What becomes a legend - Vaclav Nijinsky's influence

Dance Magazine, April, 1997 by Hilary Ostlere

Name a few of today's male ballet idols and you will surely come up with Bocca, Carreno, Corella, Cooper, Boal, Hubbe, Malakhov, Stiefel, Woetzel--but do you instantly remember their first names? There's one dancer, however, who has never needed more than his single name to establish instant recognition. No, I don't mean Nureyev or Baryshnikov. I mean Nijinsky.

Established in dance history as a nonpareil, hailed as "the god of dance," Vaslav Nijinsky has become synonymous with technical superlatives and much more. A legend in his own time, he rose to international fame with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in the early years of this century, died in London in 1950, and was buried in Paris. Celebrated in ballet, film, video, literature, art, and drama, he is even today associated with the enigmatic creature he choreographed and danced to Claude Debussy's Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune.

His works are constantly revived, reworked, and reinterpreted. One recent example: During a monthly dance and nightclub series presented by Dance Theater Workshop in New York City last winter, an evening was devoted to "A Nijinsky Tribute." Mark Dendy and Larry Ceigwin performed Afternoon of the Fauns, a slightly different if still erotic take on the original. Stacey Dawson's dance Descent Into Madness concerned Nijinsky's decline into schizophrenia, and performance artist Dennis O'Connor concentrated more on the relationship with Diaghilev.

Now Nijinsky--Death of a Faun, subtitled Nijinsky's requiem for Diaghilev, is being presented at New York City's St. Clement's Theatre April 1-16. It's a one-man play by David Pownall, with choreography by Gillian Lynne danced and acted by Nicholas Johnson, formerly a principal with the Royal Ballet. This one-man show has already intrigued audiences in London's equivalent of Off-Broadway, at Edinburgh and other British festivals, and in Israel, Germany, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and Australia.

"People ask me, is it a ballet or is it a play?" says Johnson. "I commissioned it as a text, with a great deal of dance and movement. David and I did much research. Although we learned a lot from the books and Nijinsky's diaries, we took nothing from them; it's all entirely imaginary. It's intended as an insight into the man." The play takes place on August 19, 1929, the day Diaghilev died in Venice. Diaghilev and Nijinsky's private and professional lives had been intimately inter-twined until Diaghilev dismissed Nijinsky from the Ballets Russes for marrying Romola de Pulszky.

"Nijinsky became a schizophrenic with a narcissistic personality and was confined to a Swiss sanitarium," says Johnson. "He was a genius of a man within his own torment. As a Catholic [he was born in Poland], having just learned of Diaghilev's death, he asks to be taken to a chapel. Death of a Faun is his requiem for Diaghilev." Instead of a chapel, doctors consign Nijinsky to the basement of the sanitarium. He reminisces about his life, reenacting excerpts from his famous roles such as Petrouchka, Scheherazade, and the Faun in L'apres-midi.

Does Johnson try to dance like Nijinsky? "You must remember by then it was ten years since he had danced," says Johnson. "You're seeing me as an actor, but I hope I can re-create truthfully how he moved. I dance full out but don't do entrechat dix or anything like that!"

With the Royal Ballet, Johnson was known for his portrayals of unusual characters, such as one of the Maids in Genet's The Maids, choreographed by film director-choreographer Herbert Ross; he also played the tragic dancer in a BBC documentary, Nijinsky, the God of the Dance. At London Festival Ballet (now English National Ballet) he took on character roles such as Mercutio in Nureyev's Romeo and Juliet and Dr. Coppelius, switching eventually to acting full time. "I still love ballet, and this one-man show has given me a chance, I hope, to re-create Nijinsky as a character and [to show] how he moved," says Johnson. "Obviously, he's become something of an idol to me."

Nijinsky and Anna Pavlova, the IN stars of the first great Ballets Russes, remain in the public consciousness. In the Off-Broadway hit Full Gallop, in this case a one-woman show, Mary Louise Wilson gives a tour de force portrayal of the late Diana Vreeland, Vogue magazine's most unconventional editor. Her provocative remarks--"Blue jeans are the greatest invention since the gondola"; "Excess! I'm a great believer in vulgarity. We all need a splash of bad taste. No taste is what I'm against"--woven into a play by Mark Hampton and Wilson, have been entertaining packed audiences at the Westside Theatre for months. Despite Vreeland's high-octane pronouncements--"Pink is the navy blue of India"; "Bloomingdale's is the end of shopping because there isn't anyone to wait on you; you just sort of admire things"--there are quieter, heart-touching moments in the show, such as the memories of her childhood in Paris. Reminiscing about Pavlova, Vreeland recalls how her mother ("a terrific flamenco dancer!") took her to see The Dying Swan. "[It was] the most extraordinary thing because of the tremor that goes through this creature. In the most extreme of positions, one leg goes out, out, out. . . then the head comes down, down, down . . . oh, it's too beautiful, it's a beauty that's leaving this world," she says with a sigh.