Now and again, I make a point of encouraging my students to venture beyond the precincts of their digital universe and to take in a film, attend a live performance or visit a museum. There’s something about the immediacy of the experience that will lift your spirits, say I to them, promisingly. In response, they nod their heads dutifully, muster a fleeting smile and then, pronto, return to their iPhones and tablets.
But the other day, I did and, leaving my academic responsibilities to fend for themselves for the time being, I took off for the National Gallery and its exhibition, Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, 1909-1929: When Art Danced with Music. Spending several hours in its company left me happy and even exhilarated -- so much so that I can’t stop thinking about it.
With a dazzling panoply of costumes, set designs, paintings, posters, photographs and two immense stage curtains whose impact is nothing less than jaw-dropping -- how, I wondered, did they ever manage to survive the passage of time, let alone the rigors of the stage? -- the exhibition highlighted the immense array of talents critical to the success of the Ballets Russes. Even if you were well steeped in the company’s history, the material on display seemed like a revelation.
You needn’t be a balletomane, an artist or an historian to appreciate, and benefit from, the exhibition. What makes Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes so memorable is the way it quickens the imagination, giving rise to all sorts of expansive thoughts about life’s possibilities.
I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one who left the National Gallery with a lift in my step.
