This thesis aims to investigate Les Ballet Suédois (1920-1925) and their ambition to create total works of art (Gesamtkunstwerk), a term made famous by the composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883). With regards to modern research into total works of art as expressions of the social or political visions of the avant-garde, this thesis applies theoretical concepts of intermediality and performativity to discern how the company cooperated with members of the Parisian avant-garde. Their joint mission was to regenerate society by uniting the arts and constructing ballets designed as total works of art that conveyed the ideas of the collaborating artists, commonly expressed in written manifestos during this era. In analyzing three works: Dårhuset/Maison de Fous, Världens Skapelse/La Création du Monde, and Relâche, it was revealed that staging total works of art was a common pursuit among artists of the avant-garde. The unique function of the Ballet Suédois was to transgress the ideas of the avant-garde into corporeal, temporal, intermedial manifestations of their radical collaborators. The results showed that Ballet Suédois functioned as enablers that performatized aesthetic, social and political ideas to the stage and, in manifesting the manifestos, had a unique function within the Parisian avant-garde of the early 1920s.
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-477257 |
Date | January 2022 |
Creators | Sjölin, Nils |
Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Konstvetenskapliga institutionen |
Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
Language | Swedish |
Detected Language | English |
Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
Format | application/pdf |
Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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