For which ballet did Picasso design the set and costumes in 1917? He designed them for “Parade.”
“Parade” was created for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Jean Cocteau supplied the scenario, Erik Satie composed the music, and Léonide Massine choreographed the production. Picasso designed the sets, costumes, and a large curtain, bringing a Cubist visual language onto the ballet stage.
The ballet premiered at Paris’s Théâtre du Châtelet on 18 May 1917. Its story follows performers trying to attract an audience to their show, drawing on music halls, fairs, street entertainment, and silent-film culture rather than traditional romantic ballet subjects.
Picasso’s designs included oversized, highly angular costumes for the managers. Some were made from rigid cardboard and restricted the dancers’ movement, making the figures look like moving sculptures. The production initially divided audiences, but it later became a landmark collaboration between painting, music, theater, and dance. “Le Sacre du printemps” is another famous Ballets Russes work, but Picasso did not design its 1913 production.