the creative power of spring, the harsh discomfort of real life. The Chosen One dances herself to death, so thematically, her sacrifice is one of brutality. There’s little of human feeling, no soul-searching, a bit of disquiet, like the world feels a little right now. I’m no ballet dancer, as much as I enjoy watching it, but I did artistic gymnastics for about 10 years as a child, so I understand the beauty of hands, and the shapes of bodies, and the stretch of splits (yoga helps the muscle memory). But it’s not graceful, just as The Rite of Spring is not. I haven’t taken many self portraits in this second round of iso creations because I’ve been quite self-conscious about the breakouts on my face. But there’s nothing like dancing barefoot around the tree on a bed of blossom petals with a flower crown in your hair frolicking in a dress.
Le sacrifice. The music of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps deserves its own analysis. It sounds almost hideous because it contains a lot of paradoxically modernist orchestration. There’s bitonality, the use of two different keys simultaneously. There’re complex time signatures, the irregular but strong percussive beat. The rhythmic accents change, even though there are also repetitive chords. The energy, the cacophony, the explosiveness serves to emphasise body over mind. It’s a completely modern composition about a decidedly pre-modern tradition. This photo is my interpretation of the second part, The Sacrifice, in which one of the young girls is selected by fate and honoured as the Chosen One to invoke the ancestors, she is entrusted to the care of the old wise men, and finally she dances herself to death. As I intimated in yesterday’s post, it’s completely brutal. And you can see this in the Yarila poem too (it’s in my stories). It’s why photos 2-10 in this carousel tell a chronological story. One of increasing liberation and losing innocence. The last one is particularly important, because though spring and creativity means power and expression and freedom, photograhy is also the means by which I process the emotions of my life as it is right now, like anger and grief and anxiety. Each individual instrument and small group has a distinct role in the orchestra. But the Chosen One dances alone.