A surge of Serge: Diaghilev-inspired choreographers.

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On a May evening 100 years ago, Paris embraced the debut of Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, which went on to thrill viewers worldwide and create a kind of international ballet diaspora even after Diaghilev's death in 1929 (see "The Ballets Russes Revolution," Feb. 2009). The last of the post-Diaghilev companies disbanded in the 1960s. The company's rich artistic legacy and composers have influenced many of today's choreographers.

In May, Boston Ballet featured the world premiere of Jorma Elo's production of Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) as part of an eight-day, citywide centenary called "Ballets Russes 2009." Though Elo admitted to struggling with the challenges of the ballet, he also found it "inspiring to think what all those artists came up with, when getting together and taking crazy risks, following their passion, encouraging and inspiring each other." In the Ballets Russes' hands, Elo says, "dance was a very living, moldable, wonderful, exciting thing."

Finnish choreographer Tero Saarinen chose Rite as well for his multimedia modern solo HUNT. Stravinsky's score posed questions Saarinen wanted to address: Whose life is it? Who owns us? Who pulls our strings? Saarinen feels that The Rite of Spring is the cruelest and most powerful of Stravinsky's works. "Its primitiveness is frightening yet fascinating. For me, The Rite of Spring is music of the unconscious," he says. "It lures out humanity's brutish, animal sides, just at the time when they are seeking to achieve a sacred state."

Internal conflict also steers "Afternoon of the Faunes," the final duet of Mark Dendy's contemporary work Dream Analysis (1998). It offers, says Dendy, "the brilliant and mad sides of Nijinsky; how they split and came back together, even though in real life, they didn't come together." Dendy was fascinated by what he calls "the untold history" of the Ballets Russes, its confluence of gay artists and Nijinsky's complex personal life. The period when Nijinsky was with the company, he feels, was the real beginning of modern dance. He says his version of Nijinsky's faun, which he is reviving for New York City Center's Fall for Dance, has more plasticity and pull than Nijinsky's squared-off movement.

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The rarely performed Petrouchka, meanwhile, intrigued Sally Rousse, cofounder of James Sewell Ballet. Inspired by her mentor Sviatoslav Toumine (who was a member of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo), Rousse created a version with eight company members, 14 other dancers, aerial work, and puppets.

"It's such a bizarre piece of choreography--there's not much there," Rousse says of Michel Fokine's masterpiece, known for its realistic treatment of crowd scenes. "I wanted to retell the story because I love puppetry." Rousse put the Charlatan on stilts and gave the Ballerina pointe and aerial work. "When I think of life-size puppets, I think of aerial work: You're controlled by strings, like being controlled by a charlatan." This new version follows the libretto, she says, "but I added just a little dimestore psychology."

The lure of the Ballet Russes lies in its remarkable story. "Everybody wants what they had," Rousse says. "It was a hotbed of creativity, with composers and choreographers and artists. A lot of it was bad, but a lot of it was amazing, too. We'll never have anything like that again."