Diaghilev At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Imperial Ballet had already become stereotyped. At that time, a very young and promising dancer & choreographer whose name was Michel Fokine, together with Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev broke away and took Russian Ballet first of all to Paris and from there to the rest of Europe. This era was known as the Diaghilev Ballet Russes which helped to reawaken the interest in ballet outside Russia. Men in Ballet became the in thing and assumed a status of its kind. Examples of great dancers of the era were the likes of Vaslav Nijinsky and the prominent character dancer Adolph Bolm leading the way in ballet. However, when Diaghilev passed away in 1929, it was thought that ballet would also die the way it had also outside the state opera houses as it had been in Paris and Copenhagen. But with the new organization of the new Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1931, and the vibrant companies that grew out of it brought about a spar...