About the work
Parade is a one-act ballet with music by Erik Satie to a scenario by Jean Cocteau, with sets and costumes by Pablo Picasso and choreography by Léonide Massine. Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes premiered the work on 18 May 1917 at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, conducted by Ernest Ansermet.
Plot
A troupe of fairground performers — a Chinese conjuror, an American girl, acrobats and a pantomime horse — tout brief samples of their act on the street to lure an audience into their sideshow. The crowd mistakes the teaser for the show itself and drifts away, leaving the performers with no audience at all.
Cultural significance
Satie's score, which incorporates everyday noises such as a typewriter and a ship's siren, and Picasso's Cubist set design provoked a scandal at the premiere, compounded by wartime political tensions. Guillaume Apollinaire's programme note coined the word "surrealism" for the piece; Parade has since stood as a landmark of modern, multi-disciplinary dance theatre.