Serge Lifar and the Question of Collaboration with the German Authorities under the Occupation of Paris (1940–1949)

Abstract This chapter examines the political and artistic activities of dancer and choreographer Serge Lifar at the Paris Opera during and immediately after the Occupation of Paris. Although Lifar was condemned as a collaborator in a postwar trial he was rehabilitated after a brief exile and returned to work at the Opera until his retirement in 1958. The question of collaborationism has arisen again in light of performances by the Paris Opera and other dance companies of his ballets. Using archival materials usually ignored by dance scholars, the article examines Lifar’s political activities, his political convictions, and his political ambitions. His theory of ballet as set forth in La Danse: Les grands courants de la danse académique (1938) and two of his successful ballets of this period—Joan de Zarissa (1942) and Suite en blanc (1943)—are discussed in light of his politics. The chapter concludes with an analysis of corporeal fascism from a theoretical perspective including discussion of Carl Schmitt, Georges Bataille, Louis Marin, and Claude Lefort.