Relâche

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For the American new music ensemble, see Relâche (musical group).

Relâche is French for "cancellation", "theater dark", or "no performance today".

Relâche (1924) was the name Erik Satie and his surrealist (former Dada) friends gave to the ultimate ballet production in which Satie was involved as composer.

A one-time flavour of surrealism was invented for the production, which was named "instantanéisme." The name of the ballet was a kind of practical joke: "Relâche" was the usual word to be found on posters announcing performances, in the case of a last minute cancellation of such performance - which was bizarre for a production that was not cancelled.

A nearly identical stunt supposedly occurred five years earlier when George Bernard Shaw originally gave his play Heartbreak House the title Closed for Remodeling.

However, according to snopes.com, George Bernard Shaw never gave one of his plays the title Closed for Remodeling. Snopes -- a Web site famous for debunking urban legends -- does indeed have an entry about one of Shaw's plays called Closed for Remodeling (www.snopes.com/lost/closed.htm). But this myth is countered by a link at the end of the page which says the claim is not true; it's merely an example of what Snopes calls "False Authority Syndrome" (www.snopes.com/lost/false.htm).

See also Entr'acte, for a further description of the music of this ballet.

An American contemporary classical music ensemble from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania also took the name Relâche.