If ever there were two people who seemingly were inseparable, they were Michel and Vera Fokine. Theirs was a modern love story that could rank with those of Abélard and Heloïse, Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde. The romance of the Fokines continued, unabated, till death did them part. The story of Michel Fokine’s revolution in modern ballet has become an important part of ballet’s history. The casual ballet-goer, to whom one name sounds very much like another, recognizes the name of Fokine. He may not realize the full importance of the man, but he has been unable to escape the knowledge that some of the ballets he knows and loves best are Fokine works. The literature that has grown up around Michel Fokine and his work is fairly voluminous, as was his due. Yet, for those of today’s generation, who are prone to forget too easily, it cannot be repeated too often that had it not been for Michel Fokine, there might not have been any such thing as modern ballet. For ballet, wherein he worked his necessary and epoch-making revolution, was in grave danger of becoming moribund and static, and might well, by this time, have become extinct. He was a profound admirer of Isadora Duncan, although he denied he had been influenced by her ideas. Fokine felt Duncan, in her concern for movement, had brought dancing back to its beginnings. He was filled with a divine disgust for the routine and the artificial practices of ballet at the turn of the century. He was termed a heretic when he insisted that each ballet demands a new technique appropriate to its style, because he fought against the eternal stereotype. Fokine threw in his lot with Diaghileff and his group. With Diaghileff his greatest masterpieces were created. Both Fokine and Diaghileff were complicated human beings; both were artists. Problems were never simple with either of them. There is no reason here to go into the causes for the rupture between them. That there was a rupture and that it was never completely healed is regrettable. It was tantamount to a divorce between the parents of modern ballet. It was, as is so often the case in divorce, the child that suffered. For a time following the break, the Fokines returned to Russia; and then, in 1918, together with their son Vitale, spent some time in and out of Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Conditions were not ideal for creation, and nothing was added to the impressive list of Fokine masterpieces. In 1919, Morris Gest was immersed in the production of a gargantuan musical show destined for the Century Theatre: _Aphrodite_, based on an English translation of Pierre Louys’ novel. Gest made Fokine an offer to come to America to stage a Bacchanal for the work. Fokine accepted. _Aphrodite_ was not a very good musical, nor was it, as I remember it, a very exciting Bacchanal; but it was a great success. Fokine himself was far from happy with it.