Thursday, June 30, 2011

The Rite of Spring

I'm a huge fan of the How Stuff Works podcast, Stuff You Missed in History Class. I am also a big fan of Igor Stravinsky and his 1913 ballet, The Rite of Spring. (For those Disney kids, the Dinosaur bit from Fantasia).

So when the podcast put out an episode about the riot that occurred during the ballet's opening night, I got pretty excited. The music was strange, the costumes were unorthodox, and the dancing was primitive and "vulgar." Love it.

The costumes, set design, and choreography were lost for decades until some dance and art historians were able to piece the performance together in the late 1980s. Luckily, PBS made a special! And it's on Youtube!

It's around 30 minutes long all together, but if you want to watch something truly strange yet amazing, it's posted after the break.





And just for fun.... Dinosaurs!

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