Ballets Russes is sergei diaghilev's paris-based company (1909–1929) that revolutionised dance by uniting it with the most advanced music, painting, and design of its era.
The Ballets Russes was founded by the Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev in 1909 and based in Paris, though it never performed in Russia. For twenty years until Diaghilev's death in 1929, the company was the most important single force in 20th-century European modernism. Diaghilev commissioned scores from Stravinsky ('The Firebird' 1910, 'Petrushka' 1911, 'The Rite of Spring' 1913), Debussy, Ravel, Satie, Falla, Poulenc, and Prokofiev; designs from Bakst, Benois, Picasso, Matisse, Braque, de Chirico, and Coco Chanel; and choreography from Mikhail Fokine, Vaslav Nijinsky, Léonide Massine, Bronislava Nijinska, and the young George Balanchine. The 1913 Paris premiere of 'The Rite of Spring' — Stravinsky's score, Nijinsky's choreography — provoked one of the most famous riots in cultural history. After Diaghilev's death, the company dispersed, but its dancers, choreographers, and creative model seeded almost every major Western ballet company of the 20th century.