Between December 1917 and January 1918 the famous Ballets Russes performed in Lisbon. Almada was profoundly influenced by these shows and set out to create a series of ballets himself, acting simultaneously as choreographer, dancer, set designer and costume designer. This drawing, dated from 1918, is a costume design for – according to the inscription – the ‘2nd Murderer’, probably intended for the ballet A Lenda d’Ignez [The Legend of Inês]. This ballet was never performed, but announced in the manifesto Os Bailados Russos em Lisboa [The Ballets Russes in Lisbon], published in November 1917 in Portugal Futurista and signed by Almada, José Pacheco and the composer Ruy Coelho. There it is presented as a show that ‘would have interested Diaghilev [founder of the Ballets Russes] and his long-standing idea of a ballet about Inês de Castro’. According to the same manifesto, Almada had already designed sets and costumes, which ‘the great impresario [Diaghilev] seems to have brought with him, with promises of soon materializing them.’*

 

 

* See Vítor Pavão dos Santos, O Escaparate de todas as artes ou Gil Vicente visto por Almada Negreiros, Lisboa: Museu Nacional do Teatro, 1993, p. 20. On the ballet A Lenda d’Ignez, with music by Ruy Coelho, see Almada Negreiros e o espectáculo, exhibition catalogue, Lisbon: FCG/CAM, 1984.

 

 

 

SAF

 

May 2010