Bronislava Nijinska
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Bronislava Nijinska (; pl, Bronisława Niżyńska ; russian: Бронисла́ва Фоми́нична Нижи́нская, Bronisláva Fomínična Nižínskaja; be, Браніслава Ніжынская, Branislava Nižynskaja; – February 21, 1972) was a Polish ballet dancer, and an innovative
choreographer Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which motion or form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A choreographer is one who c ...
. She came of age in a family of traveling, professional dancers. Her own career began in
Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
. Soon she joined
Ballets Russes The Ballets Russes () was an itinerant ballet company begun in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Revolution disrupted society. ...
which ventured to success in
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...
. She met war-time difficulties in
Petrograd Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
and revolutionary turbulence in
Kiev Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Ky ...
. In France again, public acclaim for her works came quickly, cresting in the 1920s. She then enjoyed continuing successes in Europe and the Americas. Nijinska played a pioneering role in the broad movement that diverged from 19th-century
classical ballet Classical ballet is any of the traditional, formal styles of ballet that exclusively employ classical ballet technique. It is known for its aesthetics and rigorous technique (such as pointe work, turnout of the legs, and high extensions), its ...
. Her introduction of modern forms, steps, and motion, and a minimalist narrative, prepared the way of future works. Following serious home training, she entered the state ballet school in the Russian capital at the age of nine. In 1908 she graduated as an 'Artist of the Imperial Theatres'. An early breakthrough came in Paris in 1910 when she became a member of
Diaghilev Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev ( ; rus, Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев, , sʲɪˈrɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪdʑ ˈdʲæɡʲɪlʲɪf; 19 August 1929), usually referred to outside Russia as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, pa ...
's Ballets Russes. For her dance solo Nijinska created the role of Papillon in ''Carnaval'', a ballet written and designed by
Michel Fokine Michael Fokine, ''Mikhail Mikhaylovich Fokin'', group=lower-alpha ( – 22 August 1942) was a groundbreaking Imperial Russian choreographer and dancer. Career Early years Fokine was born in Saint Petersburg to a prosperous merchant an ...
. She assisted her famous brother Vaslav Nijinsky as he worked up his controversial choreography for '' L'Après-midi d'un faune'', which Ballets Russes premiered in Paris in 1912. Similarly, she aided him in his creation of the 1913 ballet ''
The Rite of Spring , image = Roerich Rite of Spring.jpg , image_size = 350px , caption = Concept design for act 1, part of Nicholas Roerich's designs for Diaghilev's 1913 production of ' , composer = Igor Stravinsky , based_on ...
''. She developed her own art in Petrograd and Kiev during the Great War, Revolution and Civil War. While performing in theaters, she worked independently to design and stage her first choreographies. Nijinska started a ballet school on progressive lines in Kiev. She published her writing on the art of movement.Elwood (2002). In 1921 she fled Russian authorities. Rejoining the Ballets Russes, Diaghilev appointed her the choreographer of the influential ballet company based in France. Nijinska thrived, creating several popular, cutting-edge ballets to contemporary music. In 1923, with a score by
Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...
she choreographed her iconic work ''
Les noces ''Les Noces'' (French for The Wedding; russian: Свадебка, ''Svadebka'') is a ballet and orchestral concert work composed by Igor Stravinsky for percussion, pianists, chorus, and vocal soloists. The composer gave it the descriptive title " ...
'' he WeddingKisselgoff (1972). Starting in 1925, with a variety of companies and venues she designed and mounted ballets in Europe and the Americas. Among them were Teatro Colón, Ida Rubinstein, Opéra Russe à Paris, Wassily de Basil, Max Reinhardt, Markova-Dolin, Ballet Polonaise, Ballet Theatre, the Hollywood Bowl, Jacob's Pillow, Serge Denham, Marquis de Cuevas, as well as her own companies. Due to war in 1939 she relocated from Paris to Los Angeles. Nijinska continued working in choreography and as an artistic director. She taught at her studio. In the 1960s for The Royal Ballet in London, she staged revivals of her Ballets Russes-era creations. Her ''Early Memoirs'', translated into English, was published posthumously.


Early life

Bronislava Nijinska was the third child of the Polish dancers Tomasz omaNijinsky and Eleonora Nijinska (maiden name Bereda), who were then traveling performers in provincial Russia. Bronislava was born in
Minsk Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach (Berezina), Svislach and the now subterranean Nyamiha, Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative stat ...
, but all three children were baptized in
Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officiall ...
. She was the younger sister of Vaslav Nijinsky, a ballet star of world renown.


A family of dancers

Each of their parents had begun dancing careers in Warsaw at the Teatr Wielki (the Grand Theater). When they later met each was already a ballet professional with the Setov troupe based in
Kiev Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Ky ...
. With the troupe they performed in provincial capitals of the then Russian Empire. They were married in
Baku Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world an ...
. Tomasz ussian: FomaNijinsky, five years younger, had risen to be premier danseur and ballet master. His wife Eleonora Bareda, orphaned at seven, had followed her elder sister into ballet, and was then dancing as a first soloist. The father Tomasz Nijinsky, by his skills as ballet master, managed to form and direct his own small troupe of a dozen dancers, plus students. He created a ballet
pantomime Pantomime (; informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is performed throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and (to a lesser extent) in other English-speakin ...
, and performed in circus-theaters, using Polish and Russian music. In 1896 he staged ''
The Fountain of Bakhchisarai ''The Fountain of Bakhchisaray'' (russian: «Бахчисарайский фонтан», ''Bakhchisaraiskiy fontan'') is a poem by Alexander Pushkin, written during the years 1821 to 1823. Pushkin began writing ''The Fountain of Bakhchisa ...
'', from an 1823 poem by
Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...
. The mother Eleonora danced the role of the captured princess; her children Vatsa and Broni watched her perform it. Tomasz choreographed "two very successful ballets", the other being ''Zaporozbeskaya Tcharovnitza''. Nijinska implies that their small troupe prospered, but that has been questioned. In addition to renting theaters for his shows, Tomasz contracted with 'café chantants', popular nightspots where patrons dined while being entertained with music and dance. Family life was surrounded by artists at work and at home. Her father "loved to be with painters, writers, actors, and musicians." Two touring African-American tap dancers, Jackson and Johnson, visited their home, and gave Nijinska her first lessons. In the past Tomasz had forgone opportunities, turning down dance offers because of his family obligations. In 1897 near Saint Petersburg, Eleonora and Thomasz danced on stage together for the last time. He then continued on the road alone as a dancer. On a prior trip to Finland, he had become involved with another ballet dancer. Eventually this led to a permanent separation from his wife. His relationships with his children suffered; he saw them infrequently. Eleonora on her own established the family's permanent residence in Saint Petersburg. For years she had struggled with being on the road continuously while caring for her three children. A large flat she rented and opened a ''
pension A pension (, from Latin ''pensiō'', "payment") is a fund into which a sum of money is added during an employee's employment years and from which payments are drawn to support the person's retirement from work in the form of periodic payments ...
''. Bronislava (Broni) records that her brother Vaslav (or Vatsa) became bitter and years later turned against his father because of the suffering endured by his mother.


Her brother Vatsa

"By nature Vaslav atsawas a very lively and adventurous boy." In her book ''Early Memoirs'' Nijinska writes about the adventures of young Vatsa, older than her by 22 months. Living with a mother and father who danced on stage and were regularly traveling on tour, the children acquired an intrepid attitude and a physical prowess in everyday life. The two parents encouraged their children's athletic development and, while scolding misbehavior, were not punitive. Curiosity drove Vatsa to explore his frequently-new neighborhoods, sometimes crossing parental lines. His bravery and daring on rooftops impressed Broni.
How Vatsa loved to climb! Whenever he was at the top of a tree, on a high post, on the swing, or on the roof of our house, I noticed a rapturous delight on his face, a delight to feel his body high above the ground, suspended in midair.
Vatsa investigated the strange streets of different towns and cities where the family's theatrical life took them. Along the way he was training his body. It became an instrument of extraordinary strength and balance. Seemingly without fear he relished his freedom. His mind took innovative turns, which his body followed, or vice versa. Often Broni was invited along. From Vatsa's adventures she, too, acquired a body unusually trained for dance.


Childhood dance skills

Her parents not only were dancing on stage; they also taught ballroom dancing to adults and had special dance classes for children. Early on they instructed their daughter in folk dances: Polish, Hungarian, Italian, and Russian. She learned ballet, together with all kinds of different dance steps. She picked up some acrobatic techniques from her father, who would 'talk shop' and trade skills with circus performers. Later she was able to draw on this rich experience in her choreographic works. Broni Nijinska was not quite four when she made her theatrical debut in a Christmas pageant with her brothers in
Nizhny Novgorod Nizhny Novgorod ( ; rus, links=no, Нижний Новгород, a=Ru-Nizhny Novgorod.ogg, p=ˈnʲiʐnʲɪj ˈnovɡərət ), colloquially shortened to Nizhny, from the 13th to the 17th century Novgorod of the Lower Land, formerly known as Gork ...
. She always seemed familiar with being on stage, in children's skits or to make brief appearances on the adult stage. Her aunt Stepha, her mother's elder sister, had retired from performance but was teaching dance in Vilno; she helped Broni. Dancers with her parents would give her lessons or tips. After their parents' separation, her brother Vaslav Nijinsky entered the Imperial Theatrical School. When she was about nine years old, Broni began ballet lessons with the famous Enrico Cecchetti. He quickly recognized her skills.


Imperial Theatrical School

In 1900, Bronislava was accepted into the state-sponsored school for performing arts. Her brother Vaslav had entered it two years before. Located in
Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
, it offered a program of many years duration. As with Vaslav's acceptance, her mother had enlisted support from various people linked to ballet, including Stanislav Gillert and Cecchetti. Present at the entrance examination were 214 candidates ready to demonstrate their dance abilities. Legendary ballet master
Marius Petipa Marius Ivanovich Petipa (russian: Мариус Иванович Петипа), born Victor Marius Alphonse Petipa (11 March 1818), was a French ballet dancer, pedagogue and choreographer. Petipa is one of the most influential ballet masters an ...
participated in the trials, as did Cecchetti and
Sergei Legat Sergei Gustavovich Legat (russian: Серге́й Густа́вович Лега́т; 27 September 1875 – 1 November 1905) was a Russian ballet dancer. Background Sergei Gustavovich Legat was born on 27 September 1875, in Moscow. The younge ...
. Twelve girls were accepted. Bronislava graduated in 1908, taking 'First Award' for achievement both in dance and in academic subjects. Seven women graduated that year. In addition to her diploma she was enlisted as an 'Artist of the Imperial Theatre'. It was a government formality which assured her of financial security, and of the privileged life of a professional dancer.


Of Vaslav Nijinsky


His influence while at Ballets Russes

Perhaps her brother Vaslav Nijinsky had the greatest influence on Bronislava Nijinska and her career. In Nijinska's memoir several times she describes that Vaslav from a young age followed his overwhelming curiosity. Although his dancing skill was praised in school and he learned several musical instruments, she notes his low academic performance; she attributes it to his disinterest and impatience. Instead he'd set off with daring to explore the neighborhoods and test his physical limits. This contributed to his becoming an incredible dancer. At Mariinsky Theater he quickly rose and at Ballets Russes he became famous almost overnight. Soon Vaslav was performing as a star principal dancer.Nijinska (1981).
As his pupil she became the first person to know and be influenced by his radically new ideas regarding dance and his desire to substitute a rigorously stylized form of movement for the classical ballet tradition.
She describes his innovations in creating a new Blue Bird role for the ballet The Sleeping Princess in 1907: how he changed the restrictive costume and energized the movements. When Nijinsky created ''L'Après-midi d'un Faune'' 'Afternoon of the Faun''in 1912 he used Nijinska to rehearse it in secret, to follow with her body his description of the steps one by one.Sanders (2004). She similarly assisted him in creating ''
The Rite of Spring , image = Roerich Rite of Spring.jpg , image_size = 350px , caption = Concept design for act 1, part of Nicholas Roerich's designs for Diaghilev's 1913 production of ' , composer = Igor Stravinsky , based_on ...
''. Yet due to her pregnancy, Nijinska withdrew from the role of the Chosen Maiden. Prof. Garafola, however, characterizes it as her brother 'evicting' her from the maiden role in ''Rite''. Nonetheless, Baer writes:
Although Bronislave Nijinska is often identified as the sister of the celebrated Vaslav Nijinsky, she was a major artist in her own right and a key figure in the development of twentieth-century ballet. ... As one of twentieth-century's ballet's great innovators, she transformed the art.
;Her 1913 break with Diaghilev When her brother suddenly married, Diaghilev terminated his position at Ballets Russes. Bronislava Nijinska left the company in solidarity with him. During a 1913 Ballets Russes tour in South American, Vaslav Nijinsky married Romola de Pulszky. It created controversy in the company and in ballet stories from the tour. As Nijinska explains in her memoirs, Vaslav was very reserved and, other than herself, had few confidants or even close colleagues in the dance world. He was a young man alone on the tour when he wed. He was alone because her pregnancy had kept her in Europe. Nijinska speculated that, behind the scenes, business decisions had motivated events. By getting rid of Nijinsky, Diaghilev managed to secure financing and the return of the choreographer Fokine to the company. The break left emotional scars, and a sense of betrayal. Diaghilev dismissed Vaslav for reasons other than his September marriage: artistic quarrels over ballet design, his military draft status, and his demand for payments in arrears.


'Saison Nijinsky' 1914, and later

In early 1914 Vaslav Nijinsky on his own started a new ballet company in London: Saison Nijinsky. Bronislava offered her assistance, yet learned there was only a short time to prepare for its premiere performance. Vaslav had signed a contract to open at a
dance hall Dance hall in its general meaning is a hall for dancing. From the earliest years of the twentieth century until the early 1960s, the dance hall was the popular forerunner of the discothèque or nightclub. The majority of towns and cities in ...
, the
London Palace Theatre The Palace Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster in London. Its red-brick facade dominates the west side of Cambridge Circus behind a small plaza near the intersection of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road. The Palace ...
, in four and a half weeks (March 2). Nijinska quickly decided to return to Russia to recruit the cast, but Warsaw was where the experienced dancers were found. She with others explained her brother's innovative choreographies. She directed rehearsals, as musicians and scores, sets and costumes were arranged. Nijinska herself was to perform, e.g., with Vaslav in '' Le Spectre de la rose''. Its anticipated premiere was well received. Vaslav's brilliant dancing drew prolonged applause. After performing for two weeks, however, a business dispute developed. It arose when Nijinsky became sick and unable to perform for a few days. It led the theater owner
Alfred Butt Sir Alfred Butt, 1st Baronet (20 March 1878 – 8 December 1962) was a British theatre impresario, Conservative politician and racehorse owner and breeder. During a fourteen-year tenure as manager of London's Palace Theatre, beginning in 1904, ...
to cancel the company's season. Nijinsky managed to pay his dancers. Some attributed the company's downfall to Vaslav's erratic emotional tendencies, which had intensified after his recent marriage and his dismissal from Ballets Russes. ;Reunited in 1921 Brother and sister became separated for seven years, first by World War I, then by the Russian Revolution, followed by the Russian Civil War. There was little chance for communication as mail service first became irregular and then was discontinued. In 1921 they met again in Vienna, where they remained together for a short time.


Career as a dancer


Imperial Ballet in Saint Petersburg: 1908–1911

In 1908, Nijinska was admitted to the
Imperial Ballet The Mariinsky Ballet (russian: Балет Мариинского театра) is the resident classical ballet company of the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Founded in the 18th century and originally known as the Imperial Russ ...
(then also known as the Mariinsky Ballet and later known as the Kirov Ballet). She followed in her brother's footsteps. In the
corps de ballet In ballet, the ''corps de ballet'' (; French for "body of the ballet") is the group of dancers who are not principal dancers or soloists. They are a permanent part of the ballet company and often work as a backdrop for the principal dancers. ...
her first year, she performed in
Michel Fokine Michael Fokine, ''Mikhail Mikhaylovich Fokin'', group=lower-alpha ( – 22 August 1942) was a groundbreaking Imperial Russian choreographer and dancer. Career Early years Fokine was born in Saint Petersburg to a prosperous merchant an ...
's ''
Les Sylphides ''Les Sylphides'' () is a short, non-narrative '' ballet blanc'' to piano music by Frédéric Chopin, selected and orchestrated by Alexander Glazunov. The ballet, described as a "romantic reverie","Ballet Theater", until 1955. A compact disk ...
''. Under Fokine's gaze and leadership, she was able to directly experience the choreographic vision of this master on the cutting-edge. Both she and her brother Nijinsky, however, left Russia during the summers of 1909 and 1910 to perform for
Diaghilev Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev ( ; rus, Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев, , sʲɪˈrɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪdʑ ˈdʲæɡʲɪlʲɪf; 19 August 1929), usually referred to outside Russia as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, pa ...
's company in Paris.Garafola (1989). Nijinska danced with the Mariinsky Ballet for three years. However, the growth and insights acquired at Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, which was then unexpectedly revolutionizing the ballet world, clearly exceeded that at Mariinsky Theater. Then, suddenly, she felt compelled to resign after the Theater's dismissal of her brother Vaslav, chiefly because his star performances in Paris were making ballet-world headlines. As a result, Nijinska was deprived of her rights respecting the title 'Artist of the Imperial Theaters' and its associated income.


Diaghilev & Ballets Russes in Paris: 1909–1913

Nijinska appeared in the Sergei Pavlovitch Diaghilev's first two Paris seasons, 1909 and 1910. After leaving the Mariinsky, she became a permanent member of his newly formed company,
Ballets Russes The Ballets Russes () was an itinerant ballet company begun in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Revolution disrupted society. ...
. In 1912 she had married fellow dancer Aleksander Kochetowsky, and gave birth to their daughter
Irina Irina (Cyrillic: Ирина) is a feminine given name of Ancient Greek origin, commonly borne by followers of the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is derived from Eirene (Ancient Greek: Εἰρήνη), an ancient Greek goddess, personification of pe ...
in 1913. Here initially Nijinska danced in the
corps de ballet In ballet, the ''corps de ballet'' (; French for "body of the ballet") is the group of dancers who are not principal dancers or soloists. They are a permanent part of the ballet company and often work as a backdrop for the principal dancers. ...
, e.g., in ''Swan Lake'' (the Czardas), in ''Les Sylphides'' (the Mazurka), and in ''Le Spectre de la Rose''. As she developed on the professional stage she was promoted, and eventually given significant parts. Her brother coached her for the role of Papillon he butterflyin Fokine's ''Carnaval'' (1909). In part danced with feet and hands fluttering in a coordinated rhythm at an accelerated '' prestissimo tempo'', she eluded Pierrot, played in
pantomime Pantomime (; informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is performed throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and (to a lesser extent) in other English-speakin ...
by
Vsevolod Meyerhold Vsevolod Emilyevich Meyerhold (russian: Всеволод Эмильевич Мейерхольд, translit=Vsévolod Èmíl'evič Mejerchól'd; born german: Karl Kasimir Theodor Meyerhold; 2 February 1940) was a Russian and Soviet theatre ...
. The role of the Ballerina Doll in '' Petruchka'' (1912) was also transformed. By changing the doll's demeanor from theatrical in a tutu to realistic in street clothes, Nijinska modernized the role. She also continually kept in character rather than slipping back into the default look of classical ballet. Among others, the pseudo-Hindu dance of the Bayadere Enivree in '' Le Dieu bleu'' she did, but did not care for. She struggled and grew as an Odalisque in the popular ballet ''
Scheherazade Scheherazade () is a major female character and the storyteller in the frame narrative of the Middle Eastern collection of tales known as the '' One Thousand and One Nights''. Name According to modern scholarship, the name ''Scheherazade'' der ...
''. In the 1912 production of ''Cléopâtre'', she at first danced the Bacchanale (replacing Vera Fokine). Then she switched roles, being awarded Karsavina's role of Ta-Hor. "Karsavina danced the role on toe, but I would dance it in my bare feet." She used a liquid body make-up. For Ta-Hor she received treasured compliments from other artists, both for her dance art and for her dramatic interpretation. The next year she performed in her brother's '' Jeux'' (Games). Nijinska assisted her brother Vaslav in his creation of the ballet ''
The Rite of Spring , image = Roerich Rite of Spring.jpg , image_size = 350px , caption = Concept design for act 1, part of Nicholas Roerich's designs for Diaghilev's 1913 production of ' , composer = Igor Stravinsky , based_on ...
'', which premiered in 1913. Particularly for the Chosen Maiden role, she carefully follow Nijinsky's instructions as to movement and pose, as the ballet choreography slowly developed. Yet when she became aware of her pregnancy, she told him she'd have to withdraw and miss its opening performance, angering her brother. In 1914 she danced for ''Saison Nijinsky'' (see section above).


In Petrograd with Sasha & in Kiev: 1915–1921

After Saison Nijinsky, Bronislava returned to Russia. She continued her ballet career as danseuse, with Sasha her husband as the danseur. During the war and then the revolution, she went on stage in experimental works as well as in classics. In Petrograd the 1915 theatre program listed "ballet by the prima ballerina-artist of the State Ballet Bronislava Nijinska". The program included music by Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Borodin. She performed in her own choreographed solos, Le Poupee or Tabatierr, and Autumn Song. Her dance savvy was lauded. In Kiev in addition to dancing, she established her ballet school and began to choreograph programs. She danced in solos while costumed in tunics, e.g., Etudes (Liszt), Mephisto Valse (Liszt), Nocturnes (Chopin), Preludes (Chopin), Fear or Horror (in silence, costume by Exter), and in company performances, e.g., Twelfth Rhapsody (Liszt), Demons (Tcherepnine), March Funebre (Chopin). In 1921 she left Russia, never to return.


Diaghilev's Ballets Russes: 1921–1925, and 1926

Rejoining Ballets Russes in Paris, Nijinska first worked in Diaghilev's ill-starred 1921 London revival of the Petipa's classic '' The Sleeping Princess''. Although a money loser, it was popular, and well designed and danced. Nijinska performed the roles of the Hummingbird Fairy and Pierette, for which she received "high critical praise". In 1922, following a personal request by Diaghilev, she performed the title role in
Nijinsky Vaslav (or Vatslav) Nijinsky (; rus, Вацлав Фомич Нижинский, Vatslav Fomich Nizhinsky, p=ˈvatsləf fɐˈmʲitɕ nʲɪˈʐɨnskʲɪj; pl, Wacław Niżyński, ; 12 March 1889/18908 April 1950) was a ballet dancer and choreog ...
's '' L'Après-midi d'un Faune'' during its Paris revival. She had helped her brother with its choreography for its 1912 premier. "Vaslav is creating his Faune by using me as his model. I am like a piece of clay that he is molding..." Yet these appearance became clearly auxiliary to her new, 'second career' working as the
choreographer Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which motion or form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A choreographer is one who c ...
. From 1921 to 1924, 1926 with Ballets Russes, Nijinska nonetheless took prominent roles in many of her own dance designs. Accordingly, she performed as the Lilac Fairy in ''The Sleeping Beauty'' (1921), the Fox in ''Le Renard'' (1922), as the Hostess in ''
Les Biches ''Les biches'' () ("The Hinds" or "The Does", or "The Darlings") is a one-act ballet to music by Francis Poulenc, choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska and premiered by the Ballets Russes on 6 January 1924 at the Salle Garnier in Monte Carlo. Ni ...
'' (1924), as Lysandre in ''Les Fâcheux'' (1924), and as the Tennis Player in ''
Le Train Bleu The ''Calais-Mediterranée Express'' was a French luxury night express train which operated from 1886 to 2003. It gained international fame as the preferred train of wealthy and famous passengers between Calais and the French Riviera during th ...
'' (1924).


In Europe & the Americas: 1925–1934

Subsequently, for her own ballet companies and for others, she danced in roles of her own inventions: in ''Holy Etudes'', ''Touring'', ''Le Guignol'', and ''Night on Bald Mountain'' (all 1925); for Teatro Colón in ''Estudios religiosos'' (1926); in her ''Capricio Espagnole'' per Rimsky-Korsakoff in 1931; and in the 1934 ballet based on ''Hamlet'' per Liszt: the title role. She performed into the 1930s, at venues in Europe and the Americas. As Nijinska reached her forties, her performance career neared its end. What caused her trouble, and hastened the close of her performance art, was an injury to her
Achilles tendon The Achilles tendon or heel cord, also known as the calcaneal tendon, is a tendon at the back of the lower leg, and is the thickest in the human body. It serves to attach the plantaris, gastrocnemius (calf) and soleus muscles to the calcaneus ...
suffered in 1933 while at Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires.


Appraisals, critiques

Her qualities as a dancer, of course, are distinct from her more celebrated choreography. Comments by several professional colleagues were collected by the New York ballet critic and author Lynn Garafola: "She was a very strong dancer, and danced very athletically for a lady, and had a big jump," commented Frederic Franklin, a dancer and ballet master. "She had incredible endurance, and seemed never to be tired," recalled Anatole Vilzak, who was a principal dancer in many of her mature choreographies. English dancer Lydia Sokolova, noting her lack of makeup, thought she appeared "a most unfeminine woman, though there was nothing particularly masculine about her character. Thin but immensely strong, she had iron muscles in her arms and legs, and her highly developed calf muscles resembled Vaslav's; she had the same way of jumping and pausing in the air."
Alicia Markova Dame Alicia Markova DBE (1 December 1910 – 2 December 2004) was a British ballerina and a choreographer, director and teacher of classical ballet. Most noted for her career with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and touring internat ...
, a prima ballerina absoluta of Britain, concluded that Nijinska "was a strange combination, this terrific strength, and yet there was a softness." The composer
Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...
, to whose music she created several fine choreographic works, wrote that "Bronislava Nijinska, sister of the famous dancer sherself an execellent dancer endowed with a profoundly artistic nature." After helping her brother Vaslav for many months in his laborious design of the 1913 ballet ''
The Rite of Spring , image = Roerich Rite of Spring.jpg , image_size = 350px , caption = Concept design for act 1, part of Nicholas Roerich's designs for Diaghilev's 1913 production of ' , composer = Igor Stravinsky , based_on ...
'' (music by Stravinsky), she found she'd become pregnant. She could not then take to the stage to perform the star role as the sacrificial maiden. Frustrated, Vaslav then screamed at her, "There is no one to replace you. You are the only one who can perform this dance, only you, Bronia, and no one else!" Nancy Van Norman Baer in her book on Nijinska writes, "Between 1911 and 1913, while er brother
Nijinsky Vaslav (or Vatslav) Nijinsky (; rus, Вацлав Фомич Нижинский, Vatslav Fomich Nizhinsky, p=ˈvatsləf fɐˈmʲitɕ nʲɪˈʐɨnskʲɪj; pl, Wacław Niżyński, ; 12 March 1889/18908 April 1950) was a ballet dancer and choreog ...
's fame continued to soar, Nijinska emerged as a strong and talented dancer." Author and critic Robert Greskovic describes a common understanding of her gifts, "Nowhere near the beauty and exemplar of her art that Pavlova and Spessivtseva were, Bronislava Nijinska (1891–1972) instead began to make her mark as a choreographer." Nonetheless Nijinska must have truly excelled as a dancer. When only a young student, her prowess on the dance floor had been recognized by top professionals. "If
Marius Petipa Marius Ivanovich Petipa (russian: Мариус Иванович Петипа), born Victor Marius Alphonse Petipa (11 March 1818), was a French ballet dancer, pedagogue and choreographer. Petipa is one of the most influential ballet masters an ...
patted her approvingly on the head and
Enrico Cecchetti Enrico Cecchetti (; 21 June 1850 – 13 November 1928) was an Italian ballet dancer, mime, and founder of the Cecchetti method. The son of two dancers from Civitanova Marche, he was born in the costuming room of the ''Teatro Tordinona'' in ...
placed her, at age eight, front and center in his class between two prima ballerinas, she must have been good." Yet before the Great War of 1914 her brother's legendary dance skills had overshadowed her own. Years later, however, the editor of ''The Dancing Times'' wrote of her at a 1921 Ballets Russes performance of ''The Sleeping Princess'':
Nijinska ... appeals to me as the most versatile dancer of the entire company. Her technique in her classical numbers is beyond reproach ... and her mime and personality in the demi-charactère dances are most convincing.
An early signature of hers was a tough "virility". "Her own roles were packed with jumps and beats." Much later, in her prime, Nijinska crafted to combine her strength with an emotional touch "unexpectedly poignant". She liked the flow of movement on the stage.


As a choreographer

"In her lifetime Nijinska choreographed over seventy ballets, as well as dance sequences for numerous films, operas, and other stage productions." An annotated, chronological catalogue of her choreographies is presented by Nancy Van Norman Baer in her book on Nijinska. Her early experiences in choreographic arts involved the assistance given her brother Vaslav Nijinsky in his choreographic works for Ballets Russes. She had then tried out the initial stages of various steps created by him.


In 'the Russias' during war and revolution

At the start of World War I, Nijinska and her husband and daughter, and her mother, were caught on the eastern side of the Eastern Front. Her brother Vaslav was on its western side, eventually in Austria. Here 'the Russias' include the
Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inva ...
and its capital Kiev. The Russian art world in the early twentieth century was often innovative and experimental. "Russian art before the October Revolution had held aloof from revolutionary Marxism." Thus the composer
Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...
distinguished clearly between the pre-war conservative fetters on art and the subsequent
straitjacket A straitjacket is a garment shaped like a jacket with long sleeves that surpass the tips of the wearer's fingers. Its most typical use is restraining people who may cause harm to themselves or others. Once the wearer slides their arms into the ...
eventually imposed by the
Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel ...
. For a few years following the war-born 1917 revolution, Russia was in chaos, and many artists managed to operate somewhat independently of Soviet politicians and their totalitarian ideals.


Petrograd, her first choreographies 1914–1915

At the start of World War I, Nijinska, her husband Aleksandr Kochtovsky ('Sasha', married in 1912), and their infant daughter Nina returned to Petrograd (then the Russian capital's new name). Nijinska had long considered the city her home; it was her last time living there. She found work teaching ballet to
Cecchetti Cecchetti is an Italian surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Alberto Cecchetti (born 1944), politician of San Marino * Enrico Cecchetti (1850–1928), Italian ballet dancer and theorist, creator of the Cecchetti method The Cecche ...
's students. Newspaper accounts report that Bronislava and Aleksandr met their former colleagues from Ballets Russes, and danced alongside them. Included were
Michel Fokine Michael Fokine, ''Mikhail Mikhaylovich Fokin'', group=lower-alpha ( – 22 August 1942) was a groundbreaking Imperial Russian choreographer and dancer. Career Early years Fokine was born in Saint Petersburg to a prosperous merchant an ...
and
Tamara Karsavina Tamara Platonovna Karsavina (russian: Тамара Платоновна Карсавина; 10 March 1885 – 26 May 1978) was a Russian prima ballerina, renowned for her beauty, who was a principal artist of the Imperial Russian Ballet and l ...
, and as well the Bolshoi's
Mikhail Mordkin __NOTOC__ Mikhail Mordkin (russian: Михаил Михайлович Мордкин; December 9, 1880, Moscow, Russian Empire - July 15, 1944, New York) graduated from the Bolshoi Ballet School in 1899, and in the same year was appointed ballet ...
. Both became leading dancers at the Petrograd Private Opera Theatre. In 1915 Nijinska produced her first choreographies: ''Le Poupée''
he Doll He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
(or ''La Tabatière''), and ''Autumn Song''. These creations were for her solo performances at the Narodny Dom Theatre. She was twenty-five. The 1915 program described her as "the celebrated prima ballerina-artist of the State Ballet". The music for her dance creation ''Autumn Song'' was by
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...
, and for ''The Doll'' by
Anatoly Liadov Anatoly Konstantinovich Lyadov (russian: Анато́лий Константи́нович Ля́дов; ) was a Russian composer, teacher, and conductor. Biography Lyadov was born in 1855 in St. Petersburg, into a family of eminent Russian ...
. On that program, performed at the Narodny Dom eople's House were also ballets choreographed by Michel Fokine of Ballets Russes, to be danced by Nijinska and her husband. Her choreography for ''Autumn Song'', "the more important" of her two solos, "owed a debt to Fokine".


Kiev 1915–1921, her 'Ecole de Mouvement'

In August 1915, the family moved to
Kiev Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Ky ...
. Nijinska's husband 'Sasha' Kochtovsky became ballet master at the State Opera Theater. There they both worked on ballet scenes for the operas, and on staging dance divertissements and ballets. In 1917 Nijinska began teaching at several institutions: the State Conservatory of Music, the Central State Ballet Studio, the Yiddish Cultural Center Drama Studio, and the Ukrainian Drama School. In 1919, after their son Leon was born, after her School of Movement was opened, her husband Sasha left the family and traveled alone to
Odessa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...
.


=Treatise on choreography

= Nijinska's "theoretical speculations" about modern ballet apparently began to crystallize. During a short stay in Moscow after the 1917
October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mom ...
, Nijinska started her treatise: ''The School of Movement (Theory of Choreography)''. It was published in 1920 but has become lost to posterity, like much of the dance materials she created in Kiev. The only remnant of it apparently is a 100-page 'manuscript' found "scrawled" in one of her exercise books. In a short essay published in 1930, however, she apparently recapitulated her key ideas: "On movement and the school of movement". Nijinska writes: N. V. N. Baer observes an imbedded neoclassical implication within Nijinska's then radical theory of dance, 'the school of movement', i.e., not the overthrow of balletic tradition leading to
modern dance Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert or theatrical dance which included dance styles such as ballet, folk, ethnic, religious, and social dancing; and primarily arose out of Europe and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th ...
, but the incorporation nonetheless of entirely new modes of movement. "It is in this essay that she documents her search for a new means of expression based on the extension of the classical vocabulary of dance steps."


=Collaboration with designer Exter

= In 1917 Nijinska met the visual artist Alexandra Exter (1882-1949) in Moskva. Exter's cutting-edge designs employed constructivist ideas. The two traded their views on modern art and the theater. So began a long and fruitful collaboration on various dance projects, with Exter designing sets and costumes. The working relationship that formed endured into the 1920s, after each had independently left Russia, to move to Paris. Before the war Exter had lived in Western Europe, where she joined "
cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
and
futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abo ...
circles" that were generating popular innovations. Returning to Russia at war's start, Exter first settled in Moscow. With
Alexander Tairov Alexander Yakovlevich Tairov (russian: Александр Яковлевич Таиров; uk, Олександр Якович Таїров; 6 July 1885 – 5 September 1950) was a leading innovator and theatre director in Russia before and durin ...
at his Kamerny
hamber Hamber is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Eric Hamber (1879–1960), Canadian businessman and the 15th Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia * Jan Hamber, American ornithologist and conservationist * John Hamber (1931–2013) ...
Theater, she had "aspired to create a dynamic fusion of drama, movement, and design known as 'synthetic theater'." In 1918, having relocated to Kiev, Exter opened an art studio, which doubled as a salon for many of Kiev's rising artists. Art discussions were also held evenings at Nijinska's dance school, where Exter joined in. Their ideas were compatible and mutually reinforcing.
Curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...
/author Nancy Van Norman Baer writes that they became "close artistic associates" and "fast friends". In addition to Exter,
Les Kurbas Oleksandr-Zenon Stepanovych Kurbas ( ua , Олександр-Зенон Степанович Курбас; 24 February 1887– 30 November 1937), was a Ukrainians, Ukrainian movie and theater director. He is considered by many to be the most impo ...
(1887-1937) worked with Nijinska. As a Ukrainian theater producer and
film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmospher ...
director, Kurbas was a leading arts figure in Kyiv and a promoter of local performance. They entered into a "complementary and deep" collaboration, sharing studio space, movement classes, dancer-actors, and theatrical discussions.


=Her ballet school and its productions

= In February 1919 in Kiev, she opened her dance school called L'Ecole de Mouvement chool of Movement This was shortly after giving birth to her son Léon. Her school's philosophy was to focus on preparing dancers to work with innovative choreographers. Among ideas she taught her students: flowing movement, free use of the torso, and a quickness in linking steps. She wanted her students ready for cutting-edge ballets, like those she had assisted her brother in designing, e.g., ''The Rite'' and ''Faune''. As she stated in her Kiev-era treatise/essay "On Movement and the school of movement":
"Today's ballet schools do not give the dancer the necessary training to work with choreographic innovators. Even the Ballet Russes ... did not create a school to parallel its innovations in the theater." 6/87Yet historically, regarding Vigano, Noverre, Vestris, Didelot, Taglioni, Coralli, Petipa: "the ''danse d'ecole'' absorbed all the achievements of these choreographers. ...
hey Hey or Hey! may refer to: Music * Hey (band), a Polish rock band Albums * ''Hey'' (Andreas Bourani album) or the title song (see below), 2014 * ''Hey!'' (Julio Iglesias album) or the title song, 1980 * ''Hey!'' (Jullie album) or the title ...
did not destroy the school with their innovations, but only enriched it." 7/blockquote> Under the aegis of this school she staged concerts with her own choreographed solo dances. Included were "her first plotless ballet compositions": ''Mephisto Valse'' (1919), and ''Twelfth Rhapsody'' (1920) music by Liszt, and ''Nocturne'' (1919) and ''Marche Funèbre'' (1920), music by Chopin. These solo dances may be "the first abstract ballets" of the 20th century. In many of her productions her students danced for the public, among whom
Serge Lifar Serge Lifar ( ua, Сергій Михайлович Лифар, ''Serhіy Mуkhailovуch Lуfar'') ( 15 December 1986) was a Ukrainian ballet dancer and choreographer, famous as one of the greatest male ballet dancers of the 20th century. No ...
was the most outstanding. Accordingly, she began to receive broad recognition as a choreographer. Then, invited by the Ministry of Arts, Nijinska mounted a full theatrical production of the
Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...
ballet ''
Swan Lake ''Swan Lake'' ( rus, Лебеди́ное о́зеро, r=Lebedínoye ózero, p=lʲɪbʲɪˈdʲinəjə ˈozʲɪrə, link=no ), Op. 20, is a ballet composed by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1875–76. Despite its initial failur ...
''. She adapted the classic Petipa and
Ivanov Ivanov, Ivanoff or Ivanow (masculine, bg, Иванов, russian: ИвановSometimes the stress is on Ива́нов in Bulgarian if it is a middle name, or in Russian as a rare variant of pronunciation), or Ivanova (feminine, bg, Иванов ...
choreography of 1895. Her success involved trimming the ballet's difficulty to fit the level of her weaker students. The performance was held at Kiev's State Opera Theater.


=Reasons for leaving Kiev

= It had been reported in the literature that Nijinska and family left Kiev in 1921 in order to visit her brother Vaslav Nijinsky in Vienna, after learning of his deteriorating health. Yet she learned about her brother in 1920, when the
Russian civil war {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Russian Civil War , partof = the Russian Revolution and the aftermath of World War I , image = , caption = Clockwise from top left: {{flatlist, *Soldiers ...
prevented travel. Based on recent research, Prof. Garafola describes a different and suppressed reason. The
Cheka The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə), abbreviated ...
, as the notorious Soviet security police was then called, in early 1921 stepped up its harassment of her and her students. Her artistic independence was confronted and by April ''L'Ecole de Mouvement'' had been closed.
The school "had given her a new life and an identity of her own as a modern artist. It was her child, the home of her imagination, a community of friends and devoted followers, the catalyst and expression of her creativity. In the weeks that followed ts closingshe quietly made plans to leave.
She traveled west out of Kiev under false pretenses, assisted by other dancers. She'd taken her two children,
Irina Irina (Cyrillic: Ирина) is a feminine given name of Ancient Greek origin, commonly borne by followers of the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is derived from Eirene (Ancient Greek: Εἰρήνη), an ancient Greek goddess, personification of pe ...
aged seven and Leon aged two, and her mother of sixty-four years. After she bribed the Soviet border guards, they waded across the
Bug River uk, Західний Буг be, Захо́дні Буг , name_etymology = , image = Wyszkow_Bug.jpg , image_size = 250 , image_caption = Bug River in the vicinity of Wyszków, Poland , map = Vi ...
into
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
, arriving in early May, 1921. Several weeks later in Vienna the four travelers visited her brother Vaslav, his wife
Romola ''Romola'' (1862–63) is a historical novel written by Mary Ann Evans under the pen name of George Eliot set in the fifteenth century. It is "a deep study of life in the city of Florence from an intellectual, artistic, religious, and social poin ...
and their children Kyra and Tamara. His health, however, had deteriorated since 1914, their last meeting. Once widely-celebrated as the "god of dance" he had not performed since 1917. Despite such sadness, the family was reunited. Broni found income by working at a cabaret in Vienna. At this point Diaghilev sent her an invitation; he included train fare. Her two children she entrusted to her mother's care. Nijinska then departed for Paris to rejoin Ballets Russes.


Diaghilev's 'Ballets Russes' in Paris and Monte Carlo 1921–1925

The company staged ballets for twenty years, starting with its 1909 opening of ''La Saison Russe'' in Paris, and ending in 1929 when its founder
Sergei Diaghilev Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev ( ; rus, Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев, , sʲɪˈrɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪdʑ ˈdʲæɡʲɪlʲɪf; 19 August 1929), usually referred to outside Russia as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, pa ...
died. He had directed the company's operations: both the business and the theatrical (music, choreography, dance, decor and costumes). He chiefly worked with five choreographers, more or less in sequence: Fokine (1909-1912, 1914), Nijinsky (1912-1913, 1917), Massine (1915–1920, 1925-1928), Nijinska (1921-1925, 1926), Balanchine (1925-1929). Diaghilev's "successive phases" are described as: "reform (Fokine), modernism (Nijinsky and Massine), and ... constructivism and neoclassicism (Nijinska and Balanchine)." The early twenties were Nijinska's time at the helm.Greskovic (2000), pp. 74, 78. Originally started in Russia by an arts
impresario An impresario (from the Italian ''impresa'', "an enterprise or undertaking") is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays, or operas, performing a role in stage arts that is similar to that of a film or television producer. His ...
to function as an "exporter of Imperial culture" (initially the ballet productions in Paris), it happened that the company never performed in Russia. By 1918 less than half its dancers were Russian, 18 out of 39. 12 were Polish. The rest were four Italians, two Spaniards, two English women, and a Belgian. The company's ambivalent and attenuated connection to Russia had not survived the 1914–1918 war, the 1917 revolutions, and the
civil war A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polici ...
. In 1922 for financial reasons it relocated its base of operations from Paris to
Monte Carlo Monte Carlo (; ; french: Monte-Carlo , or colloquially ''Monte-Carl'' ; lij, Munte Carlu ; ) is officially an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco, specifically the ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is ...
.


Her initial choreographic work, and derivations

In 1921 Diaghilev asked Nijinska to return to Ballet Russes, chiefly for her choreography. He had become aware of her recent work in
Kiev Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Ky ...
, especially that she had staged the Petipa-
Ivanov Ivanov, Ivanoff or Ivanow (masculine, bg, Иванов, russian: ИвановSometimes the stress is on Ива́нов in Bulgarian if it is a middle name, or in Russian as a rare variant of pronunciation), or Ivanova (feminine, bg, Иванов ...
classic ''
Swan Lake ''Swan Lake'' ( rus, Лебеди́ное о́зеро, r=Lebedínoye ózero, p=lʲɪbʲɪˈdʲinəjə ˈozʲɪrə, link=no ), Op. 20, is a ballet composed by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1875–76. Despite its initial failur ...
'', to music by
Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...
. He had re-engaged her "because" of this demonstration of her abilities. As well as ballet mistress and a principal dancer, she was in line to be the Company's first and only female choreographer.Baer (2002), p. 217. Yet Diaghilev as ever was also cautious. Partly to test the quality of her work, and partly because of his company's financial condition, he first gave Nijinska major tasks in his on-going ballet productions.


=''The Sleeping Princess'', originally ''La Belle au bois dormant'' (1921)

= As theatrical events unfolded in late 1921, Ballets Russes was confronted with a severe financial crisis. The immediate cause was its lavish London production of the celebrated
classic A classic is an outstanding example of a particular style; something of lasting worth or with a timeless quality; of the first or highest quality, class, or rank – something that exemplifies its class. The word can be an adjective (a ''c ...
'' The Sleeping Beauty'' originally staged in 1890 in Saint Petersburg. Its 1921 version had been renamed ''The Sleeping Princess'' apparently because, as Diaghilev wryly observed, following the
war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
the role of titled princess had become a rarity. The ballet was "one of the great Petipa classics from the old Imperial Russian repertory". ''La Belle au bois dormant'' he beauty in woods asleepwas taken from a French
fairy tale A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful beings. In most cult ...
of that name by
Charles Perrault Charles Perrault ( , also , ; 12 January 1628 – 16 May 1703) was an iconic French author and member of the Académie Française. He laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from earlier folk tale ...
. Music was specially composed for it by
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...
. Diaghilev extravagantly revived the entire production of Petipa's three-act ballet.
Léon Bakst Léon Bakst (russian: Леон (Лев) Николаевич Бакст, Leon (Lev) Nikolaevich Bakst) – born as Leyb-Khaim Izrailevich (later Samoylovich) Rosenberg, Лейб-Хаим Израилевич (Самойлович) Розенбе ...
designed the sets which "were of surpassing grandeur and magnificence and no expense was spared..." Although the main choreographic credit remained with Petipa, the "Additional choreography by Bronislava Nijinska" was recognized. Her most memorable contribution: to the grand
divertissement ''Divertissement'' (from the French 'diversion' or 'amusement') is used, in a similar sense to the Italian ' divertimento', for a light piece of music for a small group of players, however the French term has additional meanings. During the 17th an ...
in Act III she added the rousing
hopak Hopak ( uk, гопа́к, ) is a Ukrainian folk dance originating as a male dance among the Zaporozhian Cossacks, but later danced by couples, male soloists, and mixed groups of dancers. It is performed most often as a solitary concert dance by a ...
for the 'Three Ivans' (''Les trois Ivans''); it "became one of the most popular numbers". Nijinska designed a half-dozen other, well-crafted choreographic pieces (e.g., "The Marquises", "Blue Beard", "Schéhérazade", "Variations of Prince Charming"). She made other alterations to the ballet, and led its rehearsals. As a principal dancer, she took roles as the Hummingbird Fairy, the Lilac Fairy, and Pierrette. She choreographed a new version of the so-called "finger" variation for herself as the Hummingbird Fairy. In 1921 in London the key for Diaghilev at Ballets Russes was her mastery of dance, staging and design. ''The Sleeping Princess'' production "became a proving ground of Nijinska's choreographic talent. She acquitted herself admirably." Diaghilev's earlier had, post-war, committed the company to revive the 1890 Russian classic. It was a bold decision which incurred a large financial risk. He aimed for excellence, a show of the tradition's high production values whatever the expense. After viewing ''The Sleeping Princess'' many theater critics were skeptical, disappointed by the apparent retreat from an experimental approach previously associated with Ballets Russes. Diaghilev's traditional classic, however, did prove very popular with London's growing audience for ballet, for whom it became an artistic learning experience that boded well for future London dance performances. Yet in late 1921 the London aficionados still small numbers meant that they could not purchase enough tickets to cover its great expense. After a run of several months, attendance began to fall. By early 1922 the truly brilliant production had become a colossal, money-losing disaster. Nijinska arrived in mid-1921 at the Ballets Russes company. She had come from the harsh realities and creative ferment of 'Russia in revolution'. Her own artistic tastes then clearly favored the experimental Ballets Russes of pre-war days, when Diaghilev was "searching for the creation of a new ballet..." Yet in 1921 ''The Sleeping Princess'' was the focus at Ballets Russes, and her first assignment. She wrote later that Diaghilev's extravagant revival then "seemed to me an absurdity, a dropping into the past". No doubt Nijinska felt the stress resulting from the cultural-artistic dissonance: "I started my first work full of protest against myself." Over the course of her career, however, Nijinska neither remained a radical champion of rebel experiments, nor did she ever accept as timeless perfection the inherited balletic tradition. While strongly favoring new ideas about the art of movement, eventually she chose to take a
middle path The Middle Way ( pi, ; sa, ) as well as "teaching the Dharma by the middle" (''majjhena dhammaṃ deseti'') are common Buddhist terms used to refer to two major aspects of the Dharma, that is, the teaching of the Buddha.; my, အလယ် ...
: traditional art reconciled with radical innovation, and vice versa.


=''Aurora's Wedding'', or ''Le Mariage de la Belle au bois dormant'' (1922)

= After a run of several months, mounting financial pressures had forced the closure of the lavish London production of '' The Sleeping Princess''. In an attempt to recoup his investment Diaghilev then asked Stravinsky and Nijinsky to collaborate in creating from its three acts a shorter version. Together they reworked the dance and music to salvage "a one-act ballet, which he called ''Aurora's Wedding''." It proved very popular and became an enduring commercial success, remaining in the repertory of Ballet Russes companies for decades.Irina Nijinska (1981), p. 519. ''Aurora's Wedding'' premiered in Paris at the Théâtre National de l'Opéra in May 1922. Since the costumes and decor for the London production had been impounded by creditors, those used were by Benoit from a 1909 production of another ballet, as well as new by Gontcharova. The principal dancers were
Vera Trefilova Vera Trefilova (russian: Вера Александровна Трефилова) (b Vladikavkaz, 8 Oct. 1875, d Paris, 11 July 1943) was a Russian dancer and teacher. She studied at the Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburg with Ekaterina Vaze ...
as Princess Aurora and Pierre Vladimirov as Prince Charming. With Petipa Nijinska shared the choreographic credit.


''La Fête Merveilleuse'' he Marvelous Festival(1923)

Itself largely excerpted from her ''Aurora's Wedding'', the "gala benefit pageant" ''La Fête'' was performed by Ballets Russes in the
Hall of Mirrors The Hall of Mirrors (french: Grande Galerie, Galerie des Glaces, Galerie de Louis XIV) is a grand Baroque style gallery and one of the most emblematic rooms in the royal Palace of Versailles near Paris, France. The grandiose ensemble of the hal ...
at the Palace of Versailles. The gala played to the post-war French taste for theatrical revivals from the 18th-century
Ancien régime ''Ancien'' may refer to * the French word for " ancient, old" ** Société des anciens textes français * the French for "former, senior" ** Virelai ancien ** Ancien Régime ** Ancien Régime in France {{disambig ...
. The well-heeled audience of aristocrats and art patrons came from all over Europe and from America. Staged by Nijinska, Tchaikovsky's music was reorchestrated by Stravinsky, and the costumes were by
Juan Gris José Victoriano González-Pérez (23 March 1887 – 11 May 1927), better known as Juan Gris (; ), was a Spanish painter born in Madrid who lived and worked in France for most of his active period. Closely connected to the innovative artistic ge ...
.


''Les Contes de Fées'' tories of the fairies(1925)

''Les Contes de Fées'' was another spin-off from ''The Sleeping Princess'', drawn from fairy tales in ''Aurora's Wedding'' (originally in Act III of ''La Belle au bois dormant''). It premiered at Monte Carlo in February 1925. That winter Diaghilev produced it and other ballets in "full dress" even though scenery was not used.


Her own ballet creations

Nijinska earned her credits as the sole choreographer for nine works at Ballets Russes during the 1920s. All but one were set to modern musical compositions: three by Igor Stravinsky (two ballets, ''Renard'', ''Noces'', and an opera, ''Mavra''); three by contemporary French composers, Francis Poulenc (''Biches''), Georges Auric (''Fâcheux''), and Darius Milhaus (''Train Bleu''); one by a contemporary English composer, Constant Lambert (from the Shakespeare play); and, one by Modest Mussorgsky (''Nuit'', an opera). One work employed
baroque music Baroque music ( or ) refers to the period or dominant style of Western classical music composed from about 1600 to 1750. The Baroque style followed the Renaissance period, and was followed in turn by the Classical period after a short transit ...
(''Tentations'').


=''Le Renard'' he Fox

aika Aika may refer to: Arts and media * ''Aika'' (album), a 1996 album by Finnish singer-songwriter Aki Sirkesalo *''Agent Aika'', a 1997 anime OVA produced by Bandai Visual and Studio Fantasia * AIKA Online, an MMORPG * Aikakone or Aika, a Finnish ...
(1922)

= Nijinska's first ballet in her tentative new position as choreographer for Ballets Russes was ''Le Renard'', described as a "burlesque ballet with song".
Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...
composed the music, which was for small orchestra and four singers. Stravinsky also wrote the libretto, i.e., the lyrics. Originally commissioned by a friend of Diaghilev in 1915, it was not publicly performed until 1922. The principal dancers were: Nijinska (as the Fox),
Stanislas Idzikowski Stanislas Idzikowski (1894 – 12 February 1977) was a Polish dancer and ballet master, active in England, and with such historic companies as Pavlova's, Ballets Russes, and Vic-Wells. During his performance career, 1910-1933, he became famous fo ...
(as the Cock), Jean Jazvinsky and Micel Federov (as the Cat, and the Goat). Costumes and sets by Michel Larionov were in a type of radical, modernist style with a "primitive quality". The plot comes from "Russian preliterary theater" sourced in "a tradition of itinerant folk entertainers" impersonating buffoons and animals. Across Europe, late medieval tales of
Reynard the Fox Reynard the Fox is a literary cycle of medieval allegorical Dutch, English, French and German fables. The first extant versions of the cycle date from the second half of the 12th century. The genre was popular throughout the Late Middle Ages, a ...
were popular. Here, the Fox (a
con-artist A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have def ...
) works to trick the Cock (a wealthy peasant) in order to literally eat him, but the Cock is saved by the Cat and Goat. "Disguised first as a nun, then as a beggar, the fox embodies criticism of both social and clerical orders." ''Baika'' was the original Russian title of ''Le Renard''. Nijinska's choreography tended modern. She "juxtaposed movements of animal grace with odd gestures and grotesque postures." The ballet was narrated by singers off stage. Larionov's visual design included simple animal masks for the dancers; the name of each character, e.g., "Goat", was written in large letters on the dance costume. In her memoirs, Nijinska discusses Fokine's innovative "Dance of the Fauns" (1905). There in the background the many "fauns looked like animals". The young boys who danced them once "tumbled head over heels" which was not in keeping with 'classical ballet' techniques. Yet Fokine claimed the result conformed to the "animal characteristics of the dance." Nijinska then comments:
I, who always spoke against the use of acrobatics in the ballet, made use of somersaults in my very first ballet, Stravinsky's ''Le Renard'' (1922). But there was no contradiction. I did not use those steps as a trick but to achieve an artistic aim.
Although ''Le Renard'' was ill-received and seldom performed, Stravinsky's harsh music and the childlike costumes were suspected. Yet the ballet had "impeccable avant-garde credentials." "Diaghilev was pleased with Nijinska's work and engaged her as the permanent choreographer for his company." Stravinsky, too, was pleased. He wrote in his 1936 ''Chronicles of my life'':
I still deeply regret that the production e Renardwhich gave me the greatest satisfaction ... has never been revived. Nijinska had admirably seized the spirit of mountebank buffoonery. She displayed such a wealth of ingenuity, so many fine points, so much satirical verve, that the effect was irresistible.
The premiere of this burlesque ballet also inspired an interesting social event. It was "a first night supper party for ''Le Renard''", planned by Sydney Schiff as a kind of "modernist summit". Invited were "Proust and Joyce in literature, Stravinsky in music, Picasso in painting." Garafola comments that only in these years of Diaghilev "would ballet stand so close to the
avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretica ...
."


=''Mavra'' (1922)

= An "opéra bouffe" with music by Stravinsky, it was first performed at the Théâtre National de l'Opéra in Paris, June 1922. The lyric book by Boris Kochno followed a poem by
Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...
, 'A small house in Kolomna'. "The one-act opera did not require any dances, but Diaghilev asked Nijinska to stage the movement of the four singers."


=''Les noces'' he Wedding vadebka(1923)

= Nijinska created the ballet ''
Les noces ''Les Noces'' (French for The Wedding; russian: Свадебка, ''Svadebka'') is a ballet and orchestral concert work composed by Igor Stravinsky for percussion, pianists, chorus, and vocal soloists. The composer gave it the descriptive title " ...
'' The Wedding' [original title ''Les noces Villageoise'', in Russian ''Svadebka'' from the music and libretto by
Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...
, music commissioned ten years earlier by Diaghilev. In four tableaux, the 24-minute ballet depicts in abstract fashion events surrounding a peasant marriage: the blessing of the Bride, the blessing of the Groom, the Bride's departure from her parental home, and the wedding celebration. Dancers first learning the steps often met some difficulty with the intense group movements of the choreography. "When you are truly moving together your individuality is really evident." Abandoned was the light-hearted sense of folk dance. A realism drawn from her experience of the hard edge of revolution, and tradition, has seasoned Nijinska. She presented her sober observations on folk society, yet also there lurked a vital vision. The heavy, collective mood of predestination is countered by hints of a peasant's wit and ability to survive. After first seeing it, H. G. Wells wrote:
The ballet ''Les noces'' is "a rendering in sound and vision of the peasant soul, in its gravity, in its deliberate and simple-minded intricacy, in its subtly varied rhythms, in its deep undercurrents of excitement..."
Stravinsky's idea for the score evolved during war, revolution, and exile. His libretto conveys ancient and set patterns, yet his music uses staccato rhythms and a vocal overlay of upheaval. Left little expressed is the wedding as a reassuring ritual of joy. The tone of the work is darker, more anxious, conjuring a "deeply moving evocation" of the ceremony. Nijinska translated it to dance, embodying in the ballet a tragic sense, the fate of both tradition and revolution. The lyrics were taken from a collection of Russian folk songs (the ''Sobranniye Piesni'' of Kireievsky), although Stravinsky's libretto is arranged in an unorthodox manner. The phrases were selected for their "typicality" or commonality. Stravinsky told his friend the conductor
Robert Craft Robert Lawson Craft (October 20, 1923 – November 10, 2015) was an American conductor and writer. He is best known for his intimate professional relationship with Igor Stravinsky, on which Craft drew in producing numerous recordings and books. ...
that his text for ''Les noces'' "might be compared to one of those scenes in '' Ulysses'' in which the reader seems to be overhearing scraps of conversation without the connecting thread of discourse." The voices of the singers seem disconnected from the characters they represent. "Stravinsky's composition, while fluid and layered, at times becomes overtly jarring." In form a
cantata A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir. The meaning o ...
, the "music accompanying his choral and solo singers came from an orchestra of percussion, dominated by four pianos." Dance writer Robert Johnson claimed that Stravinsky's text for ''Les noces'' manifests his interest in psychology and a collective unconscious of the type posited by
Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, ph ...
. Accordingly, the contrast between a musical "cell" and its elaboration in the score for ''Les noces'' represents a dialog between profane time (chronos) and sacred time (
kairos Kairos ( grc, καιρός) is an ancient Greek word meaning 'the right, critical, or opportune moment'. In modern Greek, ''kairos'' also means 'weather' or 'time'. It is one of two words that the ancient Greeks had for 'time'; the other be ...
), as defined by
Mircea Eliade Mircea Eliade (; – April 22, 1986) was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religiou ...
. Nevertheless, Stravinsky described his conception of the ballet's mise-en-scène as a "masquerade" or "divertissement.," whose effect would be comic. Nijinska rejected this concept, and it is her somber vision of the ballet that ultimately prevailed. The minimalist visual designs, both the costumes and the sets, were by
Natalia Goncharova Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova (russian: Ната́лья Серге́евна Гончаро́ва, p=nɐˈtalʲjə sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvnə ɡənʲtɕɪˈrovə; 3 July 188117 October 1962) was a Russian avant-garde artist, painter, costume designe ...
, the color scheme being "earthen gold, blue-grey, and black." Yet "the fanciful, colorful costumes she first proposed struck Nijinska as wrong". Then Goncharova modified her designs to resemble the style of clothes worn by dancers to rehearsals.
Balanchine George Balanchine (; Various sources: * * * * born Georgiy Melitonovich Balanchivadze; ka, გიორგი მელიტონის ძე ბალანჩივაძე; January 22, 1904 (O. S. January 9) – April 30, 1983) was ...
's practical dance clothes for performances "can trace precedents back to ''Noces''." In the end, Goncharova's sparse sets and costume design are now "inseparable from the ballet's musical and movement elements." When Nijinska worked on ''Les noces'':
I was still breathing the air of Russia, a Russia throbbing with excitement and intense feeling. All the vivid images of the harsh realities of the Revolution were still part of me and filled my whole being.
Nijinska researched ethnological studies of peasant customs in Russia. Yet in boldly translating to the ballet stage, she seems mostly to follow Stravinsky's modern score. She directed the women to dance
en pointe Pointe technique ( ) is the part of classical ballet technique that concerns ''pointe work'', in which a ballet dancer supports all body weight on the tips of fully extended feet within pointe shoes. A dancer is said to be ''en pointe'' () wh ...
, in order to elongate their silhouettes and resemble
Russian icons The use and making of icons entered Ancient Rus' following its conversion to Orthodox Christianity in AD 988. As a general rule, these icons strictly followed models and formulas hallowed by Byzantine art, led from the capital in Constantinople. ...
. The beating sounds of the pointes jabbing the board demonstrates strength (not the ethereal effect previously associated with ''en pointe''). Nijinska's groupings of women move largely in unison. The corps often faces square to the audience, a departure from the "epaulement" found in classical works, which softens the look by angling the shoulders. Toward the end of scene one, the women handle extremely long braids of the bride's hair, greatly exaggerated in thickness, as if the women were "sailors taking up the mooring lines of a boat." The whole piece, tethered to an ancient folk tradition, has an overwhelming sense of a controlled conformity. Her choreography reflected Nijinska's interest in modernist abstraction. Corporeal forms like the "cart" that takes the Bride from her parental home, and the "cathedral" grouping at the ballet's end, have been abstracted, as also such gestures as the braiding of hair, and the sobbing. The appearance of pyramidal and triangular structures that represent "spiritual striving" furthers this interest in abstraction. It may show the influence of painter
Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj;  – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...
. He had presented the so-called "Program for the Institute of Artistic Culture," his proposed master plan for the arts, including dance, in Moscow in June 1920. An iconic pose from ''Les noces'' has the heads of the women dancers, i.e., the bridesmaids, as if stacked up. Author Jennifer Homans, in defining the ballet's
tragedy Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy ...
, comments:
In one of the ballet's most poignant and telling images, the women dutifully pile their faces like bricks on top of one another, forming an abstract, pyramid structure ... The bride sets her face on the top and rests her head despondently in her hands. We see both the individuals (those faces) and their submission to authority and the group ...
Dance critic Janice Berman writes that Nijinska viewed the wedding celebration from her perspective as a woman: "Nijinska was obviously a feminist; the solemnity of the nuptials derives not only from the sanctity of married love, but from its downside---a loss of freedom, particularly for the bride. She loses not only her long, long braids, but also her privacy, her right to dream. The bride's last reverie, after all, comes before the ceremony; she leans her head on her hands, atop a table formed by eight of her friends. After the nuptials,another dreamer takes the bride's place." Also, the critic Johnson points out that ''Les noces'' is filled with images of dreamers. "''Les noces'' was Nijinska's answer to ''The Rite''," a creative continuation of her brother's work, here "a reenactment of a Russian peasant wedding." The ballet movement of the ceremony reflected "not a joyous occasion but a foreboding social ritual." Dance critic
André Levinson André Yacovlev Levinson, Андрей (Андрэ) Яковлевич Левинсон 'Andrey Yakovl'evich Levinson'' November 1, 1887, St. Petersburg - December 3, 1933, Paris) was, after leaving Russia in 1918, a French dance journalist. He w ...
in his harsh 1923 review called her choreography "Marxist" in which the individual was swallowed up by the masses. Nijinska, however, escaped from her brother's nihilism by following Stravinsky's lead "through the formal beauty and discipline of the Orthodox liturgy." Nonetheless the ballet remained "a modern tragedy, a complicated and very Russian drama that celebrated authority" yet showed its "brutal effect on the lives of individuals." Dance academic and critic Lynn Garafola, in discussing the ballet scene in the early 1920s, identifies a major competitor to Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. She characterizes
Ballets suédois Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...
(Swedish ballet) led by
Rolf de Maré Rolf de Maré (9 May 1888 – 28 April 1964), sometimes called Rolf de Mare, was a Swedish art collector and leader of the Ballets Suédois in Paris in 1920–25. In 1931 he founded the world's first research center and museum for dance in Paris ...
as a company that had "largely succeeded in edging Diaghilev to the sidelines of
avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretica ...
Paris." Yet Garafola mentions her admiration for the 1922 ballet ''Le Renard'' (see above) created by Nijinska for Ballets Russes. She continues:
was only in 1923 that Diaghilev staged a modernist masterpiece that transcended the best of his rival's offerings. ''Les noces'', probably the greatest dance work of the decade, teamed three of his closest Russian collaborators: Stravinsky, his 'first son', as composer; Natalia Goncharova, as designer; and Bronislava Nijinska, as choreographer.
"Bronislava Nijinska's ''Les noces'' rewout of boldness of conception without regard for precedent or consequences," wrote John Martin, dance critic for ''The New York Times''. Nijinska herself wrote about ''Noces'': "I was informed as a choreographer y my brother's ballets'' Jeux'' and ''
The Rite of Spring , image = Roerich Rite of Spring.jpg , image_size = 350px , caption = Concept design for act 1, part of Nicholas Roerich's designs for Diaghilev's 1913 production of ' , composer = Igor Stravinsky , based_on ...
''. The unconscious art of those ballets inspired my initial work."


=''Les Tentations de la Bergère'' emptations of the shepherdess(1924)

= This one-act ballet featured
baroque music Baroque music ( or ) refers to the period or dominant style of Western classical music composed from about 1600 to 1750. The Baroque style followed the Renaissance period, and was followed in turn by the Classical period after a short transit ...
composed by Michel de Montéclair (1667–1737), which was recently orchestrated by
Henri Casadesus Henri-Gustave Casadesus (30 September 1879, Paris – 31 May 1947, Paris) was a violist, viola d'amore player, composer, and music publisher. Early life Casadesus received his early musical instruction with Albert Lavignac and studied viola wit ...
. The sets, costumes, and curtain were by
Juan Gris José Victoriano González-Pérez (23 March 1887 – 11 May 1927), better known as Juan Gris (; ), was a Spanish painter born in Madrid who lived and worked in France for most of his active period. Closely connected to the innovative artistic ge ...
. An alternative title is ''L'Amour Vainqueur'' ove Victorious It opened in Monte Carlo. In the mid-1920s "a significant part of the Ballet Russes repertory turned away from modernism and themes of contemporary life." This included ''Les Tentations de la Bergère'' and the ballet ''Les Fâcheux'', also choreographed by Nijinska. These were "two works produced by the Ballets Russes during the 1920s that focused on themes related to eighteenth-century France. These productions were rooted in France's post-World War I fascination with bygone monarchies and court life."


=''Les Biches'' he Does (or 'the girls')(1924), also called ''The House Party''

= A one-act ballet ''
Les Biches ''Les biches'' () ("The Hinds" or "The Does", or "The Darlings") is a one-act ballet to music by Francis Poulenc, choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska and premiered by the Ballets Russes on 6 January 1924 at the Salle Garnier in Monte Carlo. Ni ...
'' Les Demoiselles' was once a proposed alternate titledepicts a contemporary house party for singles, with music to 'entertain' by
Francis Poulenc Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (; 7 January 189930 January 1963) was a French composer and pianist. His compositions include mélodie, songs, solo piano works, chamber music, choral pieces, operas, ballets, and orchestral concert music. Among th ...
. 'Fashionable' scenery and costumes were by cubist painter Marie Laurencin, also French. Poulenc's commissioned music for ballet, which originally included sung lyrics, was a "wonderful chameleon of a score", that was "mischievous, mysterious, now sentimental, now jazzy, now Mozartian..." Dance writer Robert Johnson comments that beneath this ballet's sun-washed, Riviera setting lie "shadowy scenes painted by Watteau: the ''Parc des Biches'' where Louis XIV trysted, and the forest where voluptuous courtiers rediscovered Cythera, the isle of love... . From the opening notes of Poulenc's overture, significantly scored for flutes and woodwinds, we find ourselves in this ''bois'' of ancient gallantry." Poulence described the section titled "Jeux" as, "a kind of hunting game, very Louis Quatorze." Its January 1924 opening at the Théâtre de Monte Carlo featured "La Nijinska herself" in the cast and, among others, a minor role for
Ninette de Valois Dame Ninette de Valois (born Edris Stannus; 6 June 1898 – 8 March 2001) was an Irish-born British dancer, teacher, choreographer, and director of classical ballet. Most notably, she danced professionally with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Ru ...
(she later became director at
Sadler's Wells Sadler's Wells Theatre is a performing arts venue in Clerkenwell, London, England located on Rosebery Avenue next to New River Head. The present-day theatre is the sixth on the site since 1683. It consists of two performance spaces: a 1,500-seat ...
). The French title ''Les Biches'' signifies "the girls" or female deer (the plural of doe), which was "1920s terminology for young women; tcelebrates ballet women as chic young ladies." Several English-speaking ballet companies changed the title, e.g., ''The House Party'' or ''The Gazelles''. "Although Diaghilev to Poulenc praised Nijinska to the heavens ... efeared she might be unresponsive to the Latin charm of the Poulenc score." Her first three choreographies for Ballet Russe had been composed by Stravinsky (Renard, Mavra, Noces). Yet "Poulenc and Nijinska had taken to each other enormously..." During rehearsals, Poulenc remarked that "Nijinska is really a genius" and her choreography's "pas de deux is so beautiful that all the dancers insist on watching it. I am enchanted." Diaghilev concluded:
Poulenc is enthusiastic about Bronya's (Nijinska's) choreography, and they get along excellently together. The choreography has delighted and astonished me. But then, this good woman, intemperate and antisocial as she is, does belong to the Nijinsky family.
The ballet's plot is unspecified. According to Poulenc, an atmosphere of "wantoness" prevails. Apropos of the ballet's ambiguity, Richard Buckle asks, "Have the three athletes who enter this whispering world of women just dropped in from the beach, or are they customers?...It is so delightful not to know." ''Les Biches'' was intended to be a modern "fête galante," and in some ways a commentary on Michel Fokine's ballet ''Les Sylphides''. Nijinska took the role of the hostess of the house party. The hostess is "a lady no longer young, but very wealthy and elegant." Her guests are younger: twelve women in pink and three men dressed as athletes wearing ribbon-like sashes. Additional featured characters include La Garçonne, aka ''La dame en bleu,'' an androgynous figure sometimes described as a "page-boy"; and two women in gray dresses who appear to be a couple. The ballet has eight parts, each with a different dance music. The young guests flirt, appear to take no notice, or play dance games in a setting filled with social satire and ambiguous sexuality. The hostess, dressed in yellow, brandishes a cigarette holder as if posing for an advertisement. Balanchine comments that she seems driven to remain in motion, her hands, her desperate dance: she is unable to image herself alone and still. Nijinska "was 'powerful' and 'strange,' a dancer 'intoxicated with rhythm, ... racing against the most breathless 'prestos' of the orchestra." In this role of the yellow-clad hostess, Nijinska
flew round the stage, performing amazing contortions of her body, beating her feet, sliding backwards and forwards, screwing her face into an abandoned attitude on the sofa. She danced as the mood took her and was brilliant.
Dance writer Richard Shead appraised ''Les Biches'' as "a perfect synthesis of music, dance, and design..." He situated it in the aftermath of the radical experimentalism of her brother Vaslav Nijinsky, whose innovations had challenged the classical ballet canons:
The great strength of Nijinska's choreography was its inventiveness, together with the fact that it remained essentially ''classical''. It is easier to see now than it can have been in the 1920s that the future of choreography lay in classicism but in a classicism which was capable of being extended, varied, distorted even, without departing in any fundamental sense from the mainstream vocabulary of classical dance. Nijinska achieved this in ''Les Biches'';
Balanchine George Balanchine (; Various sources: * * * * born Georgiy Melitonovich Balanchivadze; ka, გიორგი მელიტონის ძე ბალანჩივაძე; January 22, 1904 (O. S. January 9) – April 30, 1983) was ...
was to do so latter ...
Following World War I, Diaghilev found it advisable to produce a French-themed work neo-classical in style. Yet the Nijinska's dance vocabulary of ''Les Biches'' is not entirely academic; it blends virtuosic classroom steps, exposed lines and pointe work with body building poses, sporting images and references to popular dance forms. In this regard, ''Les Biches'' is "the fountainhead of neoclassicism in dance." According to Irina Nijinska, the choreographer's daughter, the famous gesture of La Garçonne upon entering, with one hand held flattened to the side of her face, and the gesture of the female corps de ballet, with one hand raised while resting on an elbow, are both military salutes that Nijinska has abstracted through a technique like Cubism. In ''Les Biches'', writes Lynn Garafola, Nijinska's choreography "cracked open the gender codes of classical style, transforming a piece of twenties chic into a critique of sexual mores." According to Robert Johnson, "loves of various kinds are portrayed and accepted here seeingly without prejudice." Nijinska has turned the tables, making the ballet's three male athletes the object of a libidinous female gaze. "Nijinska has seized the power to frame the discussion about sex." Marie Laurencin's decor, according to Garafola, had "the same ambiguous blend of innocence and corruption" as the ballet. It opens in a flood of pink light that is "voluptuously feminine". A host of taboos are explored: "narcissism, voyeurism, female sexual power, castration, sapphism". Garafola a few pages earlier mentions the career importance of her years in Kiev "fired by the Revolution's brave new art". On one level ''Les Biches'' appears to creatively conflate the sexual experimentation of post-war Paris and Kiev. Yet Nijinska herself apparently remained somewhat of a skeptic. Garafola comments that Diaghilev disapproved of the ballet's pessimism, its sour look at gender relations. Portrayed was a femininity "only skin-deep, a subterfuge applied like make-up, a construction elaborated over time by men, not an innate female property." The customary "male bravura dance" is here exposed as pretentious. The ballet "divorces the appearance of love from its reality." ''Les Biches'', surmises Garafola, may be interpreted as disclosing Nijinska's "unease with traditional representations of femininity."
Balanchine George Balanchine (; Various sources: * * * * born Georgiy Melitonovich Balanchivadze; ka, გიორგი მელიტონის ძე ბალანჩივაძე; January 22, 1904 (O. S. January 9) – April 30, 1983) was ...
, Nijinska's successor as choreographer at Ballets Russes, complimented her for ''Les Biches'' describing it as a "popular ballet of the Diaghilev era". It was revived several times, he continued, and met with "critical and popular approval". "Monte Carlo and Paris audiences ... loved it." "''Les Biches'' was very much liked." " all knew long before the curtin went down on the first night that ''Les Biches'' was a smash hit."


=''Les Fâcheux'' he Mad, or The Bores(1924)

= :fr:Les Fâcheux was originally a three-act ballet comedy, written by the French
playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...
,
librettist A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major litu ...
, and actor, known by his stage name
Molière Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world ...
(1622–1673). It opened in 1661, with baroque music by Pierre Beauchamp and
Jean-Baptiste Lully Jean-Baptiste Lully ( , , ; born Giovanni Battista Lulli, ; – 22 March 1687) was an Italian-born French composer, guitarist, violinist, and dancer who is considered a master of the French Baroque music style. Best known for his operas ...
. Without a plot, characters appear, do a monologue, then exit never to return. "Molière's hero Éraste scontinually hindered by well-meaning bores while on his way to visit his lady love." Adopted for Ballets Russes, the music was by Georges Auric, with scenery designed by
Georges Braque Georges Braque ( , ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century French painter, collagist, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his alliance with Fauvism from 1905, and the role he play ...
, libretto by
Jean Cocteau Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (, , ; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the s ...
after Molière, choreography by Nijinska.Irina Nijinska (1981), p. 520. Nijinska danced the male role of Lysandre, wearing a wig and clothes of the seventeenth-century. Anton Dolin as L'Elégant danced on point to approximate the baroque era and his performance created a sensation. "Her choreography incorporates mannerisms and poses from the period that she modernized by stylization." Braque's costumes were 'Louis XIV'. The original music, however, had been lost, so that Auric was free to evoke the past with a modern composition.
Georges Auric Georges Auric (; 15 February 1899 – 23 July 1983) was a French composer, born in Lodève, Hérault, France. He was considered one of ''Les Six'', a group of artists informally associated with Jean Cocteau and Erik Satie. Before he turned 20 he ...
was associated with fellow French composers
Francis Poulenc Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (; 7 January 189930 January 1963) was a French composer and pianist. His compositions include mélodie, songs, solo piano works, chamber music, choral pieces, operas, ballets, and orchestral concert music. Among th ...
,
Darius Milhaud Darius Milhaud (; 4 September 1892 – 22 June 1974) was a French composer, conductor, and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as ''The Group of Six''—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions ...
, and
Arthur Honegger Arthur Honegger (; 10 March 1892 – 27 November 1955) was a Swiss composer who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. A member of Les Six, his best known work is probably ''Antigone'', composed between 1924 and 1927 t ...
, part of a group called
Les Six "Les Six" () is a name given to a group of six composers, five of them French and one Swiss, who lived and worked in Montparnasse. The name, inspired by Mily Balakirev's '' The Five'', originates in two 1920 articles by critic Henri Collet in ' ...
. French writer Jean Cocteau courted the group as representing a new approach to the arts, including poetry and painting.
Ballets suédois Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...
in the early 1920s commissioned members of Les Six to compose music for its dance productions. Ballets Russes followed suit. Some 1920s music critics dismissed Les Six compositions as ''musiquette''. But current critic Lynn Garafola sees in ballet revivals like ''Les Fâcheux'' that employ their music a "gaiety and freshness" in their "unpretentious tunes and depiction of everyday life". Garafola appreciates "the independence of the music in relation to the choreography." Ballets Russes dancer
Lydia Lopokova Lydia Lopokova, Baroness Keynes (born Lidia Vasilyevna Lopukhova, russian: Лидия Васильевна Лопухова; 21 October 1891 – 8 June 1981) was a Russian ballerina famous during the early 20th century. Lopokova trained at the ...
, however, about Nijinska's ballet ''Les Fâcheux'' and similar works, commented that it was smooth and professional, but nothing or no one moved her. She longed for very old-fashioned ballets without abstract ideas, with simplicity and poetry. " Massine and Nijinska choreography clever as it is have too much intellect," she felt.


=''La Nuit sur le Mont chauve'' ight on Bald Mountain(1924)

= The ballet premiered in April, 1924, in Monte Carlo, with principal dancers Lydia Sokolova and Michel Fedorov. Nijinska's choreography was set to the music of
Modest Mussorgsky Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky ( rus, link=no, Модест Петрович Мусоргский, Modest Petrovich Musorgsky , mɐˈdɛst pʲɪˈtrovʲɪtɕ ˈmusərkskʲɪj, Ru-Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky version.ogg; – ) was a Russian compo ...
. Some designs for ballet then experimented "with costumes that 'reconstructed' the body, transforming its natural shape." For ''Night on Bald Mountain'', Nijinska's sketches "show elongated, arc-like forms." The costumes designed by Alexandra Exter "played with shape" and "played with gender". Nijinska emphasized the ensemble rather than the individual dancer. Here it was "her inventive use of the corps de ballet as the central figure" rather than a soloist as was the norm. The total effect allowed the "movement of the dancers to blend ... they became a sculpted entity capable of expressing the whole ballet action." Exter also "depersonalized the dancers, clothing them in identical gray costumes." Yet it was "the architectural poses of Nijinska's choreography that gave the costumes their distinctive shape". For his 1867 'symphonic poem' ''La Nuit sur le Mont chauve'' Mussorgsky was inspired by the witches sabbath as told by
Nikolai Gogol Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol; uk, link=no, Мико́ла Васи́льович Го́голь, translit=Mykola Vasyliovych Hohol; (russian: Яновский; uk, Яновський, translit=Yanovskyi) ( – ) was a Russian novelist, ...
in his
St. John's Eve Saint John's Eve, starting at sunset on 23 June, is the eve of celebration before the Feast Day of Saint John the Baptist. The Gospel of Luke (Luke 1:26–37, 56–57) states that John was born six months before Jesus; therefore, the feast of J ...
story. The composer, however, repeatedly revised and eventually incorporated the music into Act III of his unfinished opera, Sorochintsy yarmarka he Fair at Sorochintsy He labored on it for years prior to his death in 1881. Mussorgsky himself wrote the opera's libretto, based on a Gogol story of the same name. Its ballet scenes thus expressed the 'night on bald mountain'. The music was re-orchestrated by Rimsky-Korsakov.


=''Le Train Bleu'' he Blue Train(1924)

= The ballet ''Le train blue'' has been called a 'danced operetta'.
Darius Milhaud Darius Milhaud (; 4 September 1892 – 22 June 1974) was a French composer, conductor, and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as ''The Group of Six''—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions ...
composed the music, with the ballet libretto by
Jean Cocteau Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (, , ; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the s ...
, poet and filmmaker. The dancers' wardrobe were designed by 'Coco' Chanel; it included "bathing costumes of the period". The scenery was by sculptor
Henri Laurens Henri Laurens (February 18, 1885 – May 5, 1954) was a French sculptor and illustrator. Early life and education Born in Paris, Henri Laurens worked as a stonemason before he became a sculptor. From 1899 to 1902, he attended drawing class ...
. The cast of players: a handsome kid ( Anton Dolin), a bathing belle ( Lydia Sokolova), a golfer (Leon Woizikowski), and a tennis player (Nijinska). The Cocteau libretto has a thin plot. Its title refers to the actual Train Bleu, whose destination was
Côte d'Azur The French Riviera (known in French as the ; oc, Còsta d'Azur ; literal translation "Azure Coast") is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is usually considered to extend fro ...
, a fashionable resort area, specifically
Monte Carlo Monte Carlo (; ; french: Monte-Carlo , or colloquially ''Monte-Carl'' ; lij, Munte Carlu ; ) is officially an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco, specifically the ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is ...
. "The Blue Train used to bring the ''beau monde'' down to the south from Paris..." Diaghilev remarked, "The first point about ''Le train bleu'' is that there is no Blue Train in it." The scenario "took place on a beach, where pleasure-seekers disported themselves." Inspired in part by youth "showing off" with "acrobatic stunts", the ballet "was a smart piece about a fashionable ''plage''"
each Each may refer to: *''each'', a determiner and indefinite pronoun An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun which does not have a specific familiar referent. Indefinite pronouns are in contrast to definite pronouns. Indefinite pronouns can represent ...
Nijinska created a special ambiance through the language of dance, she introduced angular and geometrical movements and organized dancers on stage as interactive groups, that alluded to images of sports activities, such as golf, tennis and recreational games on a beach.
Popular passion for sport caused Cocteau to first conceive of a 'beach ballet'. The work also provided a prize role for the athletic Anton Dolin, whose "acrobatics astonished and delighted the audience." When he left the company, however, no one as capable could be found for the role, causing the ballet to be dropped. Probably the ballet suffered when collaboration between Nijinska and librettist Cocteau collapsed. Garafola writes that contested issues included: (a) gender, Cocteau was said to entertain a "dim view of women" ''versus'' Nijinska's unease with traditional femininity; (b) Cocteau's story and gesture approach ''verses'' 'abstract ballet' (Cocteau favored substituting out dance for
pantomime Pantomime (; informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is performed throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and (to a lesser extent) in other English-speakin ...
, but Nijinska was satisfied with a plotless ''ballet''); and, (c) the changing aesthetics of dance (Cocteau's wholesale preference for acrobatics over dance, but which for Nijinska constituted a series of delicate judgments). Last minute changes were made. Nijinska's choreography managed to present for the audience a sophisticated view of the beach ballet. Garafola suggests that here "Only Nijinska had the technical wherewithal ... to wrest irony from the language and traditions of lassical dance" ''Le train bleu'' anticipated the 1933 ballet ''Beach''. " Massine's choreography, like Nijinska's, was a stylization of sport motifs and different dance idioms within a structured balletic framework." The athletic dance scenes in both incorporated jazz movements. A half-century later, Nijinska's 1924 choreography was reconstructed and revived.


'Théâtre Chorégraphiques Nijinska', England & Paris 1925


Leaving Diaghilev, start of her dance company

January 1925 marked Nijinska's departure from Ballet Russes. In part she left because of the grief she experienced when in the end Diaghilev had sided with Cocteau over ''Le Train Bleu''. She wanted to lead her own company. Another reason was the 1924 arrival of the dynamic
George Balanchine George Balanchine (; Various sources: * * * * born Georgiy Melitonovich Balanchivadze; ka, გიორგი მელიტონის ძე ბალანჩივაძე; January 22, 1904 (O. S. January 9) – April 30, 1983) was ...
(1904-1983), with an experimental dance troupe from the Soviet Union. Diaghilev recognized his demonstrated talent and recruited him for Ballets Russes. Balanchine filled the choreographer position vacated by Nijinska. In 1925 Nijinska found sufficient financing to form her ballet company: Théâtre Chorégraphiques Nijinska. It was a chamber ensemble that employed eleven dancers. The Russian avant-garde visual artist Alexandra Exter designed the costumes and sets. Nijinska had first met Exter in Kiev during war and revolution. It was a professional relationship that had continued as Nijinska choreographed for Ballets Russes. Nancy Van Doren Baer highly praised their collaboration, "a most dramatic synthesis of the visual and the kinetic". For her company, Nijinska choreographed six short ballets, and danced in five. She also staged four divertissements, dancing one solo. For the 1925 summer season (August–October), her ballet company toured fifteen English resort towns and provincial cities. It then performed selections in Paris, at an international exhibition and for a gala program. "Judged by any standard, the Théâtre Chorégraphiques offered dancing, choreography, music, and costume design of the highest order."


''Holy Etudes'', an abstract ballet ach/h3>

Her first abstract ballet seen outside Russia, to J. S. Bach's First and Fifth Brandenberg Concertos, was also the first ballet mounted to his music. The dancers wore identical tunics and capes made of silk, with halo-like headgear. "Exter's 'uni-sex' costumes were revolutionary in their day." Yet, according to accounts, their simple and severe design "added immeasurably to the broad flowing movement and stately rhythms of the choreography, suggesting androgynous beings moving in heavenly harmony." Silk "enhanced the ethereal quality of the ballet. The brilliant pink and bright orange capes hung straight from bamboo rods placed across the dancers' shoulders... ." Baer further observes, "By varying the levels, groupings, and facings of the dancers, Nijinska created a pictorial composition made up of moving and intersecting planes of color." As in
Les noces ''Les Noces'' (French for The Wedding; russian: Свадебка, ''Svadebka'') is a ballet and orchestral concert work composed by Igor Stravinsky for percussion, pianists, chorus, and vocal soloists. The composer gave it the descriptive title " ...
, Nijinska called for dancing
en pointe Pointe technique ( ) is the part of classical ballet technique that concerns ''pointe work'', in which a ballet dancer supports all body weight on the tips of fully extended feet within pointe shoes. A dancer is said to be ''en pointe'' () wh ...
"to elongate and stylize the line of the body". Her short, abstract Bach ballet was one of those creations "she cared most about." She continued to rework its choreography, and presented it in varying forms and under different titles: for Teatro Colón in 1926; for Ballets Nijinska in 1931, which continued to be staged throughout the 1930s; and in 1940 at the Hollywood Bowl.


Five short modern pieces, four divertissements

;i. ''Touring'' (or ''The Sports and Touring Ballet Revue''). Nijinska "took contemporary forms of locomotion as her theme", with music by Francis Poulenc, costumes and set by Exter. "Cycling, flying, horse-riding, carriage driving ... were all reduced to dancing." It further illustrated ballet's reach to modern life, following her brother Vaslav Nijinsky's Jeux of 1913, and her
Les Biches ''Les biches'' () ("The Hinds" or "The Does", or "The Darlings") is a one-act ballet to music by Francis Poulenc, choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska and premiered by the Ballets Russes on 6 January 1924 at the Salle Garnier in Monte Carlo. Ni ...
and
Le Train Bleu The ''Calais-Mediterranée Express'' was a French luxury night express train which operated from 1886 to 2003. It gained international fame as the preferred train of wealthy and famous passengers between Calais and the French Riviera during th ...
of 1924. ;ii. ''Jazz''. The music was
Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...
's 1918 composition ''Ragtime''. The composer writes it "was indicative of the passion I felt at that time for jazz ... enchanting me by its truly popular appeal, its freshness, and the novel rhythm..." Exter's costumes followed an 1897 Russian performance of ''L'Africaine''. In 1921 Exter had written about her fascination with "interrelationship, co-intensity, rhythmization, and the transition to color construction..." Nininska's choreography, however, is lost. When children, she and her brother Vaslav had developed a friendship with two traveling African-American dance performers, house guests of their parents. ;iii. ''On the Road. A Japanese pantomime''. Based on a
Kabuki is a classical form of Japanese dance- drama. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily-stylised performances, the often-glamorous costumes worn by performers, and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers. Kabuki is thought ...
story, with music by
Leighton Lucas Leighton Lucas (5 January 1903 – 1 November 1982) was an English composer and conductor. Born into a musical family (his father, Clarence Lucas, was also a noted composer and his mother Clara Asher-Lucas a concert pianist), he began his caree ...
, and costumes by Exter. Nancy Van Norman Baer conjectures that it developed from a solo called ''Fear'' designed and danced by Nijinsky in Kiev in 1919, and inspired by the dynamic movements of a Samurai warrior. In discussion, Nijinska mentions a Japanese influence on her early choreographic works, one source being a collection of prints purchased in 1911.Baer (1986). ;iv. ''Le Guignol'' The title role is a character in a French puppet show, which became also a name for all puppet shows. Music by Joseph Lanner. It was later performed in 1926 at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. ;v. ''Night on Bald Mountain''. An abbreviated version of her 1924 work for Ballets Russes. "As in ''Holy Etudes'' and ''Les noces'', Nijinska relied on the ensemble instead of using individual dancers to express the ballet-action." ;Four divertissements. ''The Musical Snuff Box'' was a restating of the solo ''La Poupée'' first danced by Nijinska in Kiev. ''Trepak'' was her ''The Three Ivans'' that she had choreographed for Diaghilev's ''The Sleeping Princess'' in London. The ''Mazurka'' to Chopin was from ''Les Sylphides''. ''Polovetsian Dances'' was an ensemble for the entire company.


Companies and exemplary ballets 1926–1930

During these years, for various ballet companies (including Diaghilev's in 1926) and for Teatro Colón in Argentina, Nijinska continued to choreograph and direct performances, and to dance.Koegler (1977), p. 385.Nijinska ižinska(1981), pp. 320–323.


'Théâtre de l'Opéra' in Paris: ''Bien Aimée'' r ''Beloved''/h3>

At the Paris Opera Nijinska choreographed the ballet ''La Rencontres'' he Encounters libretto by Kochno, music by Sauguet. At the circus, Oedipus meets the Sphinx. In 1927 she presented there another new ballet, ''Impressions de Music-Hall''. She also choreographed dances for several operas. ''Bien Aimée'', a one-act ballet in 1928, was choreographed by Nijinska, music from
Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...
and
Liszt Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...
, libretto and decor by Benois. The dancers included
Ida Rubinstein Ida Lvovna Rubinstein (russian: И́да Льво́вна Рубинште́йн; – 20 September 1960) was a Russian dancer, actress, art patron and Belle Époque figure. She performed with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes from 1909 to 1911 an ...
and Anatole Vilzak. Its thin plot features a poet at the piano who reminisces about his departed Muse, and his youth. The ballet was revived by the Markova-Dolan company in 1937.
Ballet Theatre American Ballet Theatre (ABT) is a classical ballet company based in New York City. Founded in 1939 by Lucia Chase and Richard Pleasant, it is recognized as one of the world's leading classical ballet companies. Through 2019, it had an annual ei ...
in New York City arranged for Nijinska to stage its American premier in 1941/1942.


Diaghilev's 'Ballets Russes' in Monte Carlo: ''Romeo and Juliet''

A new version of ''Romeo and Juliet'' with music by
Constant Lambert Leonard Constant Lambert (23 August 190521 August 1951) was a British composer, conductor, and author. He was the founder and music director of the Royal Ballet, and (alongside Ninette de Valois and Frederick Ashton) he was a major figure in th ...
premiered in 1926. The ballet impressed Massine, who saw it later in London. "Nijinska's choreography was an admirable attempt to express the poignancy of Shakespeare's play in the most modern terms." At the end, the leading dancers Karsavina and Lifar, lovers in real life, "eloped in an aeroplane".
Max Ernst Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German (naturalised American in 1948 and French in 1958) painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealis ...
did design work,
Balanchine George Balanchine (; Various sources: * * * * born Georgiy Melitonovich Balanchivadze; ka, გიორგი მელიტონის ძე ბალანჩივაძე; January 22, 1904 (O. S. January 9) – April 30, 1983) was ...
an
entr'acte (or ', ;Since 1932–35 the French Academy recommends this spelling, with no apostrophe, so historical, ceremonial and traditional uses (such as the 1924 René Clair film title) are still spelled ''Entr'acte''. German: ' and ', Italian: ''in ...
. "It seemed to me that this ballet was far in advance of its time," Massine later wrote.


'Teatro Colón' in Buenos Aires: ''Estudio Religioso'', choreographies for opera

In 1926 Nijinska became choreographic director and principal dancer with Teatro Colón (Columbus Theater). Her active association with the Buenos Aires company would endure through 1946. Over a decade before, in 1913 the Ballets Russes had toured Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Rio de Janeiro, but Nijinska then with child did not go. Nijinsky her brother did. In 1926 she found in Argentina "an inexperienced but enthusiastic group of dancers," thirty in number, in a ballet organization newly founded by
Adolph Bolm Adolph Rudolphovich Bolm (russian: Адольф Рудольфович Больм; September 25, 1884 – April 16, 1951) was a Russian-born American ballet dancer and choreographer, of German descent. Biography Bolm graduated from the Russi ...
.Koegler (1977). Nijinska staged ''Un Estudio Religioso'' to music by
Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the ''Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wor ...
in 1926, which she developed from her choreography ''Holy Etudes'' of 1925. At Teatro Colón she was able to expand the work into a presentation by a full company. She drew on innovative ideas she'd first developed in Kiev during war and revolution. In both these Bach ballets, there was no libretto, no plot.
This abstract ballet, inspired by the spirituality of the music, was choreographed to an arrangement of the six
Brandenburg Concertos The ''Brandenburg Concertos'' by Johann Sebastian Bach (BWV 1046–1051), are a collection of six instrumental works presented by Bach to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, MacDonogh, Giles. ''Frederick the Great: A Life in De ...
and was the first ballet to be mounted to the music of J. S. Bach.
In 1926 and 1927 for the Buenos Aires theater, Nijinska created dance scenes for fifteen operas, including Bizet's ''Carmen'', Wagner's ''Tannhäuser'', Verdi's ''Aïda'' and ''La Traviata'', Stravinsky's ''Le Rossignol'', Rimsky-Korsakov's ''Tsar Saltan'', Massenet's ''Thaïs'', and Gounod's ''Faust''. In 1927 for Teatro Colón, Nijinska directed ballet choreography created by Fokine for Ballets Russes: Ravel's Daphnis et Chloë, and Stravinsky's
Petrouchka ''Petrushka'' (french: link=no, Pétrouchka; russian: link=no, Петрушка) is a ballet and orchestral concert work by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1911 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; ...
.


'Ida Rubinstein Ballet' in Paris: ''Boléro'', ''La Valse'', ''Le Baiser de la Fée''

The dancer
Ida Rubinstein Ida Lvovna Rubinstein (russian: И́да Льво́вна Рубинште́йн; – 20 September 1960) was a Russian dancer, actress, art patron and Belle Époque figure. She performed with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes from 1909 to 1911 an ...
formed a ballet company in 1928, with Bronislava Nijinska named as its choreographer. Rubinstein quickly arranged for
Maurice Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In ...
to compose music for her new dance enterprise. By luck or genius, one of Ravel's pieces became popular immediately and famous. It has remained so to this day: his
Boléro ''Boléro'' is a 1928 work for large orchestra by French composer Maurice Ravel. At least one observer has called it Ravel's most famous composition. It was also one of his last completed works before illness forced him into retirement. Co ...
. For Rubinstein, Nijinska choreographed the original Boléro ballet. In it she created an ambient scene around a large circular platform, surrounded by various individual dancers, who by turns hold the gaze. At times to the side several begin to dance and draw notice. Yet the ballet-action always returns to the center. Dramatic movements inspired by Spanish dance are yet abbreviated, understated, stylized. Rubinstein herself had danced for Diaghilev in the early years of his company Ballets Russes. In the 1910 ballet
Scheherazade Scheherazade () is a major female character and the storyteller in the frame narrative of the Middle Eastern collection of tales known as the '' One Thousand and One Nights''. Name According to modern scholarship, the name ''Scheherazade'' der ...
she and Vaslav Nijinsky (Nijinska's brother) both had leading roles. They danced together in a scene Nijinska called "breathtaking". Rubinstein and Nijinsky also had partnered in the ballet ''Cléopâtre'' a year before in Paris for Ballets Russes. Rubinstein played the title role. The ballet was "the runaway success of the 1909 season that made her an overnight star". Following ''Bolero'' Rubinstein directed her company to prepare another ballet choreographed by Nijinska, with music by Ravel: his '' La valse''. It opened in Monte Carlo in 1929, décor by Benois, featuring as dancers Rubinstein and Vilzak.Irina Nijinska (1981), p. 521. The ballet was often revived, most famously in 1951 by Balanchine. A ballet of ''Le Baiser de la Fée'' iss of the Fairyoriginated when Ida Rubinstein asked
Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...
to compose music to be choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska. It would be staged in Paris in 1928. "The idea was that I should compose something inspired by the music of
Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...
," wrote Stravinsky. For a theme he chose
Hans Christian Andersen Hans Christian Andersen ( , ; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales. Andersen's fairy tales, consist ...
's 'eerie' tale of
The Ice-Maiden "The Ice-Maiden" ("Iisjomfruen", or "Isjomfruen" in contemporary Danish) is an 1861 literary fairy tale by the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen. The first English translation was published by King and Baird in 1863. The story, set in Switze ...
, but he changed the story with his positive spin: "A fairy imprints her magic kiss on a
ale Ale is a type of beer brewed using a warm fermentation method, resulting in a sweet, full-bodied and fruity taste. Historically, the term referred to a drink brewed without hops. As with most beers, ale typically has a bittering agent to bala ...
child at birth ... Twenty years later ... she repeats the fatal kiss and carries him off to live in supreme happiness with her..." Stravinsky understood the fairy to be Tchaikovsky's
Muse In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses ( grc, Μοῦσαι, Moûsai, el, Μούσες, Múses) are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in ...
whose kiss branded him with a 'magic imprint' to inspire his music. The composer Stravinsky conducted the orchestra for the ballet's first performance at the Opéra in Paris in 1928. The dancers included Rubinstein, Ludmila Schollar, and Vilzak. ''Le Baiser de la Fée'' played at other European capitals, and in 1933 and 1936/1937 at the Colón Theatre in Buenos Aires. In 1935 Ashton choreographed a new version that played in London, and in 1937
Balanchine George Balanchine (; Various sources: * * * * born Georgiy Melitonovich Balanchivadze; ka, გიორგი მელიტონის ძე ბალანჩივაძე; January 22, 1904 (O. S. January 9) – April 30, 1983) was ...
did so for a version that played in New York.


'Opéra Russe à Paris': ''Capriccio Espagnol'' imsky-Korsakov/h3>

This ballet company 'Opéra Russe à Paris' was founded in 1925 by a Russian singer and her husband, a nephew of French composer Massenet. A company director and major figure was Wassily de Basil (the former Vassily Voskresensky, a Russian
entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...
, and perhaps once a
Cossack The Cossacks , es, cosaco , et, Kasakad, cazacii , fi, Kasakat, cazacii , french: cosaques , hu, kozákok, cazacii , it, cosacchi , orv, коза́ки, pl, Kozacy , pt, cossacos , ro, cazaci , russian: казаки́ or ...
officer). Since
Sergei Diaghilev Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev ( ; rus, Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев, , sʲɪˈrɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪdʑ ˈdʲæɡʲɪlʲɪf; 19 August 1929), usually referred to outside Russia as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, pa ...
's death in 1929, followed by the collapse of his 'Ballets Russes', a discomforting void inhabited the world of European ballet. Nijinska in 1930 joined 'Opèra Russe à Paris' run by de Basil. She was "to choreograph the ballet sequences" in several well-known operas. She was also "to create works for the all-ballet evenings that alternated with evenings of opera." Consequently, she created the ballet for
Capriccio Espagnol ''Capriccio espagnol'', Op. 34, is the common Western title for a five movement orchestral suite, based on Spanish folk melodies, composed by the Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1887. It received its premiere on 31 October 1887, in St ...
by Russian composer
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov . At the time, his name was spelled Николай Андреевичъ Римскій-Корсаковъ. la, Nicolaus Andreae filius Rimskij-Korsakov. The composer romanized his name as ''Nicolas Rimsk ...
. She also staged several of her previous ballet creations (''Les noces'' and ''Les Biches'') and other
Ballets Russes The Ballets Russes () was an itinerant ballet company begun in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Revolution disrupted society. ...
fare of the Diaghilev era. In 1931 she turned down an "unusually generous" offer from de Basil in order to start the company, 'Ballets Nijinska'. She wanted to pursue projects independently, although she maintained her former working situation for a time longer. Latter in 1934 and 1935 she would again work with de Basil's company. René Blum (brother of the French politician
Léon Blum André Léon Blum (; 9 April 1872 – 30 March 1950) was a French socialist politician and three-time Prime Minister. As a Jew, he was heavily influenced by the Dreyfus affair of the late 19th century. He was a disciple of French Socialist le ...
) was then "organizing the ballet seasons at the Casino de Monte Carlo." In 1931 he began talks with de Basil about combining ballet operations, hence the naissant company ' Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo'. From de Basil would come "dancers, repertory, scenery, and costumes" and from Blum "the theater and its facilities and financial support". A contract was signed in January 1932. "From the beginning de Basil acted as
impresario An impresario (from the Italian ''impresa'', "an enterprise or undertaking") is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays, or operas, performing a role in stage arts that is similar to that of a film or television producer. His ...
." Soon, however, Blum and de Basil fell out and in 1936 split, each forming his own company. Later in the 1940s Nijinska staged works for a successor to Blum's half, then run by Sergei Denham.


Her dance companies 1931–1932, 1932–1934

During the early thirties, Nijinska formed and directed several ballet companies of her own. In 1934 misfortune came: a mistaken seizure of essential theatrical gear. This setback forced cancelation of her company's autumn performance schedule. It led her to accept an offer to choreograph 'free lance', and then resume working for other companies.


'Ballets Nijinska' in Paris: ''Etude-Bach'', choreographies for Opéra-Comique

In 1931, although continuing to stage dance productions for 'Opera Russe à Paris' (see above), Nijinska began operating independently under her own name: 'Ballets Nijinska'. Here she choreographed ballet pieces for operas performed at the
Opéra-Comique The Opéra-Comique is a Paris opera company which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with – and for a time took the name of – its chief rival, the Comédie-Italienne ...
of Paris, and at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, where under auspices of the 'Opera Russe' her 'Ballets Nijinska' operated autonomously. In 1931 her company staged ''Etude-Bach'' with Boris Belinsky's decor and costumes, after Alexandra Exter. This was a new version of her 1925 ''Holy Etudes'' and her 1926 ''Un Estudio Religioso''.


'Théâtre de la Danse Nijinska' in Paris: ''Variations'' eethoven ''Hamlet'' iszt/h3>

From 1932 to 1934 Nijinska directed her Paris-based company, 'Théâtre de la Danse Nijinska'. A new ballet ''Variations'' was staged in 1932, inspired by
Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...
(a selection of his compositions). The dancers followed a difficult theme: the flux in the fate of nations (classical Greece, Russia under Alexander I, France during the early Second Empire). Choreographed primarily as ensemble dances and pantomime, the costumes and decor were by
Georges Annenkov Yury Pavlovich Annenkov (russian: Юрий Павлович Анненков also known as Georges Annenkov); in Petropavlovsk, Akmolinsk Oblast, Russian Empire – 12 July 1974 in Paris, France),Names by which he is credited for his work ...
. In 1934 she designed a ballet ''Hamlet'', based on Shakespeare's
play Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * P ...
, performed to music by Hungarian composer
Franz Liszt Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...
. Nijinska played the title role. "Her choreography, however, instead of retelling Shakespeare's plot, emphasized the feelings of the tragedy's tormented characters."Anderson (1991), quote. Nijinska conceived "three aspects for each of the protagonists". In addition to "the real character" there were "characters representing his soul and his fate" played "by separate groups of dancers" like "a Greek chorus". A similar ''Hamlet'' ballet was later staged in London. There were performances of two of her remarkable ballets from the mid-1920s, ''Les Biches'' in 1932, and in 1933 ''Les noces''. Nijinska's Théâtre de la Danse enjoyed ballet seasons in Paris and Barcelona, and toured France and Italy. The company's 1934 season at the Théâtre du Châtelet featured the ballets ''Etude-Bach, La Princesse Cygne, Les Biches, Bolero, Les Comediens Jaloux,'' and ''Le Baiser de la Fée''. In 1934 Nijinska joined her dance company to Wassily de Basil's company
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo The company Ballets Russes de Monte-Carlo (with a plural name) was formed in 1932 after the death of Sergei Diaghilev and the demise of Ballets Russes. Its director was Wassily de Basil (usually referred to as Colonel W. de Basil), and its a ...
. For the 1934 Opera and Ballet seasons, she directed the
Monte Carlo Monte Carlo (; ; french: Monte-Carlo , or colloquially ''Monte-Carl'' ; lij, Munte Carlu ; ) is officially an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco, specifically the ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is ...
productions of the combined companies in performances of her repertoire. Later in 1934 'Théâtre de la Danse Nijinska' lost its costumes and sets when they were mistakenly seized, for the benefit of unpaid artists of another company, the 'Opera Russe à Paris'. Although blameless, not until 1937 was Nijinska able to recover them. Thus she was "forced to cancel all Théâtre de la Danse engagements" scheduled for its autumn tour of France and England. Her dancers then began to accept other work. Nijinska herself was offered a choreographing contract by a film producer, and so left Paris for Hollywood.


Companies and ballets 1935–1938


Max Reinhardt's Hollywood film: ''A Midsummer Night's Dream''

In 1934
Max Reinhardt Max Reinhardt (; born Maximilian Goldmann; 9 September 1873 – 30 October 1943) was an Austrian-born theatre and film director, intendant, and theatrical producer. With his innovative stage productions, he is regarded as one of the most pr ...
requested Nijinska to travel to Los Angeles and choreograph the dance scenes for his 1935 film ''A Midsummer Night's Dream''. It was a Hollywood recreation of the
William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...
, with music by
Felix Mendelssohn Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include sym ...
. Much of the music was taken from his two compositions about this Shakespeare play. The first was Mendelssohn's 1826
concert overture Overture (from French ''ouverture'', "opening") in music was originally the instrumental introduction to a ballet, opera, or oratorio in the 17th century. During the early Romantic era, composers such as Beethoven and Mendelssohn composed overt ...
, the second his 1842
incidental music Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, or some other presentation form that is not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as t ...
, which incorporated the overture. Apparently Los Angeles agreed with Nijinska, for a few years later she would make it her permanent residence. In 1934 she designed the dances.
Nijinska's incidental choreography for ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' (1935) was as imaginative and magical as everything else in that sumptuously produced film."
As a one-act ballet in Saint Petersburg ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' had been "first choreographed by
Marius Petipa Marius Ivanovich Petipa (russian: Мариус Иванович Петипа), born Victor Marius Alphonse Petipa (11 March 1818), was a French ballet dancer, pedagogue and choreographer. Petipa is one of the most influential ballet masters an ...
in 1876" and in 1902 by
Mikhail Fokine Michael Fokine, ''Mikhail Mikhaylovich Fokin'', group=lower-alpha ( – 22 August 1942) was a groundbreaking Imperial Russian choreographer and dancer. Career Early years Fokine was born in Saint Petersburg to a prosperous merchant and a ...
, to Mendelssohn's 1842 music. Other versions were later staged by Terpis (Berlin 1927), Balanchine (New York 1962), Ashton (London 1964), and Spoerli (Basle 1975). A staging of Fokine's choreography, however, at the Imperial Theatrical School on March 26, 1906, was especially memorable for Nijinska. Not only did she dance in it, but the date marked a visit by her father after a long absence. The 1935 film was not Nijinska's first time in the employ of Max Reinhardt. The well-known
impresario An impresario (from the Italian ''impresa'', "an enterprise or undertaking") is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays, or operas, performing a role in stage arts that is similar to that of a film or television producer. His ...
's practice was to stage a variety of performance arts in theaters across Europe. In 1931, for a Reinhardt production in Berlin, Nijinska had created the ballet scenes for Offenbach's opera
The Tales of Hoffmann ''The Tales of Hoffmann'' (French: ) is an by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was written by Jules Barbier, based on three short stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann, who is the protagonist of the story. It was Offenbach's final work; he died i ...
.


de Basil's 'Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo': ''Les Cent Baisers''

Nijinska choreographed ''Les Cent Baisers'' he hundred kissesin 1935 for de Basil's company. This one-act ballet was set to music by Anglo-French composer Frédéric Alfred d'Erlanger. It opened in London at
Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist si ...
.Irina Nijinska (1981), p. 522.Koegler (1977), p. 111. The
libretto A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major li ...
by
Boris Kochno Boris Evgenievich Kochno or Kokhno (russian: Бори́с Евге́ньевич Кохно́; 3 January 1904 – 8 December 1990) was a Russian poet, dancer and librettist. Early life Kochno was born in Moscow, Russia, on 3 January 1904. His fa ...
followed the literary fairy tale "The swineherd and the princess" created by
Hans Christian Andersen Hans Christian Andersen ( , ; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales. Andersen's fairy tales, consist ...
. Here a disguised prince woos an arrogant princess. Nijinska's choreography is considered one of her more classical. Yet she incorporated subtle variations from the usual academic steps, according to Irina Baronova who danced the role of the princess. It gave the piece a special feeling of the East. The prince was played by David Lichine.


Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires: ''Le Baiser de la Fée'', Opera choreographies

Nijinska had presented at Teatro Colón in 1933 her ballet ''Le Baiser de la Fée'' iss of the fairy which she had first staged for Ida Rubinstein's Company in 1928. It was based on
Hans Christian Andersen Hans Christian Andersen ( , ; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales. Andersen's fairy tales, consist ...
's fairy tale
The Ice-Maiden "The Ice-Maiden" ("Iisjomfruen", or "Isjomfruen" in contemporary Danish) is an 1861 literary fairy tale by the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen. The first English translation was published by King and Baird in 1863. The story, set in Switze ...
. Yet, in recreating the tale, music composer
Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...
had changed the eerie maiden into a fruitful Muse, inverting Andersen's original story in which the ice-maiden, disguised as a beautiful woman, attracts young men who are led to their death. In 1937 Nijinska returned to Buenos Aires for a reprise performance of ''Le Baiser de la Fée'' at the Stravinsky Festival. Ballet choreography she also created for dance scenes in operatic works that played at Teatro Colón. Accordingly, Nijinska worked with the music of various composers, e.g., Mussorgsky, Verdi, de Falla, and Wagner.


'Markova-Dolin Ballet' in London, & Jamaica; (Markova later: ''Autumn Song'')

In 1937 Nijinska reprised her 1924 ''Les Biches'' for a performance by the Markova-Dolin troupe. "For six months during 1937 the troupe was creatively bolstered by the presence of Nijinska, who took charge of rehearsals and classes in addition to staging ''Les Biches'' and ''La Bien-Aimée''."
Alicia Markova Dame Alicia Markova DBE (1 December 1910 – 2 December 2004) was a British ballerina and a choreographer, director and teacher of classical ballet. Most noted for her career with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and touring internat ...
was a leading ballerina of London. In 1935 she left the
Vic-Wells The Royal Ballet is a British internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, England. The largest of the five major ballet companies in Great Britain, the Royal Ballet was founded in ...
ballet company of
Ninette de Valois Dame Ninette de Valois (born Edris Stannus; 6 June 1898 – 8 March 2001) was an Irish-born British dancer, teacher, choreographer, and director of classical ballet. Most notably, she danced professionally with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Ru ...
, where she had excelled in classical roles. She left to "form the Markova-Dolin Company (1935–1938), with Bronislava Nijinsky as chief choreographer." Irish dancer Anton Dolin had worked with Ballets Russes starting in 1921. Later he was the 'handsome swimmer' in Nijinska's 1924 ''
Le Train Bleu The ''Calais-Mediterranée Express'' was a French luxury night express train which operated from 1886 to 2003. It gained international fame as the preferred train of wealthy and famous passengers between Calais and the French Riviera during th ...
''. During the 1930s he became a frequent dance partner of Markova. He joined
American Ballet Theatre American Ballet Theatre (ABT) is a classical ballet company based in New York City. Founded in 1939 by Lucia Chase and Richard Pleasant, it is recognized as one of the world's leading classical ballet companies. Through 2019, it had an annual ei ...
in 1940. After the war, for the Markova-Dolin company Nijinska choreographed ''Fantasia'', music by Schubert and Liszt. A one-act ballet it opened in 1947 at the Ward Theatre,
Kingston, Jamaica Kingston is the capital and largest city of Jamaica, located on the southeastern coast of the island. It faces a natural harbour protected by the Palisadoes, a long sand spit which connects the town of Port Royal and the Norman Manley Inte ...
. Costumes and decor were by Rose Schogel, principal dancers: Bettina Rosay and Anton Dolin. In the 1930s Nijinska gave Alicia Markova 'creative sessions' in ballet, including instructions for her own choreographies. In particular she taught Markova an early work of hers from Kiev: ''Autumn Song'' to music by Tchaikovsky. Nijinska had originally danced it barefoot wearing a
tunic A tunic is a garment for the body, usually simple in style, reaching from the shoulders to a length somewhere between the hips and the knees. The name derives from the Latin ''tunica'', the basic garment worn by both men and women in Ancient Ro ...
of her own design. In 1953 Markova performed this solo ballet for a variety show on
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
television.


'Ballet Polonais' in Warsaw: ''Concerto de Chopin'', ''La Légende de Cracovie''

In 1937 Nijinska was asked to become the artistic director and the choreographer for the newly recreated Balet Polski (aka Les Ballets Polonais, or The Polish Ballet). In the revival of this national ballet, among its chief aims: to advance the Polish dance heritage, to train new ballet professionals, and to perform internationally. She signed a 3-year contract. For the company's 1937-1938 debut season, she created five new ballets: ''Le Chant de la Terre'', ''Apollon et la Belle'', ''Le Rappel'', ''Concerto de Chopin'', and ''La Légende de Cracovie''. For the Exposition Internationale in Paris, the five opened at the Théâtre de Mogador in November 1937. Well received, the Exposition awarded Ballet Polonais the Grand Prix for performance and Nijinska the Grand Prix for choreography. The ballet company then continued on to perform their prize-winning program chiefly in London, Berlin, and Warsaw, also touring other cities in Germany and in Poland. For ''Le Chant de la Terre'' (''Pieśń o ziemi naszej'') ong of the Earth Nijinska drew in part on a recent folk festival in
Vilna Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urba ...
featuring dance. She also took inspiration from the drawings of Polish artist Zofja Stryjenska.
"The first scene, 'Little Saturday,' depicted the spring rituals of sun and fire worship...The customs of the Slavic wedding were represented in the second scene when the celebrants danced 'wild Mazurkas and
teps The Test of English Proficiency developed by Seoul National University or TEPS is an English proficiency test created by Seoul National University's Language Education Institute to evaluate South Korean test takers' English language skills. TE ...
of the vital earth-stamping kind with complicated rhythms and...leaps in the air.'...The final scene, 'Harvest,' had powerful choreographic images of the ceremonies surrounding the season's harvest." In this powerful climax "a wedge of dancers, wielding curved scythes in great arcing movements, carved their way diagonally across the stage."
Regarding her ballet ''Apollon et la Belle'' (''Apolo i dziewczyna''):
"Nijinska ingeniously traced the incarnation of Apollo through five epochs of civilization. In each age, Nijinska's Apollo encounters his counterpart, the Dionysian earth element, in the form of a woman." "Program notes describe the incarnations of Apollo ranging from god of ancient Greece to athlete on a modern beach. In the first scene, Apollo is the celestial charioteer who must descend to earth to receive strength and purpose from the earth-mother feminine character. In successive scenes of inventive and sometimes humorous incarnations Apollo reappears in the guise of a medieval monk, Louis the XIV, a nineteenth-century poet, and finally as a modern-day champion of athleticism."
''Le Rappel'' (''Wezwanie'') he recall"begins in a Viennese ballroom of the eighteenth century, where a denationalized young Pole is enjoying the sophisticated society in which he finds himself. Yet the young woman whom he catches in a game of blind man's buff is Polish. She recalls for him the simpler manners and the more demonstrative dances of their native countryside. ... A large corps de ballet supports the principals in producing the contrast of the two types of dance, the Viennese and the Polish." The ''Concerto de Chopin'' "follows no plot but tries to reflect the shifting moods of the music." Baer suggests that the ballet shows Nijinska's "feeling of longing, farewell, and sorrow that she had experienced on leaving Russia" in 1921. About the ''Chopin Concerto'' (as later performed in 1944), dance critic Edward Denby wrote of it as "oddly beautiful ... because it is clear and classic to the eye but tense and romantic in its emotion."
The structure of the piece—like that of much of Mme Nijinska's work—is based on a formal contrast: in the background, rigid impersonal groups or clusters of dancers, which seem to have the weight of statues; in the foreground, rapid arrowy flights performed by individual soloists. One appreciates their flashes of lightness and freedom because of the weight they seem to rise over, as if the constraints of the group were the springboard for the soloist's release.
Nijinska also staged ''La Légend de Cracovie'', "a new ballet of high merit" to music by Michal Kondracki. In plot it is "a medieval Polish variation of the
Faust Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust ( 1480–1540). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroa ...
story". In choreography she employed her "celebrated group architecture" but also fashioned roles open to
character dance Character dance is a specific subdivision of classical dance. It is the stylized representation of a traditional folk or national dance, mostly from European countries, and uses movements and music which have been adapted for the theater. Char ...
development. As described by French critic Pierre Michaut, "Les héros et ses compagnons composaient leurs danses avec des éléments de folklore et avec des danses traditionelles polonaises, telles que la Cracovienne. Mais pas et figures étaient déformés, outrés, fortement accentués en burlesque, et ils devenaient une sorte de gesticulation frénétique et d'ailleurs expressive." After Balet Polski's 1937-1938 tour, which started with the Grand Prix performances in Paris, Nijinska was "abruptly released" from her leadership position. The cause of her dismissal, most likely according to Baer, was "her insistence upon a full disclosure of the troupe's financial records." Due to the increasing danger of military attack by neighboring countries, the Polish government apparently was seeking to covertly route some of its funds to America. "Characteristically, Nijinska would have refused to become involved with politics or intrigue." She was replaced by Léon Wójcikowski. With Ballets Russes since 1916 Leon Woizikovsky (1899-1975) had enjoyed prominent roles in Nijinska's ''Les noces'', ''Les Biches'', and ''Le Train Bleu'' (as the Golfer). In 1939 he led the Ballet Polonais to the World's Fair in New York. "The company returned to Warsaw one day before the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, and was never heard from again." Woizikovsky himself found work in the Americas during the war. Much later he helped in reconstructing Nijinska's 1920s choreographies at Diaghilev's ''Ballets Russes''. Yet for Nijinska then in 1938, in pre-invasion Poland, the going became more difficult. The "shock of her dismissal" and "the impending war caused a profound depression."


Ballet companies and exemplary ballets 1939–1950s

Nijinska and her family were in London when World War II started with the combined Nazi and Soviet invasion of Poland (September 1939). She had a contract to "co-direct the dance sequences on a new film, ''Bullet in the Ballet''," but it was cancelled due to war. Fortunately, an offer from promoter de Basil allowed them to make their way back to the United States. She eventually established a new residence in Los Angeles.


'Ballet Theatre' in New York: ''La Fille Mal Gardée'' of Dauberval

Nijinska in 1939 began to choreograph a "rustic and comic" two-act ballet of the 18th century,
Jean Dauberval Jean Dauberval, a.k.a. Jean D’Auberval, (born Jean Bercher in Montpellier, 19 August 1742 – Tours, 14 February 1806), was a French dancer and ballet master. He is most noted for creating the ballet, ''La fille mal gardée'', one of the ...
's ''
La fille mal gardée LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note * "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figur ...
'' The ill-watched Daughter' or 'Useless Precautions' For the inaugural season of
Ballet Theatre American Ballet Theatre (ABT) is a classical ballet company based in New York City. Founded in 1939 by Lucia Chase and Richard Pleasant, it is recognized as one of the world's leading classical ballet companies. Through 2019, it had an annual ei ...
(now ABT), it opened in January 1940 in New York City at the old Center Theatre in Rockefeller Plaza. ''La Fille Mal Gardée'' is perhaps "the oldest ballet in the contemporary repertory" whose "comic situations are no doubt responsible for its survival." Jean Dauberval wrote the libretto and first choreography, the original music being a mix of popular French songs. Premiering at
Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux The Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux is an opera house in Bordeaux, France, first inaugurated on 17 April 1780. It was in this theatre that the ballet '' La fille mal gardée'' premiered in 1789, and where a young Marius Petipa staged some of his fir ...
in 1789, the comedy "quickly made the circuit of European stages." Later in 1864 Taglioni's production in Berlin first adopted composite music scored by Hertel, which in 1885 was adopted by Petipa and
Ivanov Ivanov, Ivanoff or Ivanow (masculine, bg, Иванов, russian: ИвановSometimes the stress is on Ива́нов in Bulgarian if it is a middle name, or in Russian as a rare variant of pronunciation), or Ivanova (feminine, bg, Иванов ...
for the Maryinski Theater in Saint Petersburg. Dauberval's plot follows a lively rural romance, the lovers being "the mind-of-her-own Lise and the hard-to-resist Colas". They are challenged by Lise's mother the widow Simone, who prefers Allain, a wealthy but dull suitor. "In America the most important production was Nijinska's for Ballet Theatre in 1940."
Lucia Chase Lucia Hosmer Chase (24 March 1897 – 9 January 1986) was an American dancer, actress, ballet director and also the co-founder of the American Ballet Theatre. Life and career Chase was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, the daughter of Elizabeth ...
had invited her to mount her own version, which incorporated decor from Mordkin (his company had merged with Ballet Theatre). Nijinska took to revising Petipa's Russian version of ''La Fille Mal Gardée'' and staged the ballet with Irina Baronova and Dimitri Romanoff. This 1940 staging was soon revived, once as ''The Wayward Daughter'', with later versions by Romanoff, and in 1946 by Alexandra Balashova. Eventually it entered the repertory of the
Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas Jorge Cuevas Bartholín, known as George de Cuevas (1885 – 22 February 1961), was a Chilean-born ballet impresario and choreographer who was best known for the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas that he formed in 1944. Life and career Cueva ...
. Twenty years later in London, Nijinska's former student Frederick Ashton of The Royal Ballet staged it. He refashioned the Dauberval libretto, wrote his choreography to Hertel's music as modified by Lanchbery, and provided a revised decor. The result was a popular, and declared a "substantial work". Also for Ballet Theatre, in 1951 Nijinska choreographed and staged the ''Schumann Concerto'', music by Robert Schumann, with
Alicia Alonso Alicia Alonso (born Alicia Ernestina de la Caridad del Cobre Martínez del Hoyo; 21 December 1920 – 17 October 2019) was a Cuban prima ballerina assoluta and choreographer whose company became the Ballet Nacional de Cuba in 1955. She is best ...
and
Igor Youskevitch Igor Youskevitch (russian: link=no, Игорь Юскевич, uk, Ігор Юскевич) (13 March 1912 – 13 June 1994) was a ballet dancer and a choreographer of Russian-Ukrainian origin, famous as one of the greatest male ballet dancers ...
as principal dancers. The music's romantic mood frames the abstract ballet in three movements. The couple is joined by a ''corps de ballet'' of boys and girls. In 1945 Nijinska had choreographed ''Rendezvous'' with music by
Sergei Rachmaninoff Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one o ...
(1873-1943), with principal dancers Lucia Chase and Dimitri Romanoff. Both were staged for Ballet Theatre at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.


'Hollywood Bowl': ''Boléro'', ''Chopin Concerto'', ''Etude-Bach''; and Jacob's Pillow

Later in 1940 she staged three short ballets for a performance at the
Hollywood Bowl The Hollywood Bowl is an amphitheatre in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It was named one of the 10 best live music venues in America by ''Rolling Stone'' magazine in 2018. The Hollywood Bowl is known for its distin ...
. For the program with the
Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra The Los Angeles Philharmonic, commonly referred to as the LA Phil, is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at the ...
she selected favorites from among her prior choreographies: Ravel's ''Boléro'' (premiered with Rubinstein in 1932, revised), the ''Chopin Concerto'' (from 1937 with the Polish Ballet), and ''Etude-Bach'' (originally 'Holy Etudes' done for her own company in 1925, revisions). The event drew an audience of 22,000, and featured dancers
Maria Tallchief Elizabeth Marie Tallchief ( Osage family name: , Osage script: ; January 24, 1925 – April 11, 2013) was an American ballerina. She was considered America's first major prima ballerina. She was the first Native American (Osage Nation) to ...
and
Cyd Charisse Cyd Charisse (born Tula Ellice Finklea; March 8, 1922 – June 17, 2008) was an American actress and dancer. After recovering from polio as a child and studying ballet, Charisse entered films in the 1940s. Her roles usually featured her abilit ...
. Nijinska revived ''Etude-Bach'' and ''Chopin Concerto'' again, in 1942, at the
Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival Jacob's Pillow is a dance center, school and performance space located in Becket, Massachusetts, in the Berkshires. The organization is known for a Summer dance festival. The facility also includes a professional school and extensive archives a ...
in the Berkshires. There the cast included dancers
Nina Youshkevitch Nina Semyonovna Youshkevitch (7 December 1920 – 3 November 1998) was a Franco-Russian ballet dancer and teacher. After a notable dancing career an injury forced her retirement, and she became a prominent ballet teacher and choreographer. From 19 ...
,
Marina Svetlova Marina Svetlova (born Yvette von Hartmann; 3 May 1922 – 11 February 2009) was a French and American ballerina and ballet instructor. Biography Svetlova was born in Paris, France, with the name Yvette von Hartmann to Russian parents. She b ...
, and Nikita Tallin; while
Ann Hutchinson Guest Ann Hutchinson Guest ( Hutchinson; 3 November 1918 – 9 April 2022) was an American authority on dance notation and movement analysis, long based in the United Kingdom. She studied more than 80 dance notation systems and translated 20 to Laba ...
danced in the corps.


'Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo' under Denham in New York: ''Snow Maiden''.

Nijinska choreographed ''Snow Maiden'' in 1942 with music by
Glazunov Glazunov (; feminine: Glazunova) is a Russian surname that may refer to: *Alexander Glazunov (1865–1936), Russian composer ** Glazunov Glacier in Antarctica named after Alexander * Andrei Glazunov, 19th-century Russian trade expedition leader * An ...
, for 'Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo' under Serge Denham as Artistic Director. ''Snow Maiden'' drew on Russian folklore. The maiden, the Frost King's daughter, would melt in the sun's heat if she fell in love with a mortal man. The choreography "did not open any new avenues of artistic exploration." Yet critic Edwin Denby notes that "by preserving just enough independence of rhythm in relation to the sugary Glazounoff score er groupings and dance phraseskeep a certain acid edge." A revision of the ''Chopin Concerto'' was staged by Nijinska also in 1942. Originally written in 1937 for the award-winning Polish Ballet, the influential ''New York Times'' dance critic John Martin ranked it highly. Yet he considered Chopin (and Tchaikovsky) as no longer current. In 1943 Nijinska choreographed the ''Ancient Russia'' ballet, music by Tchaikovsky, with memorable visual designs by her theater colleague Nathalie Gontcharova. For Denham's company Nijinska and
Balanchine George Balanchine (; Various sources: * * * * born Georgiy Melitonovich Balanchivadze; ka, გიორგი მელიტონის ძე ბალანჩივაძე; January 22, 1904 (O. S. January 9) – April 30, 1983) was ...
"were well-known choreographers on whom he could call." It was, however, "not Nijinska but another woman-an American-who revitalized the Ballets Russes in 1942.
Agnes de Mille Agnes George de Mille (September 18, 1905 – October 7, 1993) was an American dancer and choreographer. Early years Agnes de Mille was born in New York City into a well-connected family of theater professionals. Her father William C. deMill ...
id it with her ''Rodeo''..."


'Ballet International' in New York: ''Pictures at an Exhibition''

During the 1940s and into the 1950s, Nijinska served as the ballet mistress for the International Ballet, later known variously, e.g., the
Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas Jorge Cuevas Bartholín, known as George de Cuevas (1885 – 22 February 1961), was a Chilean-born ballet impresario and choreographer who was best known for the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas that he formed in 1944. Life and career Cueva ...
. The company played chiefly in Europe and the Mediterranean until 1961. In 1944 for an opening at the International Theater in New York she choreographed ''
Pictures at an Exhibition ''Pictures at an Exhibition'', french: Tableaux d'une exposition, link=no is a suite of ten piano pieces, plus a recurring, varied Promenade theme, composed by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky in 1874. The piece is Mussorgsky's most famous pia ...
'', an 1874 suite of piano pieces by
Modest Mussorgsky Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky ( rus, link=no, Модест Петрович Мусоргский, Modest Petrovich Musorgsky , mɐˈdɛst pʲɪˈtrovʲɪtɕ ˈmusərkskʲɪj, Ru-Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky version.ogg; – ) was a Russian compo ...
, later orchestrated by
Maurice Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In ...
, and by Ivan Boutnikov. Mussorgsky wrote no ballet music, but two of his compositions inspired Nijinska: ''Night on Bald Mountain'' (Ballets Russes 1924), and here ''Pictures''. Costumes and decor were by Boris Aronson. Aronson was an apprentice of
Aleksandra Ekster Alexandra () is the feminine form of the given name Alexander (, ). Etymologically, the name is a compound of the Greek verb (; meaning 'to defend') and (; GEN , ; meaning 'man'). Thus it may be roughly translated as "defender of man" or "pr ...
, Nijinska's designer in Kiev and Paris. Evidently Nijinska was the first to choreograph ''Pictures''. The next ballet to this music was staged by Erika Hanka at the
Vienna State Opera The Vienna State Opera (, ) is an opera house and opera company based in Vienna, Austria. The 1,709-seat Renaissance Revival venue was the first major building on the Vienna Ring Road. It was built from 1861 to 1869 following plans by August ...
(1947), and then by Lopokov at the Bolshoi in Moscow (1963). In 1952 also for Marquis de Cuevas' Grand Ballet de Monte Carlo, Nijinska choreographed '' Rondo Capriccioso''. Composed in 1863 by Saint-Saëns, it was originally crafted for the virtuoso violinist Pablo de Sarasate. The 1952 ballet by Nijinska opened in Paris at the Théâtre de l'Empire, with principal dancers
Rosella Hightower Rosella Hightower (January 10, 1920 – November 4, 2008) was an American ballerina and member of the Choctaw Nation who achieved fame in both the United States and Europe. Biography Rosella Hightower was born in Durwood, Carter County, Oklahoma ...
and
George Skibine George Boris SkibineGeorge Boris Skibine in ''South Carolina, Naturalization Records, 1868-1991'' (russian: Юрий Борисович Скибин; Yuri Borisovich Skibin; January 30, 1920 – January 14, 1981), also known as Youra Skibine, was ...
.


Ballet companies: revivals of her early choreographies 1960–1971


'Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas' in New York: ''The Sleeping Beauty''

In 1960 the Cuevas Ballet produced a revision of ''The Sleeping Beauty'', which was to have been staged by Nijinska. She was familiar with the ballet from
Diaghilev Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev ( ; rus, Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев, , sʲɪˈrɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪdʑ ˈdʲæɡʲɪlʲɪf; 19 August 1929), usually referred to outside Russia as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, pa ...
's production of 1921. For it she had created several popular dances. In 1922 she and Stravinsky abbreviated it into the successful one-act ballet ''Aurora's Wedding''. Long associated with the Cuevas company as ballet mistress, Nijinska began to craft her choreographic revision. A conflict, however, developed over the ballet which involved artistic issues. In discussions she declined to compromise. Nijinska withdrew from the company.
Robert Helpmann Sir Robert Murray Helpmann CBE ( Helpman, 9 April 1909 – 28 September 1986) was an Australian ballet dancer, actor, director, and choreographer. After early work in Australia he moved to Britain in 1932, where he joined the Vic-Wells Ballet ( ...
then came into the process. A dancer, he had also staged ballets, and had long partnered with Margot Fonteyn, Fonteyn, namely in Sadler's Wells Ballet, The Royal Ballet's post-war ''The Sleeping Beauty''. In the end the Cuevas company gave its choreographic credit to both, as Nijinska-Helpmann.


'The Royal Ballet' of London: ''Les Biches'' and ''Les noces''

In 1964 Frederick Ashton of The Royal Ballet asked Nijinska to stage a revival of her ballet ''Les Biches'' (1924) at Royal Opera House, Covent Gardens. Ashton had been resident choreographer for The Royal Ballet since 1935. Then becoming also an associate director in 1952, he was appointed the Royal Ballet's director in 1963. Nijinska first mentored Ashton's career from when he was a young ballet student. In 1928 in Paris she'd been the choreographer for Ida Rubenstein, where he'd become a dancer in the company. He performed in several of choreographed works by Nijinska under her guidance. Ashton consider her a beneficial influence in the development of ballet. More specifically, her choreography had informed his own progress in that art. The staging of the revived ''Les Biches'' went well. Two years later, Ashton asked her to return to London and stage her ''Les noces'' (1923) on his company. These 1964 London productions, according to dance critic Horst Koegler, "confirmed her reputation as one of the formative choreographers of the 20th century." In 1934 Ashton had expressed his own opinion:
Her achievements have proved to me time and again that through the medium of classical ballet any emotion may be expressed. She might be called the architect of dancing, building her work brick by brick into the amazing structures that result in masterpieces like ''Les noces''.


Other stagings: ''Brahms Variations'', ''Le Marriage d'Aurore'', ''Chopin Concerto''

Following these London events, Nijinska "was repeatedly invited to revive several of her ballets". She staged ''Les Biches'' in Rome in 1969, and in Florence and Washington in 1970. Also ''Les Biches,'' and a revised version of ''Chopin Concerto'' and ''Brahms Variations'', for the Center Ballet of Buffalo in 1969. ''Les noces'' was staged in 1971 in Venice, where during a rehearsal at the Teatro Fenice, she celebrated her eightieth birthday onstage. "Between 1968 and 1972, Nijinska saw performances of ''Les Biches'', ''Les noces'', ''Brahms Variations'', ''Le Marriage d'Aurore'', and ''Chopin Concerto'' for ballet companies in the United States and in Europe."


Irina Nijinska's further revivals, and others

After her death in 1972, her daughter Irina Nijinska (1913-1991) continued this work. A growing number of performances of her mother's early ballets were performed. Several entered into the current repertoire of dance companies. Included were works first produced by Ballets Russes. Irina, a dancer in her own right, had been helping her mother for many years, at her ballet school and as her rehearsal assistant. During the 1970s and 1980s, Irina advanced her legacy. She edited and translated ''Early Memoirs'' and saw it to publication. In the theatrical world Irina Nijinska associated with ballet companies to facilitate revivals of the choreographies. ''Les noces'' and ''Les Biches'' increasingly appeared on stage. Among others, Irina brought ''Les noces'' to The Paris Opera Ballet, and "Rondo Capriccioso" to the Dance Theater of Harlem. In collaboration with a dance historian, the French Riviera comedy "Le Train Bleu" was reconstructed; then it was staged by the Oakland Ballet. In 1981 the Dance Theatre of Harlem under Arthur Mitchell (dancer), Arthur Mitchell "produced an entire Nijinska evening". After Irina's passing in 1991, the Nijinska revivals continued. Ballerina
Nina Youshkevitch Nina Semyonovna Youshkevitch (7 December 1920 – 3 November 1998) was a Franco-Russian ballet dancer and teacher. After a notable dancing career an injury forced her retirement, and she became a prominent ballet teacher and choreographer. From 19 ...
, a Nijinska dancer (e.g., at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in 1942), revived ''Bolero'' for the Oakland Ballet in 1995. She also staged ''Chopin Concerto'' for students at Goucher College in Maryland that same year.


Commentary by critics, academics, herself

Instead, she preferred the pre-war Diaghilev who had been "searching for the creation of a new ballet..." Hence regarding ''The Sleeping Princess'' Nijinska recalled the paradox that "I started my first work full of protest against myself." "Because she stemmed from the academic ballet tradition, Bronislava Nijinska is often called a Neo-Classicist. But her choreography also has an affinity to such styles of modern art as Cubism, Constructivism and Expressionism." Over the course of her career Nijinska, in her effort to augment classical ballet with new ideas about the art of movement, neither crossed over to champion a newly fashioned modernity, nor did she accept as timelessly classic the inherited ballet tradition. She declined her brother Nijinsky's turn to
modern dance Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert or theatrical dance which included dance styles such as ballet, folk, ethnic, religious, and social dancing; and primarily arose out of Europe and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th ...
. Instead, following the new insights into movement, she initiated "what would be called neoclassical choreography". She eventually came to admire Petipa's work, while pruning its "nondance elements". A "renewable legacy was at the heart of Nijinska's classicism". As "one of the twentieth-century ballet's great innovators ... her repertoire introduced a new classicism that made dance a medium of modern art expression." Her ''Les noces'' (1923) bridged the contemporary tensions "between primitivism and mechanization, exoticism and neoclassicism, Russianess and cosmopolitanism, Soviet and émigré. ... The ability of ''Les noces'' to negotiate so many different boundaries ... accounts in no small measure for its timely, as well as timeless success."


Based in Los Angeles, from 1940

After the start in 1939 of World War II in Europe, Nijinska and her family moved to New York in that October, then to Los Angeles in 1940. "Bronislava Nijinska did not understand Americans, or they her. She was almost deaf by the time she reached the United States, and life (exile, her brother's madness, her son's death) had let her down badly." Yet she continued as a ballet mistress and guest choreographer, work that continued into the 1960s (see section above). In Los Angeles she began to teach ballet in a private studio, and she opened her own school in 1941. Her daughter Irina Nijinska would run the school in her absence. Bronislava became a citizen of the United States in 1949.


Teaching dance

Throughout her career, starting earlier than her 1919 'L'Ecolé de Mouvement' in Kiev, Nijinska had taught dance. A ballet role to her colleagues she'd demonstrate, or to the cast her newly created choreographies. In 1922 she had started teaching at Ballets Russes, taking over from
Enrico Cecchetti Enrico Cecchetti (; 21 June 1850 – 13 November 1928) was an Italian ballet dancer, mime, and founder of the Cecchetti method. The son of two dancers from Civitanova Marche, he was born in the costuming room of the ''Teatro Tordinona'' in ...
. Among her earlier students:
Serge Lifar Serge Lifar ( ua, Сергій Михайлович Лифар, ''Serhіy Mуkhailovуch Lуfar'') ( 15 December 1986) was a Ukrainian ballet dancer and choreographer, famous as one of the greatest male ballet dancers of the 20th century. No ...
in revolutionary Kiev; Anton Dolin, Lydia Sokolova, Frederick Ashton,
Alicia Markova Dame Alicia Markova DBE (1 December 1910 – 2 December 2004) was a British ballerina and a choreographer, director and teacher of classical ballet. Most noted for her career with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and touring internat ...
, Irina Baronova, David Lichine in interwar Europe;
Lucia Chase Lucia Hosmer Chase (24 March 1897 – 9 January 1986) was an American dancer, actress, ballet director and also the co-founder of the American Ballet Theatre. Life and career Chase was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, the daughter of Elizabeth ...
in New York. Her auditions in the 1930s were conducted in the form of a short class. In 1935 rehearsals for ''Les Cent Baisers'', choreographer Nijinska coached the youthful Irina Baronova in her leading role as the Princess. Already relatively widely experienced in ballet performance, Baronova was developing rapidly into a modern classical ballerina. According to author Vicente García-Márquez, however, Nijinska was key.
Working with Nijinska was a turning point in her artistic growth. Before she had never had the opportunity for careful dissection of her roles. Nijinska's approach ... gave the sixteen-year-old Baronova the self-awareness she needed to probe into herself and bring forth her full potential.
In New York Nijinska was invited to come teach in Hollywood. She eventually opened her own ballet studio there in 1941. Required to travel afar to pursue her choreographic work, she frequently left her daughter Irina Nijinska in charge. At her Hollywood studio (soon relocated to Beverly Hills), students included the prima ballerinas Maria Tallchief and Marjorie Tallchief (sisters), as well as
Cyd Charisse Cyd Charisse (born Tula Ellice Finklea; March 8, 1922 – June 17, 2008) was an American actress and dancer. After recovering from polio as a child and studying ballet, Charisse entered films in the 1940s. Her roles usually featured her abilit ...
, and later Allegra Kent.
Maria Tallchief Elizabeth Marie Tallchief ( Osage family name: , Osage script: ; January 24, 1925 – April 11, 2013) was an American ballerina. She was considered America's first major prima ballerina. She was the first Native American (Osage Nation) to ...
(1925-2013) studied with Nijinska, "all through my high school years". Everyone, recalled Tallchief, was in awe of her. "She jumped and flashed around the studio. I was under her spell." Despite "luminous green eyes" she dressed very plainly. Her husband translated. "Madame say when you sleep, sleep like a ballerina. Even on street waiting for bus, stand like a ballerina." Yet "Madame Nijinska rarely spoke. She didn't have to. She had incredible personal magnetism". From her "I first learned that the dancer's soul is in the middle of the body". When Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo came to perform in Los Angeles, the ballet dancers came to Madame to take lessons. "And the biggest star of all, Alexandra Danilova, gave Nijinska roses when she entered the studio". Allegra Kent (born 1937) recalls starting ballet lessons in 1949 when she was twelve. Madame Nijinska was a "nice-looking woman in black lounge pajamas with a long cigarette holder". She counted time "''ras, va, tri''" in Russian. "Her husband was simultaneously translating everything she said into English." Because of her commanding presence in classes, "The world began and ended right there in that moment." After a year with her daughter Irina Nijinska, Kent studied with 'Madame' herself. She learned "not to fear competing with men" and that "the light look of dance was merely the surface of a sculpture-there was a mixture of steel and quicksilver at the heart."


Work on her ''Memoirs''

The last year of her life Nijinska devoted to finishing memoirs about her early life. She had notebooks of her writings and had kept theatrical programs throughout her career. A manuscript of 180,000 words was left completed. Following her death in early 1972, Bronislava Nijinska's daughter Irina Nijinska was named her literary executor. Then she and Jean Rawlingson edited and translated the Russian manuscript into English. They edited the text, and saw it through to publication. The book ''Early Memoirs'' appeared in 1981. These writings describe in detail her early years traveling in provincial Russia with her dancer parents, her brother Vaslav's development as a dancer, her schooling and first years as a professional in the Diaghilev era of Russian ballet, and her work assisting her brother in his choreography. During her life, she had published a book and several articles on ballet. "The full autobiographical story of her own career, however, is contained in another set of her memoirs, continuing from the 1914 close of [her ''Early Memoirs'']." She also left a set of notebooks on ballet and other writings, which remain unpublished. Dance historian and critic Lynn Garafola is said to be currently working on a biography of Bronislava Nijinska.


As described by others

Margaret Severn, a dancer who did both vaudeville and Ballet, classical, was for a time in 1931 a leading dancer in Nijinska's Paris-based company. Sometimes she'd abbreviate Nijinska as "Nij". Later she wrote an article from her notes at the time:
"I was very favorably impressed with [Nijinska] personality. She is somewhat crazy, of course, but really a great artist. I could tell from the little she showed, and she had a marvelous technique herself. So I would simply adore to be in the company..." "Nij arranged a very short but very snappy little dance for me in the 'Variations'. ... [T]his half minute is quite likely to bring the house down. ... The dance is one of the most brilliant and most difficult concoctions I have ever seen."
Lydia Sokolova, an English ballerina, performed in Ballets Russes from 1913 to 1929. Circa 1920 she married Leon Woizikovsky, also a dancer in the company. Her memoirs were edited by Richard Buckle and published in London in 1960.
"Bronislava Nijinska, known as Bronia, was very like her brother Vaslav Nijinsky. She was blonde and wore her straight hair screwed into a tight little roll. She had pale eyes and pouting lips, wore no makeup at all and had not shaved off her eyebrows as most of us had in those days. ... Bronia was obstinate and once she had made up her mind nothing in the world would move her. She was brilliantly clever and inventive. No music seemed to present any difficulties for her, but her style of movement was even more pronounced and idiosyncratic than that of Massine, and she was not an easy person to work for in class or at rehearsal ... Her system of training seemed to depend more on improvisation than on traditional methods of technique ... [T]o watch her devise a sequence of steps and movements for one of her ballets was most interesting. I liked her, in spite of her moodiness and lack of humor." "There were two of us in the company whom Diaghilev could always make cry whenever he wished, Nijinska and myself."
As one of the three Russian Baby Ballerinas, baby ballerinas the teenager Irina Baronova worked with Nijinska the choreographer in the mid-1930s. She later described the experience.
The ideas were clear from the very beginning; and even though there was obviously a prearranged structure, once she was in the studio she involved the dancers in the creative process. ... Her choreography seemed to flow spontaneously. Even when she was improvising, she always projected the conviction that she knew her ultimate goals, for she was precise and direct in her explanations.


Personal, family life


Mother and father

After her parents separated, Vaslav had turned against his father Tomasz omaNijinsky, because of his infidelity. Bronislava, however, remained attached to her absent father, who visited from time to time. She followed his career, championing his times of subsequent success in ballet. With Tomasz her mother eventually reached some understanding. In 1912 her father died in Russia. Her oldest brother Stanislav (Stassik), by a doctor's instructions placed in a sanitariums since 1902, died in Russia in 1918. In 1921 Nijinska with her mother Eleanora Bereda Nijinska and her two children left Russia, a perilous undertaking. They made their way to Austria, to meet her brother, his wife, and children. Nijinska then rejoined
Ballets Russes The Ballets Russes () was an itinerant ballet company begun in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Revolution disrupted society. ...
, chiefly in Paris and Monte Carlo, until 1925. Thereafter she worked independently, often on tour. Throughout Bronislava remained close to her mother the retired dancer whom she called "Mamusia". She wrote her when away and shared her thoughts when near. She cared for her when ill, until she died in 1932.


Her brother Vaslav

During her early years and into her mid-twenties, Bronislava Nijinsky was under the strong influence of her older brother Vaslav Nijinsky, whose brilliance became widely celebrated. Both Vatsa and Broni were trained from the start by their dancer parents. She learned from her brother's example, as he preceded her in their childhood adventures, in ballet school, and then on the stage. When Nijinsky came to design his first choreographies, Nijinska as a ballet dancer assisted, following his detailed instructions as he tried out new steps and innovative poses. Her 1912 marriage, however, shook the artistic "bond between the brother and sister". Bronia nonetheless continued her sibling loyalty. She showed her support for Vaslav's career, especially during his 1914 production of ''Season Nijinsky'' in London. In 1913 Vaslav married Romola de Pulszky suddenly while in Argentina. It was a confounding surprise to his mother and sister. In 1917 his ballet career ended in confusion and controversy. Thereafter he lived with Romola and their children in Switzerland for many years. He died in Sussex, UK, in 1950. Vaslav was survived by his wife and by Kyra and Tamara, their two daughters; and by Tamara's daughter, and by Kyra's son Vaslav Markevitch. In 1931 Kyra had danced in her aunt Bronia's company 'Ballets Nijinska'.


Marriages, children

Nijinska married twice. Her first husband, Alexandre Kochetovsky, was a fellow dancer for Ballet Russes. She calls him 'Sasha' in her ''Early Memoirs''. Married in London in 1912, they soon left for Russia. She gave birth to two children: their daughter Irina Nijinska in 1913 in Saint Petersburg (called 'Irushka'), and Leon Kochetovsky, their son in 1919 in Kiev (called 'Levushka'). Their marriage had entered difficult times, first during war and then in revolution. They continuously had worked together in dance productions. After Leon was born, Bronia and Sasha separated. He moved to Odessa. In 1921 Nijinska left Soviet Russia with her children and her mother. After meeting again briefly in 1921 in London, they were divorced in 1924. Their son Leon was killed in a traffic accident in 1935. Their daughter Irina, who'd become a ballet dancer, was seriously injured in that 1935 traffic collision. In 1946 Irina married Gibbs S. Raetz, and they had two children, Natalie and George. After her mother's death in 1972, she edited her ''Memoirs'' and managed revivals of her ballets. Irina died in 1991. A love of her life, but whom she did not marry, was also a theatrical personality, the Russian opera singers, Russian opera singer and renowned Bass (voice type), basso, Feodor Chaliapin (1873–1938). Their career paths had crossed several times, but for a romance to blossom their circumstances worked against them. Yet their strong artistic link and mutual admiration continued. He remained a treasured source of her musical and theatrical inspiration. Nijinska's second marriage in 1924 was to Nicholas Singaevsky (called 'Kolya'). A few years her junior, he'd been a former student and dancer at the 'Ecole de Mouvement' she had founded in Kiev following the Russian revolution. He, too, had left Russia. They met again as exiles in Monte Carlo. He became associated with Ballets Russes as a dancer. They were married in 1924. During their four decades together, he often worked in production and management, acting as her business partner in staging her various ballet productions and other projects. In America he also translated for her, especially when she taught at the ballet studio. He died in Los Angeles, California, in 1968, four years before her. Bronislava Nijinska died on February 21, 1972, in Pacific Palisades, California, after suffering a heart attack. She was 81. She was survived by her daughter, son-in-law, and two grandchildren.Anderson (1991): Irina, who had married in 1946, and her children.


In fine arts

On 11 June 2011, a sculpture of the Polish/Russian dancers Vaslav Nijinsky and his sister Bronislava Nijinska was unveiled at the Teatr Wielki, its foyer. See photograph at start of this article. They are portrayed in their roles as Faun and Nymph from the ballet ''Afternoon of a Faun (Nijinsky), L’après-midi d’un faune''. Commissioned by the Polish National Ballet, the sculpture was made in bronze by Ukrainian sculptor Giennadij Jerszow.


See also

*Buffalo Ballet Theater *:Ballets by Bronislava Nijinska *List of Russian ballet dancers *Polish National Ballet


Bibliography


Primary

*Bronislava Nijinska, "On Movement and the School of Movement" from her choreographic notebooks 1919-1925, as translated from Russian original by Anya Lem and Thelwall Proctor, edited by Joan Ross Acocella and Lynn Garafola, text in Baer (1986), pp. 85–87 [cf. p. 88,nn1+3], , and apparently in ''Ballet Review'', 13/4 (Winter 1986), [cited by Garafola (1989), p. 203,n10]. An "abbreviated and highly revised version" [according to Baer (1986), p. 88,n3] in ''Schrifttanz'', Wien 1930. Also: edited by Valerie Preston-Dunlop and Susanne Lahusen in ''Schrifttanz: A view of German dance in the Weimar Republic'' (London: Dance Books 1990) [cited by Garafola (1989), p. 203,n7]. *Bronislava Nijinska, "Reflections about the production of ''Les Biches'' and ''Hamlet'' in Markova-Dolin ballets", translated by
Lydia Lopokova Lydia Lopokova, Baroness Keynes (born Lidia Vasilyevna Lopukhova, russian: Лидия Васильевна Лопухова; 21 October 1891 – 8 June 1981) was a Russian ballerina famous during the early 20th century. Lopokova trained at the ...
for ''Dancing Times'' (Feb. 1937), p. 617, [cited by Baer (1986), p. 103]. *Bronislava Nijinska, "Creation of ''Les noces''", translated by Jean M. Serafetinides and Irina Nijinska, for ''Dance Magazine'', (Dec. 1974) v.48/no.12, pp. 558–61, [cited by Baer (1986), p. 103]. *Bronislava Nijinska, "The Triumph of Petipa", in A. Nekhendzi, ed., ''Marius Petipa. Materialny, Vospominania, Stat'i'' (Leningrad: Leningrad State Theater Museum, no date), v.I, p. 317, [cited by Garafola (2005), p. 203,n3]. *Bronislava Nijinska, ''Early Memoirs'' (New York: Holt Rinehart Winston 1981; reprint 1992, Duke University), translated and edited by Irina Nijinska and Jean Rawlinson, with an Introduction by and in consultation with Anna Kisselgoff. **Irina Nijinska, "Bronislava Nijinska: Highlights of Choreographic Career" at pp. 519–523 in Nijinska (1981). **Holly Brubach
"A Life in Dance"
book review of Nijinska's ''Early Memoirs'', in ''The New York Times'', Sep 20, 1981. Accessed 2017-04-28. *Nancy Van Norman Baer, ''Bronislava Nijinska. A dancer's legacy'' (Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco 1986). ;Articles *Joan Acocella, "Nijinsky/Nijinska Revivals: The Rite Stuff," in ''Art in America,'' October 1991, pp. 128–137 and 167-171. *Jack Anderson (dance critic), Jack Anderson
"Preserving Nijinska's Ballets. A family affair"
in ''The New York Times'', August 18, 1991". Accessed 2017-04-28. *Jack Anderson

in ''The New York Times'', July 4, 1991'. Acc'd 2018-1-18. *Jack Anderson

in ''The New York Times'', June 5, 1982. Accessed 2017-6-28, *Jack Anderson, "La Nijinska" in ''The Dancing Times'' (April 1972). *Jack Anderson. "The Fabulous Career of Bronislava Nijinska" in ''Dance Magazine'', August 1963, pp. 40–46. *Lisa C.Arkin. "Bronislava Nijinska and the Polish Ballet, 1937-1938: Missing Chapter of the Legacy," in ''Dance Research Journal,'' 24/2, (Fall 1992), pp. 1–16. *Nancy Van Norman Baer (NVB), "Bronislava Nijinska" at pp. 214–220 in Carnes, editor
''Invisible Giants: Fifty Americans... ''
(Oxford University 2002). *R. C. Elwood
"Nijinska, Bronislava (1891–1972)"
in Anne Commire, ed., ''Women in World History'' (Gale 2002). Acc'd 2017-04-29. *Drue Fergison, "Bringing ''Les noces'' to the Stage" in Garafola and Baer (1999). * Lynn Garafola
"An amazon of the avant-garde: Bronislava Nijinska in revolutionary Russia"
in ''Dance Research'' (2011/2012), vol.29, pp. 109–166. *Lynn Garafola, "Choreography by Nijinska" at pp. 194–204 in her ''Legacies of twentieth-century dance'' (2005). *Ruth Eleanor Howard, "Nijinska Visits America: The Sister of the Great Nijinsky Is Interviewed," in ''The American Dancer,'' July 1935. * *Robert Johnson. "Ritual and Abstraction in Nijinska's ''Les noces''," in ''The Dance Chronicle,'' Vol. 10, Number 2, 1987, pp. 147–169. *Robert Johnson, "Go Russes, Young Man," in Ballet Review, 37.4, Winter 2009/10, pp. 34–42. *Anna Kisselgoff
"Nijinska, in her time, was a ballet avant gardist"
in ''The New York Times'', May 11, 1986. Accessed 2017-04-28. *Anna Kisselgoff

''The New York Times'', Dec. 15, 1984. Accessed 2017-6-28. *Anna Kisselgoff

obituary in ''The New York Times'', February 23, 1972. Accessed 2017-04-28. *Valerie Lawson
"Bronislava Nijinska - 'downright difficult and determined'"
at Dancelines website (2011). Accessed 2017-04-28. *Dawn Lille

in ''Art Times Journal'' (May/June 2011). Accessed 2017-04-28. *Maureen E. Maryanski
"Bronislava Nijinska (1891–1972)"
in ''Dance Heritage Coalition'', 2013. Accessed 2017-04-28. *Carmen Paris & Javier Bayo
"Nijinska, Bronislava (1891-1972)"
in MCNBiografías. Accessed 2018-4-6. *Maria Ratanova, "The choreographic avant-garde in Kyiv 1916-1921: Bronislava Nijinska & her Ecole de Mouvement" in Makaryk & Tkacz (2010). *Octavio Roca
"Passion, Possession in Stunning ''Bolero'', Oakland revives steamy Nijinska ballet"
in ''SF Gate'', Oct. 23, 1995. Accessed 2018-1-18. *Margaret Severn, "Dancing with Nijinska" in ''Dance Chronicle'' (1988), reprinted at pp. 690–697 in Gottlieb (2008). *Steve Shelokhonov
"Bronslava Nijinska Biography"
at IMDb. Accessed 2017-04-28. *Obituary
"Irina Nijinska; Restaged historic ballets"
in ''The Los Angeles Times'', July 6, 1991. Accessed 2018-3-15. **Dance Heritage Coalition
Bronislava Nijinska books and articles
Accessed 2017-04-28. ;Media *The Paris Opera Ballet, ''Paris dances Diaghilev'' (Elektra Nonsuch 1991), VHS [includes ''Les noces''). *The Paris Opera Ballet, ''Picasso and Dance'' (Kultur 1994), DVD (includes ''Le Train Bleu''). **Joffrey Ballet
"Les noces" (The Wedding)
[program] premier: Oct 6, 1989, Washington, D.C. Accessed 2017-6-28. **Library of Congress
Bronislava Nijinska Collection
Accessed 2017-04-28.
Unedited photographs, including of Nijinska's ''Les noces'' (brown and white costumes)
at Google (n.d.). * Lynn Garafola
"Bronislava Nijinska: A choreographer's journey"
audio of lecture (1:13:47) at the National Gallery of Art, July 7, 2013. Accessed 2017-04-28.

KQED-TV, 1990 Emmy Award.


Secondary

*Jack Anderson (dance critic), Jack Anderson, ''The One and Only. The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo'' (New York: Dance Horizons 1981). *
George Balanchine George Balanchine (; Various sources: * * * * born Georgiy Melitonovich Balanchivadze; ka, გიორგი მელიტონის ძე ბალანჩივაძე; January 22, 1904 (O. S. January 9) – April 30, 1983) was ...
, ''Balanchine's complete stories of the great ballets'' (New York: Doubleday 1954). *Alexander Bland, ''The Royal Ballet. The first 50 years'' (New York: Threshold/Doubleday 1981), foreword by
Ninette de Valois Dame Ninette de Valois (born Edris Stannus; 6 June 1898 – 8 March 2001) was an Irish-born British dancer, teacher, choreographer, and director of classical ballet. Most notably, she danced professionally with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Ru ...
. *Mary Clarke (dance critic), Mary Clarke and Clement Crisp, ''Ballet. An illustrated history'' (London: A & C Black 1973; rev'd 1992, Hamish Hamilton, London). *
Agnes de Mille Agnes George de Mille (September 18, 1905 – October 7, 1993) was an American dancer and choreographer. Early years Agnes de Mille was born in New York City into a well-connected family of theater professionals. Her father William C. deMill ...
, ''The Book of the Dance'' (London: Paul Hamlyn 1963). *Agnes de Mille, ''Portrait Gallery'' (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin 1990). *
Michel Fokine Michael Fokine, ''Mikhail Mikhaylovich Fokin'', group=lower-alpha ( – 22 August 1942) was a groundbreaking Imperial Russian choreographer and dancer. Career Early years Fokine was born in Saint Petersburg to a prosperous merchant an ...
, ''Memoirs of a ballet master'' (Boston: Little, Brown 1961), translated by Vitale Fokine. * Lynn Garafola, ''Legacies of twentieth-century dance'' (Wesleyan University 2005). *Lynn Garafola, ''Diaghilev's Ballets Russes'' (Oxford University 1989, reprint Da Capo Press). *Vincente García-Márquez, ''The Ballets Russes. Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo 1932–1952'' (NY: Knopf 1990). *Robert Gottlieb, ''George Balanchine. The ballet maker'' (New York: Harper Perennial 2004). *Robert Greskovic, ''Ballet. A complete guide'' ([NY: Hyperion 1998], London: Robert Hale 2000). *Arnold L. Haskell with Walter Nouvel, ''Diaghileff. His artistic and private life'' (New York: Simon and Schuster 1935). *Jennifer Homans, ''Apollo's Angels. A history of ballet'' (New York: Random House 2010). *Allegra Kent, ''Once a Dancer. An autobiography'' (New York: St. Martin's Press 1997). *
Boris Kochno Boris Evgenievich Kochno or Kokhno (russian: Бори́с Евге́ньевич Кохно́; 3 January 1904 – 8 December 1990) was a Russian poet, dancer and librettist. Early life Kochno was born in Moscow, Russia, on 3 January 1904. His fa ...
, ''Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes'' (New York: Harper and Row 1970). * John Martin, ''The Dance. The story of the dance told in pictures and texts'' (New York: Tudor 1946), *John Martin, ''The Modern Dance'' (New York: A. S. Barnes 1933, reprint: Dance Horizons, New York 1990). *Léonide Massine, ''My Life in Ballet'' (London: Macmillan 1968). *Lucy Moore, ''Nijinsky'' (London: Profile Books 2013, 2014). *Romola Nijinsky, ''Nijinsky'' (New York: Simon and Schuster 1934, reprint Pocket Books 1972). *Peter Ostwald, ''Vaslav Nijinsky. A leap into madness'' (New York: Lyle Stuart 1991). *Nancy Reynolds and Malcolm McCormick, ''No Fixed Points. Dance in the twentieth century'' (Yale University 2003). * Lydia Sokolova, ''Dancing for Diaghilev. Memoirs ... '' (London: John Murray 1960, reprint San Francisco 1989), Richard Buckle, ed. *
Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...
, ''Chroniques de ma vie'' (Paris 1935), transl. as ''Stravinsky: An autobiography'' (NY: Simon & Schuster 1936). *Igor Stravinsky, ''Poetics of Music'' (1940; London: Geoffrey Cumberlege 1947). *Igor Stravinsky and
Robert Craft Robert Lawson Craft (October 20, 1923 – November 10, 2015) was an American conductor and writer. He is best known for his intimate professional relationship with Igor Stravinsky, on which Craft drew in producing numerous recordings and books. ...
, ''Exposition and Development'' (London: Faber & Farver 1962) *Eric Walter White, ''Stravinsky: The composer and his work'' (Berkeley: University of California 1966). *Vicki Woolf, ''Dancing in the Vortex: The Story of Ida Rubinstein'' (Routledge 2001). ;reference books or edited books *Willi Apel, et al., ''Harvard Dictionary of Music'' (Harvard University 1944, 2d ed. 1969, 1972). *Lynn Garafola and Nancy Van Norman Baer, editors, ''The Ballets Russes and its World'' (Yale University 1999). *Robert Gottlieb, editor, ''Reading Dance'' (New York: Pantheon 2008). *Horst Koegler, ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Ballet'' ([1972]; Oxford University 1977). *Irena Rima Makaryk and Virlana Tkacz, editors, ''Modernism in Kiev: Jubilant Experimentation'' (University of Toronto 2010). ;Articles *Joan Acocella
"Secrets of Nijinsky"
in ''The New York Review of Books'', Jan. 14, 1999. Accessed 2017-05-11. *Alexandre Benois, "On the origins of Ballets Russes" (1944), in Kochno (1970), pp. 2–21. * Lynn Garafola, "Rivals for the New. The Ballets Suédois and the Ballets Russes" in Baer, editor, ''Paris Modern. The Swedish Ballet 1920-1925'' (San Francisco: Fine Arts Museum 1996). *Marina Harss
"Revisiting 'The Fairy's kiss', a ballet about an artist's destiny"
in ''New York Times'', Feb. 7, 2017. Acc'd 2017-6-28. *Lorna Sanders, "Les noces (Svadebka/The Wedding)" in ''Dancing Times,'' vol. 95 (Oct. 2004), pp. 48–53. *
Maria Tallchief Elizabeth Marie Tallchief ( Osage family name: , Osage script: ; January 24, 1925 – April 11, 2013) was an American ballerina. She was considered America's first major prima ballerina. She was the first Native American (Osage Nation) to ...
with Larry Kaplan
"Maria Tallchief. America's Prima Ballerina"
in ''The Washington Post'', 1997. Accessed 2017-04-28. *David Vaughan, "Classicism and Neoclassicism" in Garafola and Baer (1999). ;Inspired by Nijinska *Eva Stachniak, ''The Chosen Maiden'' (Penguin Random House 2017) [historical novel]. *Kate Westbrook (musician), Kate Westbrook
"The Nijinska Chamber"
K W Recordings, 2006 [audio].


References


External links


Timeline of Life and Work

Letter from Nijinska to Diaghilev (1921)

''Bolero'' choreographed by Nijinska
youtube.com (Bolero - Maria Alexandrova). 2017-5-19.
''Le train bleu'' choreographed by Nijinska
youtube.com (Le train bleu - Juan Mtz. de lejarza). 2017-5-19.
''Les Biches'' by B. Nijinska
youtube.com (Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Ballets Russes Festival 2014). 2017-8-19.
''Les noces'' by Nijinska
youtube.com (Les noces - Sladobka: Oakland Ballet). 2017-6-28. {{DEFAULTSORT:Nijinska, Bronislava 1891 births 1972 deaths People from Minsk Ballerinas from the Russian Empire Prima ballerinas White Russian emigrants to France French emigrants to the United States Ballet choreographers Ballets Russes choreographers Choreographers from the Russian Empire People from the Russian Empire of Polish descent Choreographers of American Ballet Theatre Ukrainian ballerinas Ballets Russes dancers Russian Roman Catholics Polish Roman Catholics Ukrainian Roman Catholics Diarists from the Russian Empire Ukrainian people of Polish descent Ballets by Bronislava Nijinska, Bronislava Nijinska