Really, it was the music and the dance that changed everything—the riot was simply the dramatic response.  The composer Igor Stravinsky and the dancer-choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky premiered The Rite of Spring in Paris on May 29th to crowds that went wild. Some of them loved it, some of them hated it. Passions and tempers flared. The audience took to the streets rioting.

Some think the riot was planned, or at least hoped for—a publicity stunt of sorts. Others think it was the spontaneous event it seemed to be. The music was so different—discordant, eerie in places, un-identifiable time signatures, a tribal pulse throughout…. And the dance resembled nothing anyone had seen before—the toes of the dancers pointed in, they stomped and skipped and circled in what looked like a war dance of some sort. The graceful lines and the extraordinary floating leaps Nijinsky was known for were not present at all.

Lauren Stringer’s picture book, When Stravinsky Met Nijinsky: Two Artists, Their Ballet, and One Extraordinary Riot, tells the story of the new music, the startling dance, and the extraordinary riot. The topic is an unusual one for children.  The story is not known by most adults, in fact.  Stringer’s use of language and art, however, bridges any gaps of knowledge, regardless of age.

Stringer started the project in the fall of 2005. She and her husband went to hear the Minnesota Orchestra and in the concert’s program there was a photo of Stravinsky next to Nijinsky who wore the costume and sad painted “clown-face” of the puppet Petrushka, his first collaboration with Stravinsky. Stringer was struck by their faces.

“I wanted to paint those faces!” she said. “And I loved the sound of their names—Stravinsky and Nijinsky—they had such a rhythm and rhyme.” She leaned over to her composer husband that night and said, “I wonder what it was like when Stravinsky met Nijinsky….” And then she thought, wouldn’t that be a great title for a picture book?

When she arrived home later that night, Stringer pasted the picture of Stravinsky and Nijinsky from the orchestra program in a notebook. Then she started playing with words and ideas.

“I loved the language possibilities—Stravinsky and Nijinsky…France and dance…. And those faces!”

She kept coming back to the faces of Stravinsky and Nijinsky—their particular shapes and expressions. Stringer had not painted portraits before and initially thought that would prevent her from illustrating a book about the two artists. The writing also seemed like a challenge.

“The research frightened me. I had so much to learn. It just did not seem like something I would do….”

And yet the idea did not leave her. Five years later, Stringer and her composer husband, Matthew Smith, decided to try the project together. They had fun working on it back and forth—and it started her husband writing creatively, something he continues to enjoy. But ultimately, Stringer took the idea for this particular book back as her own project.

“I kept coming back to this idea: “When two people meet their worlds are changed…And sometimes when two people meet they change the world!” The lines  did not make it into the book, but they are featured on her promotional postcard and they obviously speak to an idea that drove the making of the book.

When you visit Stringer’s studio, it is easy to see she is inspired and influenced by many things. Pictures, post cards, drawings, quotes, and clippings are taped to door frames, walls, and furniture.  Books are stacked in subject piles only she can navigate. The painting and sketches of a new book fill an entire wall. The place hums with the creative energy that feeds its artist-writer. Her world is changed by the people she meets, whether they are met in person or through their work.

“I am inspired by the work of many people,” Stringer says looking around her studio. “Each project takes me down a different road, meeting people, being changed by them….”

She keeps a notebook for each project she is thinking about. he notebook for When Stravinsky Met Nijinsky bulges with notes and ideas, clippings, pictures, printouts, bibliographies, and swatches.  It is huge and magnificent.

When Stravinsky Met Nijinsky pays homage to many of the artists who inspire Stringer. Her favorite period in painting came at the same time as the premiere of The Rite of Spring. The beginning of the 20th century hosted the advent of cubism, fauvism, expressionism, and futurism, challenging ideas of how the world might be experienced and viewed. The arts as a whole were changing in the years that preceded World War I. Painters and writers inspired and influenced musicians and dancers and vice versa. It was a fertile time in the arts and in innovation.

A century later, Lauren Stringer entered that mix, too, and had the joy and challenge of creating a work of art picture book that honors that time and its art and artists. The pages of When Stravinsky Met Nijinsky are filled with nods of admiration to Picasso, Matisse, and Léon Bakst, the costume and set designer for The Rite of Spring. The spread in which Stravinsky and Nijinsky meet calls up the red walls of Henri Matisse’s The Red Studio. The couches, curtains, and fabrics throughout the book are covered in designs honoring the work of these and other artists.

Her favorite spread to create? “Drawing and painting my two boys, Stravinsky and Nijinsky,” said Stringer with a smile.  The Red Studio spread, in particular, the third one in the book. “Those faces! I just had to go for it!”

And go for it she did. The two faces who looked out at Lauren Stringer from a grainy photograph in the Minnesota Orchestra program tickled her artistic fancy almost ten years ago. After a decade of research and writing and painting, but just in time for the centennial celebration of the event, those faces look out at us, delightfully rendered by Stringer not only in the third spread, but reprised with different expressions in the final spread, and in many and various forms throughout the book. (HINT: Read it with a child and they will see the dog and cat that mirror the artists’ facial features and emotions.)

Do not let the lusty month of May go by without celebrating with this book. Find a child (or a whole gaggle of them) and read the story. Spend time with the art. Look stuff up. Then consider starting a notebook with scraps of your own ideas… paint a picture…turn on some music…and dance daring dance!

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Melanie Heuiser Hill lives, writes, and reads in St. Louis Park, MN.