L'Après-midi d'un faune

About the show

The Afternoon of a Faun (L'Après-midi d'un faune) is a ballet choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky for the Ballets Russes, and was first performed in the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on 29 May 1912. Nijinsky danced the main part himself. The ballet is set to Claude Debussy's symphonic poem Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune. Both the music and the ballet were inspired by the poem L'Après-midi d'un faune by Stéphane Mallarmé. The costumes, sets and programme illustrations were designed by the painter Léon Bakst. The style of the 12-minute ballet, in which a young faun meets several nymphs and proceeds to flirt with and chase them, was deliberately archaic. In the original scenography designed by Léon Bakst, the dancers were presented as part of a large tableau, a staging reminiscent of an ancient Greek vase painting. They often moved across the stage in profile as if on a bas relief. The ballet was presented in bare feet and rejected classical formalism. The work had an overtly erotic subtext beneath its façade of Greek antiquity and ended with a scene of graphic sexual desire. This led to a controversial reception from both audience and critics, and the quality of the ballet was debated widely through multiple news reviews. The piece also led to the dissolution of a partnership between Nijinsky and Michel Fokine, another prominent choreographer for the Ballets Russes, due to the extensive amount of time required to train the dancers in what was then an unconventional style of dance. L'Après-midi d'un Faune is considered one of the first modern ballets and proved to be as controversial as Nijinsky's Jeux (1913) and Le Sacre du printemps (1913).