Slacken (ballet)
Relâche is a Ballet “instantaneist” in two acts, a cinematographic interval ( Entracte of Rene Clair) and the Queue of the dog (Francis Picabia), choreography by Jean Börlin for the Swedish Ballets, on a music of Erik Satie and decorations of Picabia.
It was created with Paris, with the Théâtre of the Fields-Élysées, on November 27th 1924.
Surrealist madness of Picabia, which had obtained freehand of the director Rolf de Maré, Relâche is a “large spectacle” and a satire of the “large spectacles”. Accumulating comic situations and witty remarks, it is a clownery which speaks about major truths. An elegant woman carries evening dresses in a wheelbarrow, furious spectators invades the scene and proves to be dancers, a film is projected in the middle of the representation.
Picabia will say: “ Slackening , it is not Relâche, but “slackening””. However, irony of fate, the health condition of Börlin obliges the troop to defer the first representation…
Relâche is probably the first spectacle based on the improvisations of the dancers, of which there remains today only the masterpiece of Rene Clair.
See too
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