{"id":2295,"date":"2016-11-10T17:50:25","date_gmt":"2016-11-10T17:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sergelifar.org\/en\/?page_id=2295"},"modified":"2023-04-06T09:20:57","modified_gmt":"2023-04-06T09:20:57","slug":"the-great-encounters","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.sergelifar.org\/en\/biography\/the-great-encounters\/","title":{"rendered":"The Great encounters"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Georges Balanchine<\/h2>\n
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\u201cIn his choreography, George Balanchine<\/strong> avoided academic positions, which was a departure from the classical canon, probably because of the acrobatic tendencies of his teacher Goleizowsky that had influenced him in his youth in Leningrad. Balanchine\u2019s contribution to contemporary American ballet is unquestionable. His fertile creative imagination was inexhaustible and precious, but only for woman dancers\u2026\u201d
Les M\u00e9moires d\u2019Icare<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Serge Diaghilev<\/h2>\n
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\u201cSerge Diaghilev<\/strong> was art itself, he had the ability to change life, transmute reality. He was an inventor and the one we dreamed of having as a teacher. We did not know him, we lived from his legend which had spread throughout the world. And now he was there, near us. Diaghilev sat, and when he had spoken for a few seconds, the emotion that I felt and that kept me from understanding anything that he had said dissipated in the light of his strangely clear and youthful eyes. Now he made us talk. He asked for our impressions of a land that we had just left and already seemed for us to be on the other side of the world. While we talked to him of a Motherland that had become inaccessible to him, he remained motionless, his face dark, his gaze lost in the distance, beyond the barbed wire of the Soviet border\u2026\u201d
Ma vie<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Jean Cocteau<\/h2>\n
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\u201cI often met Cocteau<\/strong> at the Ritz, where, before the war, he spent months as Coco Chanel\u2019s guest, and also at La Pausa, at Chanel\u2019s estate near Menton, on the Mediterranean coast, where he lived in the fog of opium\u2026\u201d
Les M\u00e9moires d\u2019Icare<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Coco Chanel<\/h2>\n
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\u201cI had nothing to fear at Coco Chanel\u2019s<\/strong>, where I was fed and lodged, in the only house in Paris that greeted me and perhaps saved me, because I was undesirable everywhere else, a sort of living dead.\u201d
Ma vie<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Greta Garbo<\/h2>\n
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\u201cI knew Greta Garbo<\/strong> well and admired her like mad\u2026 Fate had me meet her again in 1949, while she was passing through Paris. She was invited to my loge at the Opera and her enthusiasm for dance warmed my heart\u2026\u201d
Les M\u00e9moires d\u2019Icare<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Picasso<\/h2>\n
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\u201cIt was in Paris, in 1923, that I saw Picasso <\/strong>for the first time. There were many people around Diaghilev on the stage of the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre de la Gaiet\u00e9 Lyrique. The following year, Picasso was again amid the Olympian coterie of the Ballets Russes. Diaghilev, Picasso, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Juan Gris, Poulenc, Cocteau, Marie Laurencin were all together on the stage of the Mogador theatre\u2026 By showing his sketch for the curtains of Darius Milhaud\u2019s Train Bleu, Picasso dazzled the audience, then, staring at me with plum-coloured eyes, like burning coals, Picasso \u2018the Sorcerer\u2019 whispered to Diaghilev: \u201cLook at that dancer, he has classic forms\u2026 he will be your dancer\u201d. My heart was pounding, I blushed for my timidity, and so Picasso became my \u201cgodfather\u201d. I stepped into the arena of life and, from that moment on, all along my whole life, I had the privilege of being accepted by the artist and being his friend.\u201d
Mon hommage \u00e0 Pablo Picasso, ce sorcier divin<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cFrom then on, I was accepted into Picasso<\/strong>\u2018s family and I often went with Diaghilev to his apartment-studio in the Rue de la Bo\u00e9tie, where Picasso liked to show us his unfinished compositions, with the paint still fresh. He had an insatiable curiosity and always wanted to be informed about everything that was happening in the company. Olga, the painter\u2019s wife, had practiced dancing and been part of Diaghilev\u2019s troupe, which is where she met Picasso. He had gone to Rome at Diaghilev\u2019s invitation to make the sets for Cocteau and Satie\u2019s ballet Parade\u2026\u00bb
Les M\u00e9moires d\u2019Icare<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAs for Picasso<\/strong>s creative genius, it was the very essence of life. He had this instinctive power of perpetual movement that sprang from his heart of hearts and that manifested itself in forms and colours, in which all logic is overturned by the negation of the laws of normality and in which a new world takes shape and is born in its artistic truth. Picasso transforms and transfigures the present and reality\u2026 Whenever I visited his studios, in the Rue de La Bo\u00e9tie or the Quai des Grands-Augustins, La Californie, or Notre-Dame-de-la Vie, I always found the atmosphere of a monastery or cathedral, in which the magic of this new Faust dazzled me constantly\u2026 Always slender, athletic, merry, mocking and timid, extraordinarily young, Picasso was a genial peasant who lived very naturally in folklore, without any scientific or theoretical ambitions\u2026\u201d
Ma vie<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Igor Stravinsky<\/h2>\n
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\u201cThe first time that I met Igor Stravinsky<\/strong> in the low, dark and humid rehearsal room of the Ballets Russes, I was surprised by his thin and hunched appearance, his balding head, his wide intelligent forehead, his heavy horn glasses, and especially his large \u2018musician\u2019s paws\u2019. Who was this monkey? I thought. For he moved with great agitation, hammered on the piano, huffed, replaced the missing chords by kicking the pedal, or hitting the keyboard with his elbow to keep the tempo. It was fascinating. At times, he would suddenly stop, and then would take up the storm of sounds even more loudly. It was miraculous, diabolical, and also very Russian\u2026 Subsequently I often visited Stravinsky, either in Nice, or in Paris, Rue Saint-Honor\u00e9, or in London, Albemarle Street. The most striking thing about him was his bourgeois, mystical, almost monarchic side\u2014and hanging on the walls, icons and the portraits of Czar Nicholas II and his august offspring\u2026\u201d
\nMa vie<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe rehearsals for Les Noces were conducted under the control and even direction of the composer, Igor Stravinsky<\/strong>. At the beginning, he would merely give a few general indications, and then, gradually, he would get into the swing of things, take off his jacket, sit at the piano and play at breakneck speed. All the while he played, he would sing in a cracked voice, as unpleasant as they get. But there was nothing comical about this\u2014his passion sprang over to us and so we began to really dance instead of going through the motions of a rehearsal\u201d.
\nSerge Lifar, A l\u2019aube de mon destin chez Diaghilew<\/em>, 1949<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Arthur Honegger<\/h2>\n
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\u201c[In Giselle] Arthur Honegger<\/strong> proved to be not only the most diligent of friends but also the most understanding, the most enlightened, the most disinterested artist, the one most determined to push on for the sake of art. On this occasion, concrete music was born. We worked in very close communion then, like merry accomplices\u2026\u201d
Ma vie<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Lillan Ahlefeld-Laurvig<\/h2>\n
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\u201cLillan Ahlefeld-Laurvig<\/strong>, the countess with a heart of gold and pure soul, my spiritual muse and faithful friend under all circumstances\u2026\u201d
Les M\u00e9moires d\u2019Icare<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIn his choreography, George Balanchine avoided academic positions, which was a departure from the classical canon, probably because of the acrobatic tendencies of his teacher Goleizowsky that had influenced him in his youth in Leningrad. Balanchine\u2019s contribution to contemporary American ballet is unquestionable. His fertile creative imagination was inexhaustible and precious, but only for woman <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":4,"menu_order":66,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-fullwidth.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2295","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Great encounters - Serge Lifar<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sergelifar.org\/biographie\/les-grandes-rencontres\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Great encounters - Serge Lifar\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cIn his choreography, George Balanchine avoided academic positions, which was a departure from the classical canon, probably because of the acrobatic tendencies of his teacher Goleizowsky that had influenced him in his youth in Leningrad. 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