a long and fruitful collaboration on various dance projects, with Exter designing sets and costumes. The working relationship that formed endured into the 1920s, after each had independently left Russia, to move to Paris. Before the war Exter had lived in Western Europe, where she joined "cubist and futurist circles" that were generating popular innovations. Returning to Russia at war's start, Exter first settled in Moscow. With Alexander Tairov at his Kamerny [Chamber] Theater, she had "aspired to create a dynamic fusion of drama, movement, and design known as 'synthetic theater'." In 1918, having relocated to Kiev, Exter opened an art studio, which doubled as a salon for many of Kiev's rising artists. Art discussions were also held evenings at Nijinska's dance school, where Exter joined in. Their ideas were compatible and mutually reinforcing. Curator/author Nancy Van Norman Baer writes that they became "close artistic associates" and "fast friends". In addition to Exter, Les Kurbas (1887-1937) worked with Nijinska. As a Ukrainian theater producer and film director, Kurbas was a leading arts figure in Kyiv and a promoter of local performance. They entered into a "complementary and deep" collaboration, sharing studio space, movement classes, dancer-actors, and theatrical discussions. Her ballet school and its productions In February 1919 in Kiev, she opened her dance school called L'Ecole de Mouvement [School of Movement]. This was shortly after giving birth to her son Léon. Her school's philosophy was to focus on preparing dancers to work with innovative choreographers. Among ideas she taught her students: flowing movement, free use of the torso, and a quickness in linking steps. She wanted her students ready for cutting-edge ballets, like those she had assisted her brother in designing, e.g., The Rite and Faune. As she stated in her Kiev-era treatise/essay "On Movement and the school of movement": "Today's ballet schools do not give the dancer the necessary training to work with choreographic innovators. Even the Ballet Russes ... did not create a school to parallel its innovations in the theater." [86/87] Yet historically, regarding Vigano, Noverre, Vestris, Didelot, Taglioni, Coralli, Petipa: "the danse d'ecole absorbed all the achievements of these choreographers. ... [They] did not destroy the school with their innovations, but only enriched it." [87] Under the aegis of this school she staged concerts with her own choreographed solo dances. Included were "her first plotless ballet compositions": Mephisto Valse (1919), and Twelfth Rhapsody (1920) music by