PERCEPTION OF CLASSICAL BALLET IN JAPAN IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Abstract

Today the Japanese are known as subtle connoisseurs of European ballet, nevertheless, their interest in Western classical dance started only about a century ago. The article discusses the perception of the activity of Italian choreographer Giovanni Vittorio Rosi in Tokyo in the 1910s, as well as the opinion of the Japanese public of the first Russian ballet tour. Whereas the first visit of Russian artists to Japan in 1916, primarily of a diplomatic nature, went almost unnoticed, the 1922 tour of the famous Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova radically changed the situation: both the public and professional Japanese artists discovered a whole new world of Western dance.
The author suggests that a change in the perception of classical dance in the first quarter of the 20th century is associated with the gradual penetration of ballet into everyday visual images — advertising and printed materials. The article for the first time presents the parallels between the posters of the Mitsukoshi department store, created by the Japanese artist Hisui Sugiura, and the ballet posters and photographs of Anna Pavlova.