Some of his works will live on, but they suffer with each passing year because, in most cases, they are not properly done. The Sadler’s Wells and Royal Danish Ballet productions of the Fokine works are the exceptions. But all his works suffered continually during his lifetime, because Fokine had a faulty memory, and his restaging of the works was, all too often, the product of unhappy afterthoughts. Towards the end of his life he became more and more embittered. He, the one-time great revolutionary, resented the new developments in ballet, perhaps because they had not been developed by Fokine. This bitterness was quite unnecessary, for Fokine remains the greatest creator of modern ballet. His works, properly staged, will always provide a solid base for all ballet programmes. Despite the hue and cry, despite the lavish praise heaped upon each new experiment by modern choreographers, and upon the choreographers themselves, in all contemporary ballet there is no one to take his place. Other ballet-masters, other choreographers, working with the same basic materials, in the same spirit, in the same language, often require detailed synopses and explanations for their works, in spite of which the meaning of them often remains lost in the murk of darkest obscurity. I remember once asking Fokine to supply a synopsis of one of his new works for programme purposes. I shall not forget his reply: “No synopsis is needed for my ballets. My ballets unfold their stories on the stage. There is never any doubt as to what they say.” I have visited Vera Petrovna Fokine in the castle on the Hudson where she lives in lonely nostalgia. But it is not quite true that she lives alone; for she lives with the precious memory of a great love, a tremendous reputation, the memory of a great artist, the artist who created _Les Sylphides_, _Prince Igor_, and _Petroushka_. 7. Ballet Reborn In America: W. De Basil and His Ballets Russes De Monte Carlo The last of the two American tours of Serge de Diaghileff’s Ballets Russes was during the season 1916-1917. The last American tour of Anna Pavlova and her company was during the season 1925-1926. Serge Diaghileff died at Venice, on 19th August, 1929. Anna Pavlova died at The Hague, on 23rd January, 1931. W. de Basil’s Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo gave their first American performances at the St. James Theatre, New York, on 21st December, 1933. Such ballet as America saw between Pavlova’s last performance in 1926 and the first de Basil performance in 1933, may be briefly stated. From 1924 to 1927, in Chicago, there was the Chicago Allied Arts, sometimes described as the first “ballet theatre” in the United States, sparked by Adolph Bolm. In 1926 and 1927, there were a few sporadic performances by Mikhail Mordkin and his Russian Ballet Company, which included Xenia Macletzova, Vera Nemtchinova, Hilda Butsova, and Pierre Vladimiroff.