The Rite of Spring these works Diaghilev recruited the choreographer Michel Fokine, the designer Léon Bakst and the dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. Diaghilev's intention, however, was to produce new works in a distinctively 20th-century style, and he was looking for fresh compositional talent. Having heard "Feu d'artifice" he approached Stravinsky, initially with a request for help in orchestrating music by Chopin to create the ballet "Les Sylphides". Stravinsky worked on the opening "Nocturne" and the closing "Valse Brillante"; his reward was a much bigger commission, to write the music for a new ballet, "The Firebird" ("L'oiseau de feu") for the 1910 season. Stravinsky worked through
The Rite of Spring murder and gangster film images. In February 1984 Martha Graham, in her 90th year, resumed her association with "The Rite" by choreographing a new production at New York's State Theater. "The New York Times" critic declared the performance "a triumph ... totally elemental, as primal in expression of basic emotion as any tribal ceremony, as hauntingly staged in its deliberate bleakness as it is rich in implication". On 30 September 1987, the Joffrey Ballet in Los Angeles performed "The Rite" based on a reconstruction of Nijinsky's 1913 choreography, until then thought lost beyond recall. The performance resulted from years of