balletic framework." The athletic dance scenes in both incorporated jazz movements. A half-century later, Nijinska's 1924 choreography was reconstructed and revived. 'Théâtre Chorégraphiques Nijinska', England & Paris 1925 Leaving Diaghilev, start of her dance company January 1925 marked Nijinska's departure from Ballet Russes. In part she left because of the grief she experienced when in the end Diaghilev had sided with Cocteau over Le Train Bleu. She wanted to lead her own company. Another reason was the 1924 arrival of the dynamic George Balanchine (1904-1983), with an experimental dance troupe from the Soviet Union. Diaghilev recognized his demonstrated talent and recruited him for Ballets Russes. Balanchine filled the choreographer position vacated by Nijinska. In 1925 Nijinska found sufficient financing to form her ballet company: Théâtre Chorégraphiques Nijinska. It was a chamber ensemble that employed eleven dancers. The Russian avant-garde visual artist Alexandra Exter designed the costumes and sets. Nijinska had first met Exter in Kiev during war and revolution. It was a professional relationship that had continued as Nijinska choreographed for Ballets Russes. Nancy Van Doren Baer highly praised their collaboration, "a most dramatic synthesis of the visual and the kinetic". For her company, Nijinska choreographed six short ballets, and danced in five. She also staged four divertissements, dancing one solo. For the 1925 summer season (August–October), her ballet company toured fifteen English resort towns and provincial cities. It then performed selections in Paris, at an international exhibition and for a gala program. "Judged by any standard, the Théâtre Chorégraphiques offered dancing, choreography, music, and costume design of the highest order." Holy Etudes, an abstract ballet [Bach] Her first abstract ballet seen outside Russia, to J. S. Bach's First and Fifth Brandenberg Concertos, was also the first ballet mounted to his music. The dancers wore identical tunics and capes made of silk, with halo-like headgear. "Exter's 'uni-sex' costumes were revolutionary in their day." Yet, according to accounts, their simple and severe design "added immeasurably to the broad flowing movement and stately rhythms of the choreography, suggesting androgynous beings moving in heavenly harmony." Silk "enhanced the ethereal quality of the ballet. The brilliant pink and bright orange capes hung straight from bamboo rods placed across the dancers' shoulders... ." Baer further observes, "By varying the levels, groupings, and facings of the dancers, Nijinska created a pictorial composition made up of moving and intersecting planes of color." As in Les noces, Nijinska