Ballet company founded in Paris in 1909 by Sergey Diaghilev .
Considered the source of modern ballet, the company employed the most outstanding creative talent of the period. Its choreographers included Michel Fokine , Léonide Massine , Bronislava Nijinska , and George Balanchine , and among its dancers were Yekaterina Geltzer , Tamara Karsavina , and Vaslav Nijinsky . Music was commissioned from composers such as Igor Stravinsky , Maurice Ravel , Darius Milhaud , Sergey Prokofiev , and Claude Debussy , and ballets featured stage designs by artists Alexandre Benois , Pablo Picasso , Georges Rouault , Henri Matisse , and André Derain .