Ballet Screening La Chatte

Join us for a special screening of Ballets Russes masterpiece La Chatte.

Tate St Ives is delighted to be hosting a special screening of the film documenting the reconstruction of Sergei Diaghilev’s ballet, La Chatte. It was first performed in 1927 with costumes and set designed by Naum Gabo. Original choreography by George Balanchine for Ballets Russes, this film shows the detailed reconstruction in 2006 of the original production for the Rome Opera Ballet, by Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer.

La Chatte centres around the story of the Cat brought to life as a woman, through the imagination of the Young Man. They meet and dance through the extraordinary futuristic sets by Naum Gabo, but eventually the animal lure of the cat’s nature proves too much and she returns to her original form. Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer will introduce the screening and bring their painstaking research and work with contemporary dancers to life.

Millicent Hodson (choreographer, dance historian, graphic artist) and Kenneth Archer (scenic consultant, art historian) are a dance and design team based in London. For three decades they have reconstructed lost ballets and created original works through Ballets Old & New, staging them at such companies as the Joffrey Ballet, Paris Opera, Mariinsky Ballet, Hamburg Ballet, Royal Ballet, Finnish National Ballet, Grand Ballet Canadiens, Polish National Ballet, Royal Swedish Ballet, Rome Opera and Ballets de Monte-Carlo.

The galleries will be open from 17.00, the café bar from 17.30 – 18.30 and introduction to the film and screening from 18.15.