«Traduire les spectacles du livre»: des Mille et une nuits de Joseph-Charles Mardrus à Shéhérazade des Ballets Russes

In the early twentieth century, the translation of the Ara- bian Nights by J.-C. Mardrus generates in France a new Orientalism that involves the fields of art, from literature to theatre, from music to paint- ing. At the heart of this transemiotic movement, Shéhérazade, « drame chorégraphique » of Diaghilev Ballets Russes will have many reverber- ations in the arts and lifestyle of the time. Even if it seems obvious to some, the impact of Mardrus translation in the creation of this ballet has not yet been subject to a rigorous analysis. This article reconstructed the genesis and challenges of the ballet and then studies in which way the techniques and strategies of Serge Diaghilev and its collaborators – in- cluding the choreographer Michel Fokine and the painter Léon Bakst – come into resonance with Mardrus translation.