COCTEAU Jean Autograph MANUSCRIT signed "Jean Cocteau", Preface,[1937]; 5 pages large in-fol. on chamois laid paper (44 x 31 cm), under shirt titled in red pencil by Serge Lifar. Nice text on dance. Preface to Julie SAZONOVA's book, La Vie de la Danse (Denoël, 1937). This beautiful manuscript contains deletions and corrections. "Our time touches me in the sense that frivolity seems to give way to true seriousness. So I preface a useful book".... After Noverre and Petipa, in 1909, "Serge de DIAGHILEV brings, with a wizard's soul, a magic box from which come out two devils, two angels, two divine monsters: Pawlowa, Nijinsky. Their wonders illustrate texts that announced them long ago without naming them".... In 1935, "A Serge LIFAR, under the blood coat of Apollo musagetta, can finally distribute his strength calmly and invent methods. Surrounded by a kind of frightening loneliness, I find it to be a crime of passion, but a crime that would be the work of the most skilled surgeon. Blood and order flow side by side. However[...] it can also move me without me knowing why and find unknown sources in me. As far as I am concerned, dance is the language in which I would prefer to express myself and my favourite form of theatre"... A copy of Serge LIFAR's hand is attached to part of this text (1 page in-4 to its header, and with its stamp). Provenance: Serge LIFAR collection (sale Geneva, 13 March 2002, n° 480).