How is it possible that, neither in the century celebrated last year since Vaslav Nijinsky’s birth, nor in the four decades commemorated this year, on the 8th of April, since his departure, no personality should have appeared to dispute the legendary ballet dancer and choreographer’s supreme title of “the most famous male figure in the history of dance”?
Perhaps because the servants of theater no longer love ballet as they used to when Sarah Bernhard defined Nijinsky as “the greatest actor in the world.”
Perhaps because the servants of cinema no longer love ballet as they used to when Charles Chaplin said he had met few geniuses, and Nijinsky was one of them…
Perhaps because the servants of fine arts no longer love ballet as they used to when Chagall, Rodin or Modigliani took Nijinsky as their model…
Perhaps because the servants of music no longer love ballet as they used to when Stravinsky, Debussy or Ravel composed for Nijinsky masterpieces such as Petrushka and The Rite of Spring, Afternoon of a Faun, or Daphnis and Chloe…
But do today’s servants of ballet love the other arts as they used to when they frequented theaters as well as their backstages, exhibitions as well as painting and sculpture studios, concerts as well as the musicians’ workrooms?…
We should by all means return to the spirit of the age when Vaslav Nijinsky could be seen studying at the piano, together with Maurice Ravel, the score of a new ballet!
1990
