The Death of Nijinsky THERE is no doubt that Nijinsky
was a unique phenomenon. To have reached those heights in dancing to which he soared and to have at the same time created three ballets, each one a masterpiece of its own type, and all that before reaching the age of twenty-three, surely is a unique achievement.
Much has been written about the height of his jump, but I have seen people jump actually higher than he. With him it was not a question of how far from the ground he went, but how near the stars. Having leapt into the air he seemed to stop there in an ecstasy of delight which the spectator immediately shared with him. His spinning, that is his pirouettes, were extraordinarily swift, though I dare say some other more pedestrian dance's can actually do more turns. It is true he beat an entrechat dix, which is a great technical feat, but I, for one, would have been quite as happy if it had only been an entrechat six. His technique was completely subordinate to his expression.
So much for the sheer technique. But to that one must add his unique interpretation of roles. He was a Greek god as Narcisse, and he was a broken puppet in Petrouchka, he was the very soul of Chopin in Sylphides and the absolute spirit of Louis XIV's glittering period in Pavillon D'Armide, and what an incomparable Albrecht in Giselle! Each one of his interpretations was so com- plete that it can never be equalled. As choreographer, from his very first ballet, L'Apres-midi d'un Faun, he spoke a completely new language. Fokine made a great step forward from Petipa, who by that time had reached a dead formula, but Nijinsky broke away seemingly completely from the classical tradition when he did his first ballet, the Faune, and yet he required the most highly trained classical dancers for it. It was not merely an animation of designs from vases and frescoes, it was an evocation of Greece ; the inspiration for it was Greece itself ; Debussy's music was merely a background, and too sentimental a background, for Nijinsky's vigorous approach.
His second ballet, Les Jeux, was the first in which movements of modern games were based on the classical technique and intro- duced on the stage The turned-in feet, the half-closed hand as if holding a racquet or any other implement of sport, the twist of the body, all these were completely new and fully expressive of modern movement. And then came Sarre du Printeinps, his supreme achievement in choreography. Here he went further back than Greece ; it was the prehistoric tribes of Russia that were brought to life, their obstinate mad stamping to render the earth fertile, their cruel sacrifice of the elected virgin to the Sun. Although I was there, seemingly to help him disentangle the very complicated rhythms of Stravinsky's music, I am quite sure my help was not necessary, for it was immaterial how closely the movements corre- sponded to the rhythm of the music. The power of the ballet was in the relentless search for the deepest expression of primitive yearnings of those tribes.
MARIE RAMBERT.
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