Full transcript
0:16He was a superstar of that era.
0:19He became head of the Paris Opera at 25.
0:25Few ballet artists in history can compare.
0:32He staged over 200 productions at the Paris Opera.
0:39A man who achieved so much in another country in such tough times
0:45and left behind an incredible legacy.
0:52Thanks to his innovations, he trained more than ten stars of French ballet.
0:59Modern French choreography was shaped by Lifar.
1:24In recent years, I’ve been researching the biographies of Ukrainian artists,
1:27who built their careers abroad.
1:30All of them fled Ukraine under various historical circumstances.
1:34Among the most fascinating and at the same time most complex...
1:38the story of choreographer Serge Lifar.
1:48When in September 1941, German troops occupied Kyiv,
1:52in Nazi-occupied Paris, Serge Lifar wrote an article dedicated to his hometown.
1:58In more than 20 years of travels
2:02I haven’t seen a more beautiful city than Kyiv.
2:06Serge recalls the majestic views of his childhood:
2:09Saint Volodymyr’s Cathedral, Vydubychi Monastery
2:11on the high bank above the great Dnipro.
2:15But this line catches my eye.
2:19Before the Germans captured Kyiv, I experienced a few minutes of deep anxiety,
2:25that the Soviets, retreating, would destroy the city's beauty.
2:30This article appeared in the collaborationist newspaper «Paris-Midi».
2:34It would be held against Lifar after the war,
2:37when he faced accusations of collaboration with the Nazis.
2:41But who was Serge Lifar when he was alone?
2:45Did he truly support the German occupation authorities?
2:49Could his decisions during World War II
2:52have been shaped by childhood memories of revolutionary Kyiv...
2:56and his rejection of the Bolshevik rule?
2:59This is one of the most complex stories I’ve worked on.
3:03My research begins in Kyiv — the city where, 120 years ago,
3:08one of the greatest dancers of the 20th century, Serge Lifar, was born.
3:15KYIV history
3:22BIOGRAPHY
3:32DANCE THEORY
3:41IDENTITY
3:50CONTEMPORARY DANCE
4:05At the dawn of the 20th century, Kyiv was entering a period of rapid growth.
4:10This is a city where the biggest oligarchs
4:14of that time came to settle and do business.
4:18This influx of capital drove an intense construction boom.
4:27Kyiv of that time is unique.
4:30Kyiv had an opera house and a private opera enterprise.
4:35In the Russian Empire, there were no state theaters
4:38outside the two capitals.
4:41On the one hand, it’s an imperial city.
4:43On the one hand, Russification is actively taking place here.
4:47On the other hand, Kyiv had a significant Jewish community,
4:50a significant Polish community.
4:54People speak different languages here.
4:55All churches, cathedrals, synagogues, Karaim kenesa all operated here.
5:06An ordinary city, mostly Russian-speaking.
5:09Yet throughout the 19th century,
5:12the Empire pursued an active policy of Russification.
5:15The Ukrainian community was quite noticeable in Kyiv,
5:18though not very large.
5:25Lifar was born into a Ukrainian family.
5:29From childhood, he was surrounded by Ukrainian melos,
5:31traditions and rituals.
5:35He loved singing and was fascinated by music.
5:41He was sent to study in the best educational institutions in Kyiv.
5:45Education was a brilliant social elevator, a key player in the field of identity.
5:54Lifar grew up in a highly vibrant cultural environment
5:58of avant-gardists, suprematists, modernists —
6:02artists who, unfortunately, are known today worldwide
6:05as part of the so-called Russian modernism or Russian avant-garde,
6:08even though their roots lay deep in Ukrainian ethnic culture,
6:11its folklore, and the richness of Ukrainian artistic heritage.
6:19Kyiv was one of the world’s centres of modernism
6:25and of its highest expression — the artistic avant-garde.
6:47The familiar world collapsed for Kyiv’s residents and the Lifar family
6:50with the outbreak of the First World War,
6:53which for the Russian Empire ended with the fall of the monarchy
6:56and the beginning of Ukraine’s struggle for independence.
7:07From 1917 to 1920, power in Kyiv changed hands
7:10fourteen times, according to most historians.
7:17First, the Provisional Government in Kyiv was overthrown,
7:20then the Centralna Rada took power,
7:24then came the first Bolsheviks,
7:26who unleashed terror that shocked everyone.
7:29In his published memoirs, Lifar recalls that the Bolsheviks
7:32looted their estate and brutally killed his grandmother.
7:37His grandfather was imprisoned by Chekists for a month and went blind afterwards.
7:42Serge was not yet thirteen at the time.
8:04German troops entered Ukraine at the invitation of its government —
8:08to end the Bolshevik occupation.
8:11And it was clearly seen as far better than
8:14the three weeks of Muravyov’s rule in Kyiv,
8:16when people were shot in the streets just for speaking Ukrainian,
8:20for wearing the uniform of the tsarist army,
8:23or for carrying a pass from Centralna Rada.
8:26This turbulent, revolutionary, and complex life of Kyiv
8:30in those first decades surely left a deep impression on him.
8:35He lived in an atmosphere of tension; it vibrated within him —
8:39a constant search, a certain theatricality.
8:45In the dark times already looming over this land, when one longed
8:51perhaps to escape from troubles, choreography and dance arrived.
9:00At the beginning of these revolutionary events Bronislava Nijinska arrived in Kyiv
9:06and begins her experiments in the School of Movement studio.
9:19Bronislava Nijinska was one of the first women choreographers
9:22in the world to develop her own methodology and system
9:27that allowed her to train dancers and performers
9:31capable of standing on equal ground with other art forms.
9:52It was the avant-garde of its time — Experiments and innovations,
9:56a search for new forms, integration of folklore,
9:59of everyday movement, and incorporation
10:02into the stage expression of these avant-garde images.
10:09Lifar came to the School of Movement quite by chance.
10:12A friend suggested he go there to look at beautiful girls.
10:16Nijinska’s students — light muses — Served a cult of beauty.
10:21And this devotion to beauty seemed so strange amid the dull gray
10:23Soviet life, deprived of any grace.
10:29At that moment, Lifar decided he would join Bronislava Nijinska’s studio.
10:35She told him she didn’t like him,
10:37that he had a hump, she wouldn’t take him.
10:40For him, it became a challenge — And in fact, a push
10:43to move forward, driven by ambition.
10:47Lifar then enrolled in the Centrostudio where Nijinska
10:50gave free lessons for the proletarian masses.
10:54But the training lasted only a few months.
10:57The ballerina fled to Europe, leaving her students behind.
11:08Serge locked himself in the studio for five hundred days
11:10and practiced ballet on his own.
11:15To start a professional career at that age was truly difficult.
11:21And when you devote yourself entirely to training,
11:25you begin to notice how every step, every influence,
11:30every circumstance offered affects your result.
11:34Now we have methods, textbooks, video materials — he had none if that.
11:41He had only an immense desire and an excellent ballet memory.
11:46He simply reproduced with his body the lessons she had once given.
12:01When Nijinska moved to Paris,
12:04she needed male dancers for her troupe.
12:07She made a list of those who were to come, but one of the boys lost his nerve.
12:12Lifar went without an invitation.
12:19When he fled at the end of 1922, he reached Warsaw on his second attempt,
12:25and from there he made it to Paris — a daring journey indeed.
12:29Leaving Kyiv meant, first of all, exposing yourself to danger,
12:37and second, if you succeeded, putting your family at risk as well.
12:43The Lenin–Trotsky principle of hostages worked flawlessly.
12:52If one betrayed — the family and ten others would be punished.
12:57In Kyiv remained his mother, father, his brothers,
13:00his sister, his grandfather — The whole family stayed behind.
13:05And as he gradually became a well-known figure,
13:07he realized more and more
13:10that some things could be dangerous for his family.
13:16It took Lifar only a few years to rise from a refugee
13:19with no future to a reformer of the Paris Opera.
13:27PARIS history
13:34ARCHIVES
13:42CREATIVITY
13:50INNOVATION
14:01France was undergoing a kind of cultural crisis between the world wars.
14:05And into this landscape burst Diaghilev’s Russian Seasons,
14:09with Nijinsky, Nijinska — scandals, new names, new faces, new aesthetics.
14:15The image of the «Russian Ballets» became a symbol of modernity.
14:20There was also a major press campaign
14:25that Diaghilev launched across Paris — It made a powerful impression.
14:31Diaghilev played this masterfully,
14:33branding Russian Seasons «Russian».
14:38If we review all the artists who made these Russian Seasons famous,
14:43we’ll actually find not that many from Russia itself.
14:57Nijinska’s Kyiv group of five dancers, including Lifar,
15:01met Diaghilev for the first time right after arriving in Paris.
15:05Soon after, they left for Monte Carlo.
15:08According to Serge’s memoirs, it was paradise on earth after life in Russia.
15:13When he arrived in January 1923, he was a young man of barely eighteen.
15:18In exile, far from his loved ones, he felt lost.
15:22Deeply lost — and, at that time, not yet a good dancer.
15:25He was almost an amateur, after only a few lessons with Nijinska in Kyiv.
15:31At the first audition, he was the worst of all.
15:34There’s the famous bet Diaghilev made with Nijinska — a bottle of champagne —
15:40she insisted there was no hope for this young Lifar.
15:46He began to work — tirelessly.
15:50He knew that if he were thrown out the door, he’d come back through the window.
15:55That was Lifar — the kind of character that made his success possible.
16:00It was his chance, and he used it
16:04not a hundred percent, but two hundred — and more.
16:08Diaghilev had a very refined system of favorites and star-making.
16:13He saw the boy’s talent and would take him to Florence,
16:17a city Diaghilev loved and knew so well.
16:19He introduced him to Italian painters and made him read catalogs.
16:23He truly shaped and «forged» Lifar
16:27through his love of visual art.
16:30He also taught him how to say «no»
16:33when signing contracts — The business side of art.
16:37He forged that too.
16:39He worked with the greatest masters
16:42of ballet art of that era — Legat and Cecchetti.
16:46Diaghilev knew perfectly well and carried out
16:51his own Pygmalion programme — Molding Galatea from the start.
16:58True, his Galatea was male,
17:01and he fell in love with his creation as with his own work.
17:05After Diaghilev’s death, Lifar described all those moments
17:10of closeness and the scenes of jealousy Diaghilev inflicted on him.
17:15He wrote quite boldly that his relationships were purely homosexual.
17:22Three months after fleeing Kyiv, Lifar got his first role in the corps de ballet.
17:27Two more years of relentless work were needed
17:29for him to become the company’s principal dancer.
17:33After his spectacular triumphs
17:35in the roles of the Prodigal Son and Apollo,
17:38Diaghilev invited Serge to try his hand as a choreographer.
17:45Working with such renowned — we’d now say famous — choreographers
17:50Working with such renowned — we’d now say famous — choreographers
17:52as Nijinska, Balanchine, Massine, Lifar of course,
17:57he absorbed from them the craft of stage production.
18:00he absorbed from them the craft of stage production.
18:02Balanchine was important to him,
18:04because it was with Balanchine that he had notable solo parts starting in 1926.
18:10Balanchine had a great influence on Lifar’s style,
18:14for Balanchine already showed the outlines of neoclassicism.
18:18In his interviews, Lifar claimed that he was the one
18:22who asked Diaghilev to invite Balanchine on their Italian tour.
18:26In particular, to Venice and Florence.
18:29He was photogenic — every photographer wanted to capture him!
18:32He knew how to «catch the light,» and it played a great role in his career.
18:36Besides, he was young and charismatic.
18:40He understood the importance of personality for stage presence.
18:45Toward the end of his life, one of Balanchine’s dancers asked him:
18:50«Mr. Balanchine, everyone knows you were a choreographer devoted to women.
18:55Were there male dancers who inspired you?
18:59And if so — who?»
19:01Balanchine replied: «Lifar».
19:04Because he knew how to position his body to emphasize the movement».
19:11These became the stellar qualities that helped him
19:14replace the star Vaslav Nijinsky.
19:18Thus, very organically, Serge Lifar
19:21found his springboard thanks to Diaghilev’s Seasons.
19:25In fact, he and Diaghilev were so close that
19:29the latter had a strong influence on him personally.
19:32That lasted three to four years — Diaghilev died in 1929.
19:36Lifar’s stardom came in the 1930s and 1940s —
19:39He had already moved beyond Diaghilev’s legacy.
19:42He made new acquaintances, many of Diaghilev’s ideas were lost on him.
19:46Throughout the 1930s, Lifar worked with the surrealists,
19:48while Diaghilev never accepted surrealism at all.
19:51Lifar knew how to choose his circle.
19:54He was strongly influenced by his friends — painters, musicians, and others.
20:01I think this was crucial for his artistic maturity.
20:08In August 1929, the «Russian Ballets» ended with Diaghilev’s death.
20:12The Opera decided to commission George Balanchine
20:17to create new choreography for Beethoven’s only ballet, «The Creatures of Prometheus».
20:28Lifar and Olga Spessivtseva were hired as dancers.
20:34Then Balanchine fell ill.
20:37And it was Lifar who took on the direction and choreography,
20:42and ultimately created «Prometheus» himself.
20:52The ballet was created in a highly acrobatic and rebellious style,
20:57which was greatly appreciated.
21:01Lifar’s beauty, of course, also worked in his favor.
21:05It’s worth recalling who invited Lifar.
21:10There was another figure in his life, besides Diaghilev,
21:15who recognized his immense potential — Jacques Rouché.
21:23Jacques Rouché did not turn to Balanchine,
21:26in the autumn of 1930 he turned to Lifar.
21:29The aesthetics of the «Russian Ballets» suited him well,
21:32and I think Lifar’s youthful spirit appealed to him as well.
21:37This explains why Jacques Rouché so strongly supported Lifar and trusted him.
21:46It was absolutely natural for Lifar — to be
21:48offere the leadership of French Opera and Ballet,
21:50the Opéra Garnier — precisely for Lifar, because he was a superstar of his era.
22:19Today, the Paris Opera is one of the most successful ballet companies in the world.
22:26It was once led to countless triumphs by a foreigner —
22:30a refugee from revolution-torn Kyiv,
22:34who found himself in Paris as a teenager without education, language, or connections.
22:40At the Opera, I’m meeting Assoc. Prof. Laura Cappelle of Sorbonne Nouvelle.
22:46She has studied Lifar’s legacy and considers
22:49his contribution to French ballet undeniably outstanding.
22:53What distinguishes Lifar from other choreographers and dancers?
22:59Lifar was a hugely significant figure
23:01in the history of French ballet in the 20th century.
23:03He was one of the longest-serving ballet masters here at the Paris Opera Ballet.
23:07I want to say first of all, that he was a very ambitious man
23:10and I think that played a part
23:11because you have to have a level of ambition
23:14and a level of striving for renewal
23:17to last as long as he did.
23:19He brought to the company a desire to uphold like a highest possible standards,
23:26and the company was not doing so well
23:29when he arrived as ballet master in 1930.
23:32He brought in a lot of changes to the Paris Opera.
23:36He made it mandatory to attend more technical classes.
23:40One.
23:44Good, arms.
23:46Open.
23:47Second.
23:48Turn. Turn, turn, legs!
23:50Feet! Open!
23:58Arabesque.
24:04It seems obvious now that dancers should train in pas de deux classes,
24:09but at that time, such training didn’t exist.
24:11In 1932, he opened pas de deux courses for the Opera's dancers.
24:30Please.
24:35Please.
24:36One.
24:37Two.
24:38Shoulders forward.
24:41One.
24:42Two.
24:43One.
24:44Two.
24:45Encore.
24:49He directed his ideas toward shaping an entirely new repertoire.
24:54He also brought a spirit of research into his creative process,
24:58working closely with dancers, synthesizing ideas, inviting new stage designers,
25:03introducing new music and moving away from the traditional grand ballet model.
25:09Alisette d’Arsonval, Yvette Chauviré, and many others.
25:13And they all said: «He’s our peer!»
25:18«He was the ballet master, yet of our age!»
25:21«He spent entire days dancing with us in the studio!»
25:34He brought his passion, his enthusiasm,
25:37and that explains why he was able to lead and inspire the company
25:42of dancers who were carried by that artistic energy.
25:59It's not that surprising that he ended up working with so many visual artists,
26:02because he also came out of the Ballets Russes.
26:05That was the Ballets Russes model, like the Diaghilev model
26:08of bringing together choreographers, dancers,
26:10but also painters, artists, writers, all together to create something new.
26:19In 1935, the sets and costumes for «Icarus» were
26:22designed by his own decorator, Paul Larthe.
26:25He also collaborated, for instance, with Paul Colin,
26:30the remarkable poster artist on several occasions.
26:35He also worked with Cassandre, who designed the sets for «Mirages»
26:39and «The Knight and the Girl».
26:41His aesthetic contained something slightly fantastical and surreal,
26:47which played an important role in «Mirages».
26:49He collaborated with Yves Brayer and many other artists of his time.
26:58Picasso is someone that he actually met through the Ballets Russes,
27:01and he became quite close to him at the time.
27:04And Picasso would also, like, draw him throughout his life,
27:07like he would watch him in rehearsal and also draw him, draw Lifar at work.
27:12He was such a charismatic dancer as well
27:14And in the 1960s, when Picasso agreed to do the sets -
27:17to do the new sets for «Icarus»,
27:20that was actually his very first collaboration with the Paris Opera.
27:24In «Icarus» he applied his own theory:
27:27dance should first be perceived as the «producer» of rhythm,
27:35upon which the composer,
27:37builds a score beyond mere melody.
27:42At first, he was very dogmatic — no melody, only rhythm.
27:45No.
27:46His friend Honegger, whom he consulted, told him:
27:49«It will be very monotonous if there’s only a drum!
27:52You need to expand the percussion section.
27:56Add woodwinds, metallic sounds.
27:59Make the sound more varied, if you don’t want it to be melodic».
28:04When I was entrusted with the corps de ballet
28:06at the Opera, with that wonderful school,
28:10which was still too steeped in academism and aestheticism,
28:14at first I tried to follow the same path, but very soon I saw
28:22that it was the wrong direction.
28:24I had to choose my own path. That’s why I knew how to rebel.
28:33And he embodied this in «Icarus».
28:34He sought to realize a concept where dance is the main element.
28:45That had never happened in the Paris Opera.
28:48Looking at the programme then, there were ballets
28:51mixed with opera numbers on the same evening.
28:54And starting from 1935, it was Lifar who began
28:57to organize exclusively ballet performances.
29:01Nothing like that was done in Paris before!
29:02It was very unusual then and considered odd.
29:18For him, the ballet «Icarus» was truly epochal.
29:22That is what,
29:23besides moving away from music,
29:25from any tie to musicality,
29:28the male role is pivotal there.
29:32At that time, the man was seen as a complement
29:36to the female heroine, who carried the story.
29:41And in his work he underlined
29:44that a man himself could be
29:47the ballet central hero,
29:50which was already innovative.
29:54Making this the norm at the Opéra Garnier was Lifar’s achievement.
30:01Lifar’s critics often rightly point to his narcissism,
30:05since he created many male roles for himself —
30:08Bacchus, Icarus, Alexander the Great,
30:15David the Triumphant – yet he created many major roles for women.
30:29He wrote a lot.
30:30He wrote on the history, books as well,
30:33which reflected his vision of dance history,
30:36but he also wrote manifestos
30:38and his take on what technique should be,
30:42and where ballet should moving forward to going to the future.
30:46It was significant in positioning himself as well
30:49as someone who could bring modernity to ballet here and make it exciting.
30:55His innovation and scientific approach,
30:57which came naturally to him,
30:59laid the foundations for modern French dance.
31:03In this sense, Lifar’s contribution was truly significant
31:08in the theorization of dance.
31:11This style was already visible in his early works.
31:15Including the rarely mentioned «On the Dnipro»,
31:17dedicated to his homeland.
31:24Unfortunately, we haven't kept that much from «On the Dnipro»,
31:27because it wasn't performed for a very long time.
31:30It is so interesting that when he arrived in the early 1930s,
31:34to the Paris Opera Ballet here as ballet master,
31:37he chose also this Ukrainian subject matter.
31:40Sergei Prokofiev was entrusted with the score.
31:47The sets and costumes were created by Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov.
31:54«On the Dnipro» – a ballet dating from 1932,
31:59was inspired by the story of a Red Army soldier
32:01returning to his village on the Dnipro River.
32:04But the story is sentimental –
32:06a tale of a young man torn between two women.
32:16And the story he told
32:17was rooted also in the life that he had knew himself.
32:22So that makes it quite a special ballet in a way in his repertoire.
32:26We often underestimate the epic force of Kyiv’s landscape,
32:31which shaped everyone who lived then.
32:33The high right bank, the low left bank –
32:35the visual force of that scenery —
32:38it stayed with him, and he longed to return to that beauty.
32:43«Borysfen» — a complete failure.
32:45It was one of his greatest flops.
32:47He had many choreographic failures in the 1930s — a lot.
32:51«Bacchus and Ariadne» — a failure.
32:52Fewer than five performances — and that was all!
32:55«Youth», set to music by Pierre-Octave Ferroud was a failure.
32:59Why? Because it was far too modern!
33:03His dances were seen as too modern.
33:06In Lifar’s ballets, dancers fell to the floor and remainded there.
33:11That was unusual for the Opera stage.
33:18I don't know if his legacy is actually fully understood at the moment here in Paris.
33:24For various reasons, I think part of that is uneasiness
33:26over what happened in the Second World War
33:29and how to handle that part of his life.
33:32Could the war years have cast a shadow on Lifar’s reputation,
33:37leading to the neglect of a star choreographer?
34:17Part of the dancer’s archive is kept in the Museum of the History of Kyiv.
34:23Recently, the archive revealed
34:25Lifar’s unpublished memoirs,
34:27devoted to the Occupation period in Paris.
34:30There were heavy iron chests
34:33holding part of the collection,
34:34filled with documents and old prints.
34:37They had never been catalogued
34:39and were transferred on in chaotic condition.
34:42The museum collection is now restricted.
34:46Most of it was evacuated
34:48after Russia’s full-scale invasion began.
34:51He’s fourteen here.
34:52Autograph: «Vasyl Lifar»,
34:54meaning it was drawn by his brother.
34:56He has a small upturned profile,
34:59still before the plastic surgery
35:00he underwent at Diaghilev’s insistence in 1924.
35:03And this is a draft of a letter from Serge Lifar to his father.
35:08August 25, 1942 —
35:12in which he writes:
35:13«Dear Father,
35:14through the German authorities in Paris,
35:16I have already received news from you twice».
35:19«The first time, at my request to find you,
35:21I received the joyful news
35:23that you are alive».
35:24He writes that, if possible, he will come to Kyiv.
35:28«I’ll somehow fly to my dear Kyiv,
35:30even if only for a few hours.
35:32My native places, my poor mother’s grave,
35:35and you — all are calling me
35:36and drawing me back».
35:38But for now, great work keeps me here.
35:42What caught my attention?
35:43«Through the German authorities in Paris»,
35:46meaning he was in contact...
35:48– In contact... with the German authorities?
35:50Yes, he was, because
35:51he held an important position —
35:53he was head of the ballet at the Paris Opera.
36:01When he wrote this letter,
36:03Lifar hadn’t seen his parents for 20 years.
36:06As soon as he fled abroad after the Bolsheviks seized power,
36:10the road home was closed to him.
36:13Serge’s mother died in Kyiv,
36:16never seeing her son again.
36:18Communication with the German
36:20occupation authorities,
36:23at least in the early years,
36:27seemed to him
36:28a possible chance
36:29to visit Kyiv.
36:30At least that’s what he thought.
36:32Unfortunately,
36:34part of Ukraine’s population
36:36was guided by memories of 1918,
36:40when the Germans appeared
36:41more as a positive force
36:43than a negative one,
36:44when their arrival was associated
36:46with a return to order,
36:48a return to stability,
36:50and the restoration of relative peace.
36:54It’s interesting how he writes.
36:55In all Soviet letters, people are very restrained,
36:58self-censored. But here he writes:
37:00«It’s frightening to think what you
37:03«It’s frightening to think what you
37:05have gone through during these 25 years
37:07of hateful Bolshevism,
37:08of that barbaric power».
37:11Because many people,
37:12including those in Kyiv under occupation,
37:14believed that once the Germans came,
37:16the Bolsheviks would be gone for good.
37:18Between two totalitarian states –
37:20Nazi Germany
37:21and the Soviet Union –
37:23Lifar chose the former.
37:26Among the archive chests lies another unique document.
37:29These are unpublished memoirs
37:31of the choreographer,
37:33devoted to the occupation and liberation of Paris.
37:38He describes a very interesting,
37:39pivotal moment —
37:41the instant he realizes,
37:43so to speak, the turning point,
37:44when he understands
37:46that the Germans’ arrival in Paris is inevitable.
37:49I didn’t sleep all night,
37:51thinking what I should do.
37:52I thought and thought,
37:54and the more I thought, the less I could find
37:56a way to solve this hard question.
37:59What should I do?
38:01Run from the Germans, as everyone does?
38:03But it’s the French who run.
38:04Why should I run?
38:06Germany is allied with Russia.
38:09Yes, with Russia —
38:11but with Soviet Russia.
38:14But I am a White.
38:15Though... not entirely White.
38:17I’m an émigré who fled the Soviet regime.
38:20And might Russia not demand from Germany
38:23the extradition of her enemies?
38:25But above all — if he runs away,
38:28what would happen to the troupe and to French ballet,
38:30to which he devoted 12 years?
38:33This thought became decisive for Lifar.
38:37If I flee, the Opera will be requisitioned,
38:40and some German troupe will perform there...
38:43Then the French ballet will collapse, will cease to exist,
38:48and all my twelve years of work will be destroyed...
38:52His doubts gave way to the realization that he must stay,
38:57that he must preserve French ballet.
39:00Decree of Appointment.
39:02The Rector of the Paris Academy, President of the University Council,
39:05confirms the duties and activities of Mr. Serge Lifar, ballet master
39:12and professor at the National Opera school.
39:16He had an assignment
39:17from the French government,
39:19which was based in Vichy.
39:21To preserve the Tricolor at the Opera, —
39:24as Marshal Pétain put it.
39:28The Opera closed when occupation began in June,
39:32as German troops entered Paris.
39:36On the square in front of the Paris Opera,
39:37the German labor service held a concert,
39:40conducted by a famous maestro and composer of many beloved marches.
39:46Well-known songs and melodies were
39:49received with great delight by the crowd.
39:58By the end of July,
40:00he was asked to reopen the closed Opera.
40:04In the minister’s absence, his deputy,
40:06Gustave Roussy, according to my records,
40:08was authorised to liaise with theatre directors
40:12to resume their activity.
40:17The same applied to the Comédie-Française and other major institutions.
40:22And he accepted this mission.
40:32Many artists stayed in Paris.
40:36Almost all Parisian theatres continued operating
40:39starting with the Opera,
40:41which was effectively headed
40:43by Lifar, as Jacques Rouché
40:46had left Paris at that time.
40:49Thirteen years ago, the Paris police archives
40:53declassified documents from the Occupation era.
40:56Among them was the case
40:58of Serge Lifar, head of the ballet troupe
41:00of the Paris Opera.
41:01Files hidden for decades were studied by
41:03a researcher of Ukrainian origin, Olena Yaschuk-Codet.
41:08Here is the case of Serge Lifar.
41:11Why did he attract
41:12the attention of the Prefecture of Police?
41:14The thing is, in the 1930s
41:17he was about to receive
41:19the Légion d’honneur.
41:20Candidates are subjected to vetting.
41:31Next, we find documents
41:33dated from the 1940s,
41:35after the occupation.
41:37He was summoned for questioning.
41:38The committee was called the Reputation Committee.
41:41In particular,
41:42the communists were
41:44very active in checking those,
41:47who had continued
41:48to working during the Occupation,
41:51assessing their reliability,
41:52and the extent of any collaboration.
41:55On the one hand, there were so-called legal purges,
41:58to determine whether someone,
42:01artist or not, had committed
42:04a crime or an offence.
42:06Such cases went to court.
42:08But there was another purge —
42:10a professional one.
42:12Someone might not have committed a crime,
42:15but their behaviour was deemed improper.
42:19They could be banned from their profession.
42:23Lifar was accused of accepting a mission —
42:27to reopen the Opera in order to preserve the troupe.
42:33If the theatre stopped its work
42:38for a long time — say, a year —
42:39dancers, who require daily training,
42:46would lose their technical and artistic level.
42:49That’s why he agreed — for this very reason.
42:53The dancers were thrilled.
42:55They could keep earning their living.
42:57The document before me is dated November 1945.
43:01Its title reads: «Serge Lifar — German Agent».
43:06It describes practically his whole life.
43:09Where he was born — in Kyiv.
43:13When he arrived in France, where he lived,
43:16his address, even how much he paid for his flat.
43:21Then it details his activities during the Occupation.
43:26It notes these were unverified allegations.
43:31For instance, he was accused of going on tour to Germany.
43:37This happened in October 1942.
43:41It was said he was received by Hitler and Göring,
43:44metting Hitler during the Opera’s tour in Berlin.
43:48Obviously, it served propaganda,
43:52showing that the French were cooperating,
43:55and that French art, under the Reich’s protection, continued to thrive.
44:00Does it say why he did it, what the meeting was for?
44:04Yes — he presented them with the film «White Symphony».
44:07It was shot by the Pathé Company in France.
44:11For the film to be released,
44:14the authorisation was required from the Vichy government
44:17and the German occupation authorities.
44:20I assume he went there,
44:24probably to sequre this authorisation.
44:28Lifar always used cinema to speak about opera.
44:32He invited film crews in 1934
44:35and encouraged dancers to appear in feature films.
44:40He turned the Opera into a media focus.
44:42When German troops entered Kyiv in 1941,
44:46Lifar wrote at least one article for two papers — «Aujourd’hui» and «Paris-Midi».
44:53He titled it «Enfin, j’y ai retrouvé ma patrie» —
44:56«At last I have found my homeland again».
45:00And that was taken as proof he welcomed the Nazis.
45:04In one of these articles, Lifar worried
45:07that the «Red Army», retreating under German pressure,
45:11might destroy Kyiv.
45:24The Bolsheviks had done the same in his childhood.
45:32He was an exile.
45:33His main enemy was the Bolsheviks, who took his parents away,
45:38leaving his beloved city, Kyiv, behind the Iron Curtain.
45:50He comforted himself with the illusion that the Germans might return his homeland to him.
45:57It remained an illusion.
46:04Members of the Ukrainian national movement
46:08in 1941 in Lviv also nurtured this illusion,
46:13declaring the rebirth of the Ukrainian state.
46:17Part of the Ukrainian intelligentsia returned from exile
46:21to restore Ukrainian life in Kyiv.
46:24Olena Teliha, Oleh Olzhych, Ivan Rohach, and many others.
46:31They sought to use the change of power and the Germans’ arrival
46:37as a chance to develop Ukrainian cultural life,
46:42Ukrainian administration in Kyiv, and scientific institutions.
46:47What conclusion does the document draw?
46:50This particular document has no conclusion,
46:52but other records exist — for instance, from late 1946.
46:56An internal police memo recommended deporting
47:02Serge Lifar after his 1945 trial.
47:04Serge Lifar after his 1945 trial.
47:08But less than three months later,
47:10a new document dated late March 1947
47:14stated there was nor enough evidence to deport him.
47:23What made the Purge Committee change its mind
47:27and decide not to expel star choreographer Serge Lifar,
47:31a stateless refugee?
47:34In terms of ideological collaboration —
47:38supporting Nazism as an ideology —
47:43there were actually very few artists or intellectuals involved.
47:48For instance, Christian Dior’s family.
47:50He continued working for Lelong – that is, for German clients too.
47:56We’re talking about individuals — intellectuals and artists —
47:59who chose to continue working, offering a kind of resistance.
48:05Among the best-known examples were Louis Aragon
48:11and Jean-Paul Sartre.
48:14Some people simply kept living as before.
48:27If all collaborators had been hanged after the war,
48:30there wouldn’t have been enough rope in all of France.
48:38Of course, I too was a collaborator. I performed at the Opera as part of my duty.
48:46I was to perform at the German Embassy on March 20.
48:50I also went to Germany under an order I dared not refuse.
48:55And as soon as I crossed the border,
48:57I was taken to headquarters and interrogated at length.
49:03But I never actively collaborated,
49:05never performed my dances in Germany.
49:09Despite persistent invitations and demands
49:12from the German authorities, I avoided cooperating.
49:19Early in the Occupation,
49:21the collaborationist paper Au Pilori published a slanderous article
49:25suggesting Lifar was Jewish and that his name was an anagram of «Raphil».
49:33Rudolf Schleier, the German consul in Paris,
49:35later responsible for the logistics of deportations of Jews,
49:39ordered an investigation into the choreographer’s origins.
49:43The situation began to worsen – and rapidly – from 1942.
49:48The policy toward Jews became far harsher.
49:51Mass raids and arrests began,
49:54followed by deportations to camps in the Reich.
49:58Toward the end of the Occupation, he wrote that he was being persecuted.
50:01Coco Chanel sheltered him in her apartment for a time.
50:21Lifar writes that he left Coco Chanel’s place
50:23when French troops triumphantly entered Paris,
50:26led by General Charles de Gaulle.
50:30In liberated France, there were dark days
50:32when hatred flared up anew.
50:35Collaborators were paraded in public — their heads shaved.
50:40A Purge Committee was formed at the Opera to punish collaborators.
50:45Charges were brought against him.
50:47A German dancer of Russian origin turned against Lifar
50:52at the moment of Liberation.
50:55Lifar had created or danced in about eighty of his own ballets.
51:00Over thirty years he created roughly eighty works at the Paris Opera.
51:05His works often overshadowed others.
51:10So naturally, there was temptation to get rid of him.
51:15Rumours around Lifar’s name began to stir in the press.
51:20Fearing for his life, he moved to Monte Carlo.
51:27According to some newspapers, I was arrested and shot.
51:32Others claimed I had fled to America or abroad.
51:35Still others wrote that I lived in luxury in Monte Carlo, bathing in champagne daily.
51:41And the most common and «reliable» reports —
51:44so convincing that even my family believed them —
51:47that I was in a camp, in Drancy or Vél d’Hiv, beaten to death.
51:55Could personal resentment and a thirst for revenge
51:58have influenced the postwar investigation of Lifar?
52:02I contact the American dance historian Mark Franko.
52:06He is among the few who believe the archives contain enough proof
52:09pointing to the choreographer’s close ties with the Germans.
52:13When I became a dance historian in 2012 in New York,
52:18The Paris Opera came to visit New York with a programme of the Patrimoine, you know
52:22it was a piece of Lifar, Suite en Blanc.
52:25So I went to see it.
52:27It’s a very abstract neoclassical ballet,
52:30really about technique itself.
52:33There's no story, you know, there's no drama.
52:37And the curtain opened and I was kind of horrified
52:40because something, there was something atmospheric —
52:44that just grabbed me here, but not in a good way,
52:47Not in a good way.
52:48I thought: when was this ballet made?
52:50What am I feeling?
52:51I grabbed the programme and
52:53and it was made right at the heart of the Occupation.
53:00– What shocked you the most?
53:02– Lifar himself wrote a lot of journalism,
53:06and a lot of, of course, in the 30s,
53:09the big dance critics wrote a lot about him.
53:11The saturation of information around him
53:15was almost impossible to decode, to understand, really.
53:18It was too much material.
53:20So I wouldn't say I was shocked to find something initially —
53:23I really had to dig.
53:25Of course, I went to the Archive de la Ville de Lausanne,
53:28where he had contributed his professional archive to the library.
53:32There was a letter he wrote to the Nazis,
53:35explaining that he was not Jewish —
53:38which is a letter a lot of people had to write.
53:43But the way he did it was quite extreme.
53:45He described himself as very anti-Jewish,
53:48very antisemitic.
53:49«My ancestry excludes any belonging
53:52to the Jewish race and fully proves that I am pure-blooded.
53:57As for my views on the Jews — They are well known.
54:01In my 1937 book on Dance I demonstrated
54:05that Jewish culture is incompatible with the all-Aryan one,
54:09that it has followed a completely destructive path,
54:12whereas the all-Aryan spirit symbolizes creation».
54:17Among the boxes of documents Lifar donated
54:20to the Lausanne archive before his death, only the last page of this letter has survived.
54:24I then decided that the thing to do was go to Berlin
54:28and look at the Auswärtiges Amt,
54:31the foreign relations materials from those years.
54:36Because everything Lifar did in France had to go through Berlin to be approved.
54:42So he was working with Otto Abetz,
54:44who was the head of what was called the Propaganda Staffel in Paris,
54:49with the German embassy,
54:50which handled cultural matters.
54:52And it was only well into the Occupation that
54:55he actually collaborated on a German ballet
54:58by Werner Egk called «Joan de Zarissa» — It was a Don Juan ballet,
55:03which had already been staged in Germany.
55:16If he collaborated, why wasn't he in prison?
55:20He was just out of theater for one year, and that's all.
55:26It's quite strange. If he's guilty, why wasn't he punished?
55:31The committee judged Lifar guilty of an anti-national point of view,
55:34underfitting a foreigner,
55:36Because Lifar was never naturalized as a French.
55:39So what had happened was the commission made recommendations to the court —
55:47to actually try and convict certain people.
55:50And some people were executed. Some writers were shot at a firing squad,
55:55but they refused to do it with Lifar — and we don’t know why.
55:58Don't forget that the Occupation was really a period,
56:02like a black hole, into which a lot of things disappeared.
56:07I don’t believe Serge Lifar was a committed collaborator.
56:13He can be reproached for dancing, staging ballets, and traveling to Germany,
56:18but we absolutely cannot compare him
56:21to figures like Louis-Ferdinand Céline or Brasillach,
56:24who were explicit supporters of the Third Reich.
56:28Would we, today, in our situation,
56:33consider him a collaborator?
56:36Probably yes.
56:37I haven’t found anything damning in the archives.
56:42I did find letters of gratitude from Jewish residents of Lausanne.
56:48People close to him told me
56:51that he never informed on anyone — And I can believe that.
56:56When 20, 30, 40, even 60 years separate us from those events,
57:03it becomes very difficult to understand what motivated a person’s actions.
57:09Perhaps it was simply fear for one’s life.
57:16Perhaps a naive, utopian belief that German «order»
57:23would ensure the survival of art.
57:31What did Lifar say in his own defence?
57:33His interrogation is preserved in the National Archives in Paris.
57:37The choreographer recounts step by step the events of the Occupation:
57:40how he was commissioned by the government to manage the Opera,
57:47and that he dealt communication with the occupiers only on professional matters —
57:51with a few exceptions.
57:54I was especially friendly with Madame Abetz,
57:56and often met her and her children for that reason.
58:00They often came to my dressing room — All together and officially.
58:04I was also friends with Arno Breker, the German sculptor,
58:08whom I met at the Opera in 1942, in my dressing room.
58:14He was a close friend of the German ambassador to France, Otto Abetz.
58:21It was even rumoured that he was the lover of Frau Abetz — Suzanne Abetz.
58:27I don’t know — that may have been gossip.
58:30He was a star dancer — he knew everyone.
58:43Serge Lifar had known German artists even before the war.
58:47All artistic Paris knew them.
58:50He probably thought that by staying on good terms with key people,
58:55those involved in culture — things would be easier for the Opera.
59:00During interrogation, Lifar seems to insist
59:03that he only pretended to have good relations with the Germans
59:06for his own safety and in the interests of French ballet.
59:11Yet despite his contacts with Abetz and personal permission to visit Kyiv,
59:16the Gestapo did not let him go.
59:18Serge never saw his father again — he died two years after the war.
59:26Throughout those four years, the Gestapo based in Lille
59:29often accused me of sabotage and of belonging
59:33to an intelligence service — denouncing me as a Jew.
59:37I was never tortured, because German public opinion and Parisian society
59:42considered me a friend of Hitler.
59:47The Committee concluded that Lifar had collaborated with the Nazis,
59:50violating the law on foreign neutrality.
59:53He was recommended for expulsion from France
59:58and the case was referred to court — but, according to the choreographer,
1:00:03the Minister of Education took his side.
1:00:08The Purge Committee did not bring the case to trial and imposed a milder sanction:
1:00:13a one-year suspension.
1:00:19The Purge Committees —
1:00:21where communists were usually well represented —
1:00:23made Serge Lifar pay more for his anti-communism
1:00:25than for his conduct during the Occupation.
1:00:27Then the minister —
1:00:30Pierre Bourdan — intervened to bring him back, even though many Opera stagehands,
1:00:36close to the Communist Party,
1:00:39opposed his return, while the dancers demanded that Lifar be reinstated.
1:00:47Dozens of ballet artists signed a petition in his support.
1:00:56His later return to the Paris Opera
1:01:02carried the burden of all those years —
1:01:08a weight that, I think, hung over him until the end of his life.
1:01:12Only later was he able to return as ballet master.
1:01:16Yet he was forbidden to appear on stage — which mattered deeply to him,
1:01:20as he was already in his forties,
1:01:22dancing outside the walls of the place he considered home.
1:01:27Only in 1949 was he finally able to return to the stage as a dancer.
1:01:33It seems it was in ’49 — a very difficult period for him.
1:01:39The greatest blow to Lifar was yet to come.
1:01:42In 1958, the ballet company of the Opera was going
1:01:46on its first tour to the Soviet Union.
1:01:49For Serge, it was a chance to visit his homeland for the first time in 36 years.
1:01:56Most of the performances he prepared were his own productions.
1:01:59The posters were printed: his name appeared, he was staging the ballets.
1:02:03Among the troupe were his star ballerinas —
1:02:06Yvette Chauviré, Liane Daydé, and Claude Bessy.
1:02:11He even received personal confirmation of permission to leave
1:02:13from the ambassador of the Soviet Union.
1:02:17Excited, Lifar arrived at the airport.
1:02:21But unexpectedly, he was stopped by the police.
1:02:23Citing problems with his documents,
1:02:26the ballet master was denied boarding the plane.
1:02:30He was in shock — he had scounted on finally seeing
1:02:34his native Kyiv again,
1:02:38to show his homeland what he had achieved abroad.
1:03:11For Lifar, it was the last straw.
1:03:13After 26 years at the theatre, he resigned.
1:03:21He was a persona non grata in the Soviet Union.
1:03:26It was a game.
1:03:36The prima ballerina Claude Bessy said:
1:03:40My partner, Attilio Labis, and I are happy to have arrived in your wonderful city,
1:03:45and that Ukrainian audiences welcome us so warmly.
1:03:50Pas de deux from Minkus’s ballet «Don Quixote».
1:04:04The first tour of the French ballet company in the Soviet Union
1:04:08could not be led by a defector.
1:04:11Moreover, his biography contained another unacceptable episode.
1:04:33Sixteen years ago, a KGB case file was declassified in the Security Service of Ukraine archives —
1:04:38codenamed «Artists», with the subtitle «French Espionage».
1:04:44Its storyline begins in 1932, when a pilot escapes from the Soviet Union.
1:04:51His name was Leonid Lifar.
1:04:54Allegedly, Leonid joined a certain group.
1:04:57Among Soviet military men there was some kind of minor uprising.
1:05:02And when he realized that he was in serious danger,
1:05:05he decided to flee from the Soviet Union.
1:05:09Through Central Asia, he flew a small plane,
1:05:13and then crawled across the desert for a day.
1:05:17It’s quite a detective story, really.
1:05:19According to intelligence data, Leonid passed secret information about
1:05:23Soviet military facilities to the British.
1:05:26Then, with the help of his brother, the artist Serge Lifar, he moved to France.
1:05:31Their brother Vasyl and sister Yevhenia had already emigrated there earlier.
1:05:36So, where else could he go? To his brother in Paris.
1:05:41Telegram suggest, Leonid Lifar,
1:05:44intended to move to France with his brother's help.
1:05:48Before fleeing abroad, Leonid Lifar was in Kyiv, where he had relatives.
1:05:55Meanwhile, the secret services established surveillance of his parents in Kyiv.
1:06:00Lifar’s relatives live quite secluded lives
1:06:04and communicate with no one, which complicated agent surveillance.
1:06:08Nevertheless, in the Lifars house, we have a very valuable agent — Khvylia.
1:06:14Interception of correspondence was also established.
1:06:18Undoubtedly, there were many Soviet agents in Paris,
1:06:23who certainly received great help from French communists —
1:06:27some French communists who did not hesitate to pass information to Russia.
1:06:33Lifar recalls that during the investigation of his collaboration with the Germans,
1:06:38representatives of the Soviet embassy offered him their support.
1:06:41At first they encouraged him to return home and
1:06:44to persuade his brother Leonid to do the same.
1:06:47Later, they offered him a Soviet passport.
1:06:51I replied that I had no intention whatsoever of accepting Soviet citizenship,
1:06:55that I valued my freedom too much
1:06:58to exchange it for the condition of Stalin’s enslaved subject.
1:07:04From time to time they either wanted him to return to the Soviet Union,
1:07:08or, in other words, they kept trying to recruit him.
1:07:11That was a common practice.
1:07:13The Soviets never forgave defectors — unless it served their interests.
1:07:18Lifar refused.
1:07:26The long-dreamed-of chance to visit his homeland came to Lifar three years later.
1:07:31It was a private trip with his wife Lilan.
1:07:35For the first time in almost forty years, he saw his native Kyiv again.
1:07:421961 marked the height of the brief Khrushchev Thaw —
1:07:48after Stalin’s death and the 20th Congress of the Communist Party,
1:07:53when the cult of personality was denounced and life, it seemed,
1:07:57became a little easier to breathe.
1:07:59So, evidently, Lifar arrived in the right place at the right time.
1:08:04Serge settled with his wife at the Hotel Ukraina,
1:08:07which overlooked the places he had once known —
1:08:10the bell tower of Saint Sophia Cathedral, where Lifar had sung in the choir as a boy,
1:08:15and the yellow building of Taras Shevchenko University, which had once housed
1:08:19the Imperial Gymnasium where he studied.
1:08:25The newspapers gave no detailed information
1:08:28about where he lived or who he was.
1:08:30Everything was brief —
1:08:32that he was Russian, that he had brought
1:08:35Pushkin’s passport for the people of Leningrad.
1:08:38Serge had once bought it from a antiquarian bookseller.
1:08:40Apparently, that passport was the price he had to pay to come home.
1:08:44In return, he wanted to stage his ballets —
1:08:47in Kyiv and in Moscow.
1:08:51And for that, he needed influence.
1:08:54He exercised it through his art collection —
1:08:58everyone knew he possessed a remarkable collection of artefacts.
1:09:03During that brief visit to Kyiv, Lifar managed to establish
1:09:06what he believed to be an exceptionally valuable contact —
1:09:09the director of the Kyiv Opera, Viktor Hontar.
1:09:13I believe they most likely met there,
1:09:16and he found out who he was.
1:09:17But throughout his memoirs, Lifar writes —
1:09:20“I met Hontar, Khrushchev’s son-in-law.”
1:09:25You may reproach me for not giving you the chance to stage a ballet with us,
1:09:30but you must also understand
1:09:32that such a decision was not mine to make.
1:09:36Such matters were decided not in Kyiv — but in Moscow.
1:09:40So we understand it did not depend on him,
1:09:44much as he would have wished it did.
1:09:49Until his very death, Lifar kept trying
1:09:52to negotiate the staging of his ballets in Kyiv and in Moscow.
1:09:56For that, he was ready to offer the Soviet Union —
1:09:59rare antiquarian editions and manuscripts.
1:10:02High-ranking officials kept feeding him promises —
1:10:07yet he was never allowed onto the Soviet stage.
1:10:11The repertoire created by Lifar was plotless, complex —
1:10:16and emphasized the power of individuality.
1:10:18That was considered bourgeois art.
1:10:21It was unacceptable for what could be seen
1:10:23on the stages of the Soviet Union —
1:10:27where socialist realism prevailed and, a person was merely a cog in the system.
1:10:33Culture there served as an instrument of propaganda.
1:10:37Dear Viktor Petrovych,
1:10:39I always remember our meeting in Kyiv —
1:10:42with warmth, sincerity, and affection.
1:10:45I long to visit my native Kyiv again —
1:10:48and who knows, perhaps we shall meet there once more.
1:10:51When I dream of my homeland, I think not of theatre,
1:10:54nor of ballet, nor of people — no.
1:10:57I think of the vast horizons and fields of Ukrainian soil —
1:11:00the flowers of spring, the scents of earth —
1:11:03where, gazing at the dancing clouds,
1:11:05I might hide from my glorious, artistic past.
1:11:11I don’t think a Russian would have said — or written — such words to a colleague.
1:11:16When Lifar emigrated, he was listed as a refugee from Soviet Russia.
1:11:20In his official papers, he was recorded
1:11:23as «a refugee from Russia» at the level of administration —
1:11:25at the level of bureaucracy.
1:11:27It was common practice to describe people from Ukraine as refugees from Russia.
1:11:31That was the standard formula.
1:11:33The collapse of the Russian Empire — The revolutions across Europe —
1:11:39made it difficult to understand what was really happening there,
1:11:42what parts of that empire still existed, and how they looked.
1:11:45Ukraine had not yet achieved clear international recognition as a subject in its own right.
1:11:48Lifar had nothing he could identify himself with —
1:11:51no nation he could truly call his own.
1:11:58Sometimes people use the term «double identity» —
1:12:00a dual or hybrid sense of self.
1:12:04It’s about the search for oneself — About the many choices
1:12:09one makes throughout life.
1:12:14One can identify with a place —
1:12:17and that’s what he did. Eternal Kyiv remained for him forever
1:12:23a point of inner gravity. He always longed to return.
1:12:27His wish to come back to Kyiv was so natural,
1:12:34so powerful — yet he never fulfilled it in his lifetime.
1:12:49Lifar’s name was banned in Soviet times.
1:12:52Only after Ukraine’s independence Lifar’s name was gradually reinstated.
1:12:57In the early 1990s, Kyiv founded the International Competition
1:13:00for Ballet Dancers and Choreographers named after Serge Lifar,
1:13:04held under the patronage of the International Dance Council of UNESCO.
1:13:30However, since 2006, it has not been held.
1:13:34There was an attempt to revive it in Donetsk —
1:13:36but with the outbreak of war, the competition ceased to exist.
1:13:44Another attempt to bring Lifar back to Kyiv came with the staging
1:13:49of his most famous ballet — «Suite en blanc».
1:13:52The production at the National Opera Theatre of Ukraine
1:13:55was staged in 2004 by his pupils — Christine Vlassi and Gilbert Mayer.
1:14:00The revival was supported by the choreographer’s wife, Lilan.
1:14:03The production involved the theatre’s
1:14:05best ballet dancers.
1:14:07Among them — the prima ballerina Nataliia Matsak.
1:14:10It was a truly grand, pompous event.
1:14:13I remember the audience was, I think, in shock.
1:14:16They weren’t prepared for what they saw.
1:14:19The impression it left was enormous.
1:14:23Everything mattered — every detail, every turn of the head,
1:14:27the chin, the gaze — it all had to be precise.
1:14:30I think our dancers were used to performing very emotionally.
1:14:37Here, though, your emotion — it’s your body. That was the hardest part for us,
1:14:44because you had to express feeling through restraint.
1:14:58A modern view of the classics — When they aren’t boring,
1:15:03don’t feel old, and moves may seem,
1:15:08the same as in other ballets — yet they’re performed so differently,
1:15:14with such a distinct character and such a unique style,
1:15:17with pauses and a very special inner feeling.
1:15:42I truly regret that this ballet is no longer staged here.
1:15:53His ballets aren’t performed as often as they once were.
1:15:57For instance, «Les Mirages» hasn’t been performed at the Paris Opera
1:16:02for nearly twenty years.
1:16:06So if you only revive a work every 20 years or 25 years,
1:16:11a lot of dancers have never danced Serge Lifar.
1:16:14It's very important for dancers to also have that history in their bodies, —
1:16:19not just for them to hear about Lifar, but to dance it
1:16:22and to have the experience of this is what his style meant.
1:16:26So if a ballet isn't performed for, say, 20, 30, 40 years,
1:16:31you lose that knowledge,
1:16:33and Lifar's legacy is at risk of that at the moment.
1:17:08Can you hear well?
1:17:11You know this is everything that comes before the arabesques.
1:17:17Can you hear clearly?
1:17:19This ballet is the story of a young man
1:17:20who faces life itself.
1:17:22He meets different people.
1:17:25He meets a merchant who promises him all kinds of wonders,
1:17:29but in the end sells him an empty chest.
1:17:31But the chimeras — like his hopes — exist only
1:17:33in his imagination. In the end, all fades away.
1:17:53This ballet is about everything that can dwell
1:17:56within doubt, fear, and self-affirmation.
1:18:00So I think here Lifar is speaking about himself —
1:18:02about his own life, his personal doubts.
1:18:05I think he was frightened,
1:18:07or perhaps uncertain, when he left Ukraine —
1:18:11when he departed, when he fled and found himself in Europe.
1:18:40Yes, Lifar had an enormous impact on the evolution of choreography.
1:18:45He appeared at a time when
1:18:49classical ballet was standing still —
1:18:53no longer truly moving forward.
1:18:55And he invented a new way to use the classical form,
1:19:01going further still — creating what we now call neoclassicism.
1:19:04He wanted every position to be in motion — Even when seemingly still —
1:19:09so that movement itself would remain elusive.
1:19:13Now we’ll ask Éloïse to do an arabesque.
1:19:16Lift your leg and shift, shift, shift — Leaning backward.
1:19:20That’s it, that’s it. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
1:19:25These are positions beyond the academic arabesque —
1:19:30the ones Lifar developed — off-balance, displaced.
1:19:35That truly became his signature.
1:19:37Such innovative choices had a major influence on the ballet world,
1:19:43and they are still often used in France today.
1:19:54Today, the life’s work of Serge Lifar is under threat of disappearing.
1:19:58His ballets are absent from the repertoire
1:20:00of both the Paris and the Kyiv Opera houses.
1:20:04And fewer and fewer remain who can pass on his
1:20:07dancing legacy to the next generations.
1:20:12French contemporary choreography was shaped thanks to Serge Lifar.
1:20:21He created more than two hundred ballets for the Paris Opera.
1:20:24Through his innovations, he trained over ten stars of the French ballet.
1:20:28And Maurice Béjart once wrote — Had there been no Lifar,
1:20:32there would have been no Petit, no me, and many others.
1:20:36In the end, Lifar influenced the great choreographer
1:20:40who embodied French neoclassicism — Roland Petit!
1:20:45That allows the Opera to maintain a certain continuity of Lifar’s legacy.
1:20:51By creating the Dance Institute at the Opéra Garnier,
1:20:55and by continuing to write scholarly works,
1:21:00he turned dance in France from mere entertainment
1:21:05into a space for intellectual exploration.
1:21:08Dance
1:21:10was his way of taking revenge on life.
1:21:18This passion allowed him to overcome a difficult personal struggle.
1:21:24He lived for dance — and one might reproach him
1:21:29for living only for dance, rejecting everything else.
1:21:38This is the story of Lifar.
1:21:40So he was a complex man.
1:21:43He could irritate you.
1:21:45He could fascinate you.
1:21:46He took a trajectory toward the East.
1:21:50The celestial object looked like a five-franc silver coin —
1:21:55very shiny, very white —
1:21:58and after half an hour or so, the sun set forever,
1:22:05and in no more than thirty seconds, it gained speed, rose higher,
1:22:13and disappeared — leaving neither trace nor trajectory behind.