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Blood and the Bolero

Last updated on October 11, 2017

“I don’t know what will become of this piece. Our brave critics will no doubt charge me with imitating Ravel’s Bolero. Too bad – this is how I hear war.”
                      — Dmitri Shostakovich

Ida Rubenstein strode onto the Paris Opera stage on November 22, 1928, and stepped onto a table.  The set resembled a rustic Spanish tavern and several couples danced below a brass lamp hanging from the ceiling.  They encouraged a female dancer to join them.  A snare drum softly tapped out a modest rat, rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat and Ida Rubenstein began to dance.  “Ida portrayed a voluptuous dancer whose suggestive dance atop a table in a rustic Spanish tavern incites the men to dance with her until they lose further control of their ‘senses,’ and end up in a violent brawl,” wrote J. M. Lacey for Season Ticket in 2010.  The dance “caused a sensation,” he said.  “When the piece ended, Ida’s provocative dance and Ravel’s dynamic music caused a near-riot between the audience and the performers.”  “Ida narrowly escaped injury,” he added.

 


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