Fokine was born in Saint Petersburg to a prosperous merchant and at the age of 9 was accepted into the Saint Petersburg Imperial Ballet School. That same year, he made his performing debut in The Talisman under the direction of Marius Petipa. In 1898, on his 18th birthday, he debuted on the stage of the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in Paquita, with the Imperial Russian Ballet. In addition to being a talented dancer, Fokine was also passionate about painting and displayed talent in this area as well. He also played musical instruments, including mandolin (played on stage in ensemble led by Ginislao Paris), domra, and balalaika (played in Vasily Andreyev's Great Russian Orchestra).
Transition to choreographer
He became frustrated with the life of a dancer and began considering other paths, including painting. In 1902, he was offered a teaching position at the Imperial Ballet School and was able to explore the artistic possibilities of choreography. In 1905, he created his first full-length ballet, Acis et Galatée, which was performed by his students and based on a Sicilian legend. Among his students were Desha Delteil and Bronislava Nijinska.
Some of Fokine's early works include the ballet Acis and Galatea (1905) and The Dying Swan (1907), which was a solo dance for Anna Pavlova choreographed to the music of Le Cygne. Acis and Galetea included an acrobatic dance with young boys playing fauns, one of whom was Vaslav Nijinsky. Fokine later featured Nijinsky in ballets including Chopiniana (1907), which was renamed Les Sylphides in 1909.
Fokine aspired to move beyond traditional ballet, toward a method of utilizing ballet to communicate the natural beauty of Man. He did not believe virtuoso ballet techniques to symbolize anything, and thought they could be substituted with forms that better expressed emotions and themes. Fokine was a strong believer in the communicative power of dance and pushed for creativity that broke tradition, believing that tradition is often distinct from reality and fails to capture the entire spectrum of human emotions. He believed that unless movements are expressive, they are irrational and neither delightful nor tolerable.
Fokine also sought to strip ballets of their artificial technicality and outdated costumes. He believed that many of the ballets of his time used costumes and techniques that did not reflect the themes of the ballets. Fokine studied Greek and Egyptian art, including vase painting and sculpture, and incorporated these into his ballets. As a choreographer, he took ballerinas out of their pointe shoes when pointe did not serve any "artistic purpose". He believed that pointe should be used when the dancing body desires to express a soaring and upward theme, rather than to flaunt the strength of dancers' feet. He presented this new idea to the Imperial Mariinsky Theater's management, but did not win their support. One of Fokine's requests was to have his dancers perform barefoot in his 1907 ballet Eunice. His request was denied, and Fokine had toes painted on the dancers' tights so they would appear to be barefoot.
He also experimented with shifting the emphasis of movement away from the lower body and towards the whole body, with freer use of the arms and torso and using each muscle with clear intention. In doing so, Fokine sought to unify motion with emotion and the body with the soul, bringing new life to the ballet as a language and an art.
In 1923, he choreographed the ballet Ajanta Frescoes for Anna Pavlova after she had been inspired by her visit to the Ajanta Caves.
