I was in Paris trying to find a tobacconist I had met the night before at a party. He liked my hat, my accent, he offered to sell me the skull of Lord Byron�s monkey. At the last minute he changed his mind, already missing the baleful stare which would meet his from across the desk whenever he was at home. We ended up at some waitress�s place who was also studying modern dance, or maybe philosophy.

The three of us met the dawn with eggs and calvados. I liked watching her drink it; that quiver her whole body would do as if just kissed. She was going to make us all coffee, he wanted to go to Faust�s. The two of them took the debate into the kitchen, I poked around her shelves looking for evidence. Of what? Who cares? A blonde did it.

I found her copy of Stravinsky under the coffee table which also doubled as a book shelf. I put it on and tried to remember if I had seen any matches laying around.

In 1913 Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) was 32 years old when he completed this Rosetta stone of modern art. It was his third ballet done for impresario Sergei Diaghilev ( 1872-1929). He would go on to do many other compelling works, but spend the rest of his life ever altering the mythos of the piece�s genesis.

At first glance, the piece is programmatic one whose artistic predecessors were birthed during the romantic era by Franz Liszt, with his (often) literature/painting inspired tone poems.

It is a pagan rites which was to welcome spring, similar to those of a Dionysian/Pan rites. Maidens dancing themselves to death before the village elders in sacrifice to Yariko (ancient Slavic sun god). The piece was dedicated to Nikolai Roerich (1874-1947) who was a painter/folklorist. He actually helped with the program aspect of the piece.

Within too, there is to be found a m�lange of folk-idioms and a new modern chromatic scale (octatonic) which was discovered by Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) student Maximillian Steinberg(1883-1944), but never really utilized until this.

All those who push forward in art, redefining the perimeters, always had one eye on the past. Monde ancient. Picasso(1881-1973) with Les Demoiselles d�Avignon(1907) gives nod to the oceanic masks he collected. Jean Cocteau�s (1889-1963) ultra cosmopolitan retelling of Roman/Greek myths. Orpheus is now the prettiest boy at the night club going home alone.

Part of Rite�s power comes from the very duality of its nature. It manages to be both at once, something ancient but also shocking and new. One can feel the same effects when glancing at the dawn of man wall paintings in the cave of Lascaux (discovered in 1940). Here, the flat images, early narrative of man do not seem dissimilar to some of the best modernist paintings despite being separated by some 17,000 years.

For me, this monde ancient is what is largely lacking in today�s artistic vanguard. It has been replaced by overly clever concept which largely looses its power after its initial �shock of the new� surprise is over, replaced by gallery going familiarity.

Every generation since the May 29, 1913 premier has wanted to lay claim to their own �Rite�. Often there is talk leading up to a new piece�s premier and immediately afterwards, but nothing takes, nothing lasts. In the race for the modern, the shocking the lesson of having a foot in past and present has largely been forgotten. Operas based off of The Manhattan Project, Tennessee Williams plays and an anti-death penalty movie. We want to like it, we want our own �Rites�, but really, nothing compares, nothing takes.

The premier of Rites caused a literal riot. Much like its creation it was from a heady stew of ingredients.

Sergei Diaghilev was from a privileged family in Perm, Russia. Initially he studied law. During this time he was introduced into artistic circles. After a failed attempt at composition under Rimsky-Korsakov, he went on to help form a journal which allowed influences of the west to trickle in. From there he went on to be director/impresario for a ballet company. As the scope of what he wanted to do became too modern, too western he was forced to set out on his own. With Leon Bakst, he would eventually form Ballet Russes.

They wanted to present ballet, not just for the royalty, but for a general public too. They wanted to also incorporate a multi-medium modernism. A combination of all that was gestating in Europe at the time. The music would be done by Ravel, Debussy, Satie. The backdrops and settings would be such greats as Matisse, Picasso and Leger.

Vaslav Nijinsky (1890-1950) was the final piece missing from the puzzle. He was a dancer/choreographer whose work was based on a celebration of sexuality and athleticism. The en pointe stance being one of his skills, and one few male dancers could do at the time. During the premier of Debussy�s �The Afternoon of The Faun� which he had choreographed and danced in, there was scandal when his character simulated masturbation with a scarf.

At the premier, the program opened with the more conventional �Les Sylphides� also by Stravinsky. For the Rites though the modern costumes which rejected all the traditional modes sent the first ripples of shock and excitement through the audience. Then the choreography, Nijinsky wanted the dancers to appear as living paintings, tableaux bending and thrusting into dark, unnatural angles.

Then came the music, the cat-calls and cheers.

There are some pieces of music I remember hearing for the first time, the way one would a first kiss.

Percussive-rhythmically pulsing and urgent. Blanketed beneath dark, lush orchestrations of fluttering winds and strings which sometimes break off into little groups.

Now and then in the first section a bassoon is heard playing in a range which is not its usual. It is this call which initially makes me drift away on waves of dark, hot thoughts. It is a call from a primal place within ourselves, largely lost, which we must now make an effort to rediscover, to celebrate.

Multi-instrumental voice heeds the call of a shrill flute, joining in to create a mosaic-like pattern which verges on cacophony. Again, the flute. Its shrill tone, urgent, kissed with a touch of dissonance as will be future used by Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor.

I have listened to this and Miles Davis�s �Kind Of Blue� all over the world. They are now a part of me, a comfort, yet I always find new little alleyways in each to excite. It does not matter whether the listener knows of the music�s program. Ultimately, it is an inner landscape the listener will learn to traverse.

Paris, the music, I often go back. I have to. When I am not there it haunts me, both good and restless, relentless. I walk, everywhere, I compare landscapes to imaginary ones. I walk.

In this heat, the breeze is all dead thoughts and dry grass. I walk anyways.

Ah, my sad eyed dancer, waltzing with a monkey. Now I am thinking of dark things, of appetite. Now I want to see you cry. Now I am happy. No, don�t tell me not to say it. Now I am happy, to be only (your) man.

Wayne is a California based author.His works have widely appeared over the years in both journals and sites. Recently, he has collaborated with Mars Syndicate on the album Midnight Latitudes which is being released through Con Troppo Records and will be available through all the usual suspects. For more information on his works, go to his site Terrible Beauty or to read a selection of his work on the showcase section of this site, click here.

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.