Except for Parade little has been written about Cocteau's ballets or, for that matter, his concept of dance in the theatre.

Cocteau's first work, Le Dieu Bleu, was written in collaboration with Federigo de Madrazo. This first ballet of Cocteau's is passed over by most of Cocteau's biographers and given only a fleeting reference by Cocteau himself. One can understand why this ballet is rarely discussed, as it is a work not really within Cocteau's true metier. It was a ballet composed in the exotic and oriental style that characterized the first period of the Ballets Russes and the only reason Cocteau had a hand in it was due to his desire to create something for Nijinsky. Cocteau admitted that he preferred the "now," the immediate, the absurd of everyday life and such oriental fantasies did not fit within his aesthetic view.

Some of Cocteau's later works for...