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Moulins Allier Auvergne /www.cncs.fr /04 70 20 76 20

Opening on October 19, 2013

The Rudolf Nureyev CollectionScientific and cultural curator:Centre national du costume de scèneExhibition scenography: Ezio Frigerioassisted by Giuliano Spinelli

In October, 2013, the Centre national du costume de scène (CNCS), a unique museum and major conservation center for the performing arts, is opening a permanent exhibition space devoted to Rudolf Nureyev, one of the greatest dancers of the 20th century. The Rudolf Nureyev Collection will present aspects of the personal and artistic life of this of this star of Russian dance who chose liberty in Paris and had an exceptional international career.

An insatiable collector with a pronounced taste for sumptuous décor, Rudolf Nureyev accumulated a great number of paintings, etchings, costumes, fabrics, furniture and objects. After his death, the Rudolf Nureyev Foundation had the task of selling the majority of this patrimony, with the exception of a few hundred pieces, which were kept to constitute a collection in honor of this great dancer.

In 2008 the Rudolf Nureyev Foundation made a gift of this collection to the CNCS, thus following the wishes of the choreographer to keep the collection intact in one place. The project, which allows the public to discover the career of the dancer and the life of the man, was selected as part of the Regional Museum Plan by the Minister of Culture and Communication.

In order to celebrate the spirit of Rudolf Nureyev, the CNCS asked the scenographer and designer Ezio Frigerio, assisted by Guiliano Spinelli, to create the scenography for this collection space. Ezio Frigerio, a dear friend of the choreographer, worked with Nureyev on some of his legendary ballets: Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliette, La Bayadère and Sleeping Beauty. The collection will put approximately one hundred items which belonged to the dancer into perspective, evoking his artistic life and his personal esthetics.

Photos, street clothes and costumes will reveal the public life, childhood and career of the dancer. Paintings, etchings and sculptures as well as furniture, fabrics and musical instruments will be witness to his taste for opulent décor, luxurious interiors and his passion for music.

Thanks to a theatrical scenography, the Rudolf Nureyev Collection will reveal the soul of this dancer and choreographer who was so essential to the 20th century and will allow the public to enter into his exuberant universe.

PRESS RELATIONS: HEYMANN, RENOULT ASSOCIEESSarah Heymann, Eleonora Alzetta – Tél. +33 (0) 1 44 61 76 76 - e.alzetta@heymann-renoult.com

www.heymann-renoult.com (downlaodable documents and illustrations)

© CNCS / Photo P. François.

© CNCS / Photo P. François.

© Michael Peto / University of Dundee.

The Rudolf Nureyev Foundation chose MoulinsRudolf Nureyev created his foundation in 1975 under the name “The Ballet Promotion Foundation”. It was first designed to help his family in the Soviet Union, but as well to support dancers, dance companies, ballet schools and productions. In 1994, after Nureyev’s death, it became The Rudolf Nureyev Foundation, keeping the same objectives but expanding to include action in medical, humanitarian and scientific fields. The responsibility of establishing a space dedicated to the memory of the dancer was assigned to the Foundation.Two years after the opening of the CNCS, the Rudolf Nureyev Foundation made a gift of a part of the objects, furniture, paintings, costumes, fabrics, etc. which had belonged to Rudolf Nureyev and which were being held in trust by the Foundation. Thanks to its support, a large number of these pieces will find their permanent place in the exhibition rooms consecrated to this Collection.

PRESS RELATIONS: HEYMANN, RENOULT ASSOCIEESSarah Heymann, Eleonora Alzetta – Tél. +33 (0) 1 44 61 76 76 - e.alzetta@heymann-renoult.com

www.heymann-renoult.com (downlaodable documents and illustrations)

The Centre national du costume de scène et de la scénographie (CNCS)The CNCS opened in July 2006 in Moulins in Auvergne and is the first conservation center in France or abroad entirely devoted to material theatrical heritage. It has become a place not to be missed for all lovers of theater arts. After appearing in their final productions at the Opéra national de Paris, the Comédie-Française and numerous other theater companies, the costumes arrive at the center for a second life during which they will never again be worn but will be conserved, studied and exhibited. After seven years of existence and fifteeen temporary exhibits, eight of which have traveled to Singapore, San Francisco, Saint-Peterbourg and Madrid, the CNCS is now preparing to open a permanent exhibition space.

The CollectionsThe CNCS conserves the most prestigious collections in the world, on deposit from its three founding institutions - the Bibliothèque national de France, the Comédie- Française and the Opéra national de Paris - as well as costumes donated to the CNCS by costume designers, theaters, theater and dance companies, artists and their families. Today, more than 10,000 costumes and accessories are conserved in the ultra-modern reserves of this 18th century cavalry barracks: the costumes worn by Maria Callas in Norma in 1964, Jean Marais’s armour in Britannicus in 1952, the tutus by Christian Lacroix for Les Anges ternis in 1987, the costumes by Philippe Découflé for the Olympic Games in Albertville in 1992 and many more.

The Centre national de costume de scène et de la scénographie (CNCS) is situated in Moulins in the Allier department and occupies a part of the Quartier Villars, a cavalry barracks dating from the end of the 18th century. The site was saved in 1984 thanks to its designation as a Historic Monument. The building underwent renovation during ten years to restore its original aspect and to become the CNCS. In 1997 a new building was constructed for the reserves of the collection, designed by the architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte. This building, with an area of 1,700 square meters includes a conservation area on the ground floor and three floors of costume reserves. Installed in “compactus”, or rolling closets, the costumes are kept in optimal conservation conditions (sheltered from light, at a constant temperature of 18° C and a 50% level of hygrometry).

Practical informationPress visit and exhibition preview on Friday, October 18 (by invitation).Open every day from 10am to 6pm, and until 7pm in July and August.Quartier Villars, Route de Montilly, 03000 MoulinsTel: +33 4 20 76 20 / info@cncs.fr / www.cncs.fr

© CNCS / Photo C. Pulvéry.

© CNCS / Photo P. François.

© CNCS / Photo P. François.

© CNCS.

© CNCS / Photo C. Pulvéry.

© CNCS / Photo C. Pulvéry.