Instead of Petipa's symmetry, however, Ashton used a system of Euclidean geometry, with geometric theorems adapted to serve as floor patterns for the dancers.
So I did these geometric figures that are not always facing front – if you saw Scènes de ballet from the wings, you'd get a very different but equally good picture.
Eventually, two sets were agreed upon: a green-grey viaduct that was supposed to give way, at the apotheosis, to a white pavilion made up of guns, bones, and limbs.
The Times commented that it "had the one merit of brevity";[4] Richard Buckle in The Observer wrote, "The only fault … is that it is not the last act of a long classical ballet.
Such a display of noble movement should be the culmination of a spectacle: yet before we realise its beauty this pearl of great price has dissolved – in eighteen minutes.