Ballet West salutes Diaghilev.

Diaghilev was a risk taker, and that's the aspect of his legacy that Ballet West plans to capture in its tribute, "Treasures of the Ballets Russes." The evening, slated to run March 27 to April 4, includes three ballets: Fokine's "savage" Polovtsian Dances; Balanchine's dramatic Prodigal Son; and Les Biches, the flapper-era romp made by Bronislava Nijinska in 1924.

Les Biches is a humorous, upbeat ballet that challenged the social mores of its time by featuring strong, provocative female characters. Nijinska is considered by many to be the first feminist choreographer, choosing to collaborate with women artists like Marie Laurencin for set design and Coco Chanel for costumes.

Last summer, Ballet West brought Howard Sayette to Salt Lake City to stage the ballet. Sayette was a member of Sergei Denham's Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and learned Les Biches from Nijinska's daughter, Irina. Ballet West also invited former Royal Ballet principal Georgina Parkinson to coach the dancers. Parkinson had worked closely with Nijinska herself during the re-creation of Les Biches for the Royal Ballet in the 1960s and brought a rich history to rehearsals.

"Georgina knew the essence of each character and every tiny accent in the music," says Kate Crews, the Ballet West soloist who will dance the flamboyant Hostess role on opening night. "The Hostess' choreography reveals the contradiction of every successful party host. An ever-so-calm Hostess greets her guests while wielding a cigarette holder in one hand and a length of pearls in the other. She arches and rolls through the upper body, but the footwork is an exhausting petit allegro.

Crews believes that the genius of Nijinska's ballets lies in how each character emerges from the movement itself. "You don't need to apply a character onto the movement," she says. "The discovery happens within the timing and the accents of the music."

Because The Hostess is holding two props during her solo, Crews says, "You can't use your port de bras against the changing beats and quick jumps. It requires incredible stamina."

Crews also speaks of Parkinson's demand for precision to enhance musicality. "She helped me tighten up my beats in the brise vole, giving me more time in the music."

Parkinson, now a ballet mistress at American Ballet Theatre, recalls what it was like to be coached by Nijinska. "Bronislava didn't really speak English. She hardly spoke a word to us, but she would fiercely rehearse us until what we were doing was exactly what she wanted." Her goal with Ballet West was to make the ballet "live." She feels that Nijinska's work appears unusually lively because there are no preparation steps. "No one wants to see the preparation in fourth before a pirouette or the plie before a jump, so Bronislava simply took them all out!"

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To find inspiration for the Hostess, Nijinska needed only to look around her in the South of France in the 1920s. The Hostess reflects those decadent, uninhibited, and flirtatious times. Rather than choreographing about fairies, sylphs, or princesses, she responded to real people.

"Bronislava was an enigma to us even as we rehearsed day after day," Parkinson says. "She never accepted anything less than perfection."

When choosing the ballets for "Treasures of the Ballets Russes," artistic director Adam Sklute wanted to honor Ballet West's own historical connection to Diaghilev. For Ballet West's founder, Willam Christensen, it was dancing in Fokine's Polovstian Dances as a student in the 1930s that whetted his appetite to choreograph and start his own company.

"Polovtsian Dances is all spectacle," Sklute says. "It was really the first piece to put Ballets Russes on the map. It thrilled, shocked, and excited audiences with its raw, savage energy set to incredibly beautiful music." It was last performed by Ballet West in 1973.

Sklute aims to pay respect to the Ballets Russes by keeping these works accurate and alive. "Diaghilev hired great artists like Picasso and Rouault; he took chances on untried composers like Stravinsky and Prokofiev. He discovered and nurtured some of the greatest choreographers of the 20th century--Balanchine, Massine, Fokine, Nijinsky, and Nijinska," says Sklute. "Diaghilev is the reason ballet is the way it is today."

ON THE WEB: Video of Yvonne Mounsey coaching Melissa Barak as the Siren in Balanchine's Prodigal Son, recorded by the Balanchine Foundation. Mounsey learned the role from its creator, Felia Doubrovska.