André Levinson
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André Yacovlev Levinson, Андрей (Андрэ) Яковлевич Левинсон [Andrey Yakovl'evich Levinson], November 1, 1887, St. Petersburg - December 3, 1933, Paris) was, after leaving Russia in 1918, a French dance journalist.
At the University of Sankt Peterburg he had been a professor of Romance languages. Regarding ballet, he then championed "pure academic dance". Accordingly, he opposed the reforms advanced by choreographer Michel Fokine and impresario Sergei Diaghilev of Ballets Russes. In 1918 he left Russia for Paris, where the new Russian ballet continued to draw great interest. The "French were treated to informed observation of the dance scene in print." Levinson authored many books, among them volumes on Leon Bakst (1921), Ana Pavlova (1928), and Serge Lifar (1934, posthumous).[1][2][3]
"The Russian critic André Levinson, although an unyielding defender of classicism in ballet, was nonetheless awed by Isadora's art as 'the cult of the transfigured flesh, the religion of the body, the habitat of the gods'."[4]
A selection of his dance writings from Paris was published in 1991.[5]
References
- ^ Horst Koegler, Concise Oxford Dictionary of Ballet ([1972], Oxford University 1977), p.324 ("academic dance" quote, books).
- ^ In 1930 Jacques Rouché of the Paris Opéra had named as ballet master Lifar, a leading dancer at Ballets Russes.
- ^ Nancy Reynolds and Malcolm McCormick, No Fixed Points. Dance in the twentieth century (Yale University 2003), pp. 214-216, "French were treated" quote at 214.
- ^ Levinson, 'In Memoriam' from his 1929 book La danse d'aujourd'hui, quoted by Reynolds and McCormich, No Fixed Points (2003), p.11.
- ^ Levinson, André Levinson on Dance: Writings from Paris in the twenties (Wesleyan University 1991), edited and introduced by Joan Acocella and Lynn Garafola.
Literary works
- Meister des Ballets, 1923
- La Argentina, 1928
- La danse d'aujourd'hui, 1929
External links
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