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Vaslav Nijinsky

Vaslav Fomich Nijinsky, 1890-1950

Russian ballet dancer and choreographer

Vaslav Nijinsky was one of the most skilful ballet dancers in the twentieth century. He was born on March 12 1890 in Kiev, Russia, as the second son of Thomas Laurentiyevich Nijinsky and Eleonora Bereda. Both his parents were celebrated dancers; they had their own dance company and performed throughout the Russian Empire. The father taught his children and at the age of nine, Nijinsky entered the Imperial School of Dancing in St. Petersburg, where his teachers, the foremost of the time, soon discovered his extraordinary talent. When he was 16 years old, they urged him to graduate and enter the Mariinsky Theatre. Nijinsky declined, preferring to fulfil the customary period of study. During his school years he appeared at the Mariinsky Theatre, and when he graduated in 1907 Nijinsky joined the theatre as a soloist. His great elevation and steel-like strength and his intense charismatic personality enchanted both audience and critics on stage. Offstage Nijinsky was shy and reserved, almost afraid of people. His mother made sure that he moved in the aristocratic society of St. Petersburg, though. At a party he met the impresario and art critic Sergei Diaghilev, who soon made Nijinskij his lover and protégé.

From 1907 to 1911 Nijinsky danced all of the leading parts at the Mariinsky Theatre and made guest performances at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. His success was phenomenal. In 1909 Diaghilev was commissioned by the grand duke Vladimir to organise a ballet company of the members of the Mariinsky and Bolshoi theatres. The company was called Ballets Russes, and Nijinsky and his sister Bronislawa joined the company on a tour to Paris. The Ballets Russes was an immediate success, and Nijinsky worked with and was inspired by e.g. Michel Fokine, the choreographer, and the prima donnas Tamara Karsavina and Isadora Duncan. But Diaghilev still directed Nijinsky?s every move, what he read, what he did, and whom he met. The following years the Ballets Russes appeared all over Europe, in the United States and in South America. Diaghilev encouraged Nijinskij to become a choreographer, and in 1912 L'Apres-midi d'un Faune had its première. Jeux and Le Sacre du Printemps, with music by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, appeared the following year. Nijinsky?s choreography broke away from his classical training. His ballets were controversial: in L'Apres-midi d'un Faune the dancers suggested a two-dimensional bas-relief and were barefoot and the closing scene simulated masturbation. His Jeux made headlines in the morning press, and Le Sacre du Printemps had the audiences shouting obscenities in the theatre and on the streets of Paris. They were upset by the sensual and almost homoerotic impression when Nijinsky danced seemingly naked and let his own naked body dominate the performance.

Nijinsky married the Hungarian dancer Romola de Pulszky the same year. Diaghilev opposed the marriage and fired them both in a jealous rage. In 1916, however, he resumed their co-operation, helping Nijinsky to arrange a tour in North America during which Nijinsky choreographed and danced the leading role in Till Eulenspiegel. Nijinsky's mental health deteriorated and in 1919 he was forced into a mental hospital. Nijinsky never returned to the stage and spent the rest of his life in and out of mental hospitals, always cared for by his wife. Nijinsky never wrote any memoirs, but his wife published a severely edited version of his diaries in 1936. An unexpurgated version was published in 1998, edited by Joan Acconcella. Vaslav Nijinsky died in London in 1950.

The Andrén collection contains four issues of Vaslav Nijinsky's diaries and 18 biographies about him. The collection also contains books about his time, Ballets Russes and the history of ballet.

Vaslav Nijinsky  

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