Client - Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Audiovisuals by David Bickerstaff at Newangle
Produced in collaboration with Tim Hatley and Drinkall Dean

This major exhibition explores the world of the influential artistic director Serge Diaghilev and the most exciting dance company of the 20th century, the Ballets Russes. Diaghilev imaginatively combined dance, music and art to create 'total theatre'. A consummate collaborator, he worked with Stravinsky, Chanel, Picasso, Matisse and Nijinsky.

Diaghilev's dramatic performances transformed dance, reawakening interest in ballet across Europe and America. Celebrating the company's key period of activity, this major exhibition reveals Diaghilev's enduring  influence on 20th-century art, design and fashion and includes more than 300 objects including giant theatre cloths, original costumes, set designs, props and posters by artists and designers including Léon Bakst, Georges Braque and Natalia Goncharova. These tell the story of a company which began in the social and political upheaval of pre-Revolutionary Russia and went on to cause a sensation with exotic performances that had never been seen before.