What is Mikhail Fokine?
[[Image:Paquita -Lucien d'Hervilly -Mikhail Fokine -circa 1905.JPG|thumb|250px|<center>Mikhail Fokine, costumed for the role of Lucien d'Hervilly, in Marius Petipa's production of the ballet ''[[Paquita]]''.<br/>Saint Petersburg, 1898.</center>]] '''Mikhail Fokine''' ({{OldStyleDate|23 April|1880|11 April}} &ndash; 22 August 1942) was a [[Russia]]n [[choreography|choreographer]] and [[dance]]r.<ref>Name here as listed in Craine & Mackrell, ''Oxford Dictionary of Dance'' and other sources. {{lang-ru|Михаи́л Миха́йлович Фо́кин}}, ''Mikhaíl Mikháylovich Fokíne''; French: Michel Fokine; English: Michael Fokine or Fokin. The vowel in Fokine is sounded long, hence the terminal 'e'.</ref> He was born in [[St Petersburg]], the son of a prosperous [[middle-class]] [[merchant]]. At the age of nine, he was accepted into the [[St Petersburg]] Imperial Ballet School. In 1898, on his 18th birthday, he debuted on the stage of the [[Mariinsky Theatre|Imperial Mariinsky Theatre]] in ''Paquita'', with the Imperial Russian Ballet. In 1902, he became a teacher with the ballet school. Fokine hoped to go beyond the older ballet traditions. To him [[virtuoso]] ballet techniques were not an end in themselves, but a means of expression. He believed that many of the ballets of his time used costuming and [[mime]] which did not reflect the themes of the ballets. Therefore, he tried to strip ballets of their artificial miming and outdated costumes. In addition, as a choreographer, he started a reform that took ballerinas out of their pointe shoes. Also, he experimented with a freer use of the arms and torso. He presented his reformist ideas to the management of the Imperial theatre, but did not get their support. Some of his early works include the ballet ''Acis and Galatea'' (1905) and ''[[The Dying Swan]]'' (1907), which was a solo dance for [[Anna Pavlova]], choreographed to the music of [[Saint-Saëns]]' ''Le Cygne''. In 1909, [[Sergei Diaghilev]] invited Fokine to become the choreographer of his [[Ballets Russes]] in [[Paris]]. Fokin