This thesis explores Francis Picabia's (1879-1953) collaboration with the avant-garde dance troupe the Ballets Suedois on the 1924 production Relâ che. I reveal this ballet's significant links to early performances in Zurich, the city of Dada's origins. While current scholarship deems Relâ che a Dada performance, there has been little analysis of its connection to the anarchic spirit that reigned in the Zurich cabaret. I make a case that Relâ che is much more than a work born out of personal rivalries between the project's collaborators, as is often remarked. Instead, I argue that this production reveals Picabia's rejection of the turn toward Surrealism within the Dada circles in Paris. The tensions within the Paris Dada group came to a head in 1921 with the staging of two Dada "Saisons, " or seasons, spearheaded by Picabia and the poets Tristan Tzara and Andre Breton. These differences, which ultimately led Breton to establish the Surrealist movement in 1924 catalyzed Picabia's critique in Relâ che . Through the ballet, Picabia declared his allegiance to an earlier conception of Dada, rooted in multimedia performances that took place at the Cabaret Voltaire and the Galerie Dada: Relâ che was conceived as a return to the provocative spirit of Dada's early days.