Giacomo Balla: Fireworks (1917) ballet set

This workprint, from the personal effects of choreographer Leonide Massine (1896-1979) is likely the only film showing the Cubist set of the three-minute ballet "Feu d'artifice" (Fireworks) designed by Italian Futurist artist Giacomo Balla. Introduced on April 30, 1917 and produced at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome, the ballet was set to music by Igor Stravinsky and directed by Sergei Diaghilev. Balla’s work presented for a few minutes, in place of live actors, a set composed of solid geometric wood forms covered with fabric and colored paper. Inside these pyramid and prism forms, Balla had placed electric lights, which operated rhythmically, creating unexpected effects of movement. Violet and white colors appeared on the left part of the set; red, blue, and yellow in the center; and green on the right. The artist explained that the elements represented “the moods of fireworks” that Stravinsky’s music had suggested to him.

This film, made at an unknown date, shows the progressively intense lighting schemes designed by Balla for the ballet.