Photograph of the set of Parade byFoulsham and Banfield which appears to be the only photograph of the original set, almost certainly at the Empire, Leicester Square. (It is not, as usually stated, an image of the Paris premiere.) Parade, a ballet performed by Serge Diaghilev's Ballets was choreographed by Leonide Massine to music by Erik Satie, with front cloth, scenery and costume design by Pablo Picasso. It premiered in Paris at the Théâtre du Châtelet on 18 May 1917 and had its first performance in London on 14 November 1919 at the Empire Theatre. According to scene painter Polunin there were some revisions to the scenery for London

The set shows a curtained booth in the centre surmounted by a lyre. It is from this booth that the acts will emerge. The booth is flanked by tall buildings and a balustrade. On the right there is foliage suggesting bushes and trees and on the left a partly hidden image of a dancer, presumably on the side wall of the booth. Everything is asymetrical but suggests the booths from which artists woukld make brief appearance to drum up an audience for their show.

Parade marks the arrival of modernity onto the ballet stage with its portrayal of a recognisable world. It has also been described as the first multi-media ballet and Pablo Picasso’s involvement in productions for Diaghilev has encouraged major artists to participate in subsequent theatrical explorations. In writing about the work in the season’s programme Apollinaire coined the expression ‘surrealist’ to describe it, but Massine claimed in his autobiography that in 1917 ‘we were mainly concerned with creating something new and representative of our own age’.