Leonide Massine

Leonide Massine's comic ballet "The Three-Cornered Hat," which the Spanish Nacional Ballet will dance at the Performing Arts Center Oct. 6 through 11, embodies the soul of sunny Spain. But behind its authenticity lies a personal tragedy.

Leonide Massine's comic ballet "The Three-Cornered Hat" is an other of those enduring works that emerged from the creative ferment of Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Created in 1919, the work was a collaboration between Massine, composer Manuel de Falla and painter Pablo Picasso, who created the sets and costumes.

Leonide Massine's comic ballet "The Three-Cornered Hat" is an other of those enduring works that emerged from the creative ferment of Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Created in 1919, the work was a collaboration between Massine, composer Manuel de Falla and painter Pablo Picasso, who created the sets and costumes.

Leonide Massine's comic ballet "The Three-Cornered Hat," which the Spanish Nacional Ballet will dance at the Performing Arts Center Oct. 6 through 11, embodies the soul of sunny Spain. But behind its authenticity lies a personal tragedy.

"In the '30s," Tatiana Leskova remembered, "there was the smell of blood in the air." And that was what inspired Leonide Massine to create "Les Presages," a groundbreaking 1933 work for the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo that reflected the era's turmoil, exuding doomful between-the-wars portents. Leskova joined the company in 1939 and was cast in corps roles in all four movements of the ballet, eventually taking the lead role of Frivolity in the third movement.

**** "Gaite Parisienne." VAI. $39.95. For 10 years, starting in 1944, Victor Jessen sat in the audience at performances by Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, making unauthorized home movies of Alexandra Danilova, Frederic Franklin and Leon Danielian in Leonide Massine's "Gaite Parisienne." Jessen then pieced together his black-and-white shots (each no longer than 30 seconds), synchronizing them to a bootleg recording he made of the company orchestra.

"The Red Shoes." Paramount. $19.95. Back to ensnare another generation: the classic 1948 film by directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (with choreography by Robert Helpmann and Leonide Massine) about love, fame, betrayal, madness and death in the ballet world.

The Joffrey Ballet will conclude its current nine-city tour Sept. 22-27 with a seven-performance engagement in Segerstrom Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Repertory will includes works by nine choreographers, including Vaslav Nijinsky, Leonide Massine, Sir Frederick Ashton, Paul Taylor and Gerald Arpino, the company's associate director. The tour has been underwritten by a $200,000 grant from Philip Morris Companies Inc.

Ramon Jasinski, 83, a star of the the Ballets Russes companies that dominated international dance from the 1920s through the 1950s. Jasinski worked with such choreographers as George Balanchine, Leonide Massine and Michel Fokine and later with his wife, an American Indian dancer from Oklahoma, formed a distinguished company in Tulsa, Okla. In 1987, the Jasinskis produced the first U.S. performance of Balanchine's "Mozart Violin Concerto" and brought it to New York the following year.

Nina Verchinina, 85, a pioneer in blending classical ballet with modern dance. The Russian-born dancer, who had continued dancing and teaching ballet until the end of her life, was known for her emotional yet technically flawless style. Brought up in Shanghai and Paris, Verchinina decided to become a dancer as a child when she watched women acrobats in a circus.

"In the '30s," Tatiana Leskova remembered, "there was the smell of blood in the air." And that was what inspired Leonide Massine to create "Les Presages," a groundbreaking 1933 work for the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo that reflected the era's turmoil, exuding doomful between-the-wars portents. Leskova joined the company in 1939 and was cast in corps roles in all four movements of the ballet, eventually taking the lead role of Frivolity in the third movement.

For groundbreaking music, historic dance and museum-quality scenic design, nothing this summer beats the Diaghilev program to be danced by the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on June 26 and 27. Impresario Sergei Diaghilev loved sponsoring major collaborations, and the Joffrey's Music Center engagement includes three of the starriest.

In the new Joffrey Ballet production of the original Vaslav Nijinsky version of "Le Sacre du Printemps," many are called, but few are Chosen. Tuesday in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, it was Carole Valleskey's turn to dance herself to death as the virgin whose sacrifice consummates her people's union with nature.