The Japanese dancer and ballet master, Masahide Komaki (1911-2006), is one of the most important figures in the post-war history of Japanese ballet. The Shanghai Ballet Russe (1934-1945) was based at the Lyceum Theatre located in the French concession in Shanghai. It staged ballet works of both the pre-revolutionary Russian Imperial Theatres and Sergey Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes (1909-1929). After the war, Komaki, the only Japanese soloist of the Shanghai Ballet Russe, returned to Japan to play a major role in realizing the Japanese premiere of the full-length version of Swan Lake in 1946.
The origins of today's classical ballet can be traced back to the Imperial Russian Ballet and Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. This heritage was brought to the countries such as the UK, France and the United States mainly by exiled Russian dancers. However, on the issue of how Russian ballet flourished in Shanghai and Manchuria, eventually reaching Japan, very little research has been done. Masahide Komaki founded a ballet company in post-war Japan and premiered the original works of the Russian Imperial Ballet and Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, many of which he himself had danced in Shanghai. Some of these ballet works were historically important but their original choreographies have been lost; these included "Paganini Fantasies" and "Le Pavillon d'Armide". I would like to conduct research on the Shanghai Ballets Russes and Masahide Komaki, using a large volume of newly-discovered material which have been preserved by the Komaki family. By sharing the results of my research both in Japan and across the world, I hope that it will contribute to the improvement of the future relationship between Japan, Russia and China and that the power of art will help to promote world peace.
