Categorical Bifurcation: The Rite of Spring at the Threshold of Modernism

Pursuing a new theoretical link between sociology of culture and ‘categorization’ research, the article articulates the process whereby new categories emerge through bifurcation of pre-existing categories. The contribution is in conceptualizing and documenting the underlying interaction of endogenous and exogeneous factors. The assumption is that bifurcation is likely to occur where and when individual practices of contrast maximization interact with the internal tendency toward dichotomization. This form of interaction is instrumental in identifying and explaining ‘thresholds’ in cultural change. The framework is illustrated with the archetype of ‘modern ballet’ – The Rite of Spring, choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky, staged in 1913. By reversing the codes of ‘classical’ ballet, centered on elegance, lightness and flow, the Rite redefined movement, codifying a language of tension, interruption and constraint. It marked the key moment when a critical part of the audience interpreted ‘bad’ ballet as ‘new’ ballet. The analysis draws parallels with bifurcation processes in physics and system dynamics.

The Critical Reception of Serge Lifar (1929–1939)

Chapter 2 analyzes the critical reception of Serge Lifar at the Paris Opera during the 1930s. Evidence is presented of Lifar’s poor critical reception at the start of the decade and the characteristics of his dancing are analyzed in relation to the developing ideals of neoclassical ballet. The analysis reveals a gradual drift in critical language toward a fascist conception of Lifar’s dancing body as a polarity machine. This vision of Lifar is put forward with respect to the double level of artistic activity demanded of the dance artist who, as choreographer, is the contemplative painter of compositions, but who as dancer is the sculptor whose artistic material is his own body. Lifar seemed to embody by turns both the Apollonian and Dionysian sides of Nietzsche’s influential argument on the origin of tragedy. The chapter also covers the debate over the meaning of neoclassicism in French ballet during the 1930s and the role Lifar played in this debate both as an object of discussion and an interlocutor. Critics include Russian émigrés under the influence of Akim Volynsky: André Levinson, Julia Sazonova, and André Schaïkevitch and their French compeers Roger Lannes and Maurice Brillant. Arguing for a formalist and idealist conception of balletic neoclassicism, the Russo-French school used the work of Serge Lifar as their main example. This chapter also explores in depth André Levinson’s change of heart concerning Lifar and the relation of Lifar to Vaslav Nijinsky in Levinson’s criticism.

The Spirit of Vaslav Nijinsky

The Spirit of Vaslav Nijinsky is a short comic created in 2016, telling the story of the famed ballet star who, in 1919, suffered a mental breakdown that resulted in a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Before his breakdown, Vaslav Nijinsky was known as ‘The God of Dance’, and regarded as the greatest male ballet star of his generation. His success as a ballet dancer paired with the details of his later life often associates him with the stereotype of a genius artist succumbing to madness. The nature of live art means the majority of Nijinsky’s work no longer survives intact, with only snippets of static documentation and ephemera left in the wake of performances hinting at his genius. However, in the lead up to his diagnosis, Nijinsky left two concrete bodies of work that are now regarded as important in the field of mental health history. First are a series of abstract drawings, and second are a collection of notebooks now known as The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky. Both are fascinating documents on the subject of mental illness and served as the main inspiration for the narrative of the comic. The story of Nijinsky’s life and career has become the stuff of legend because of his enigmatic quality as a historical figure. This article explores the ephemera and historical documentation associated with this fascinating yet intangible artist, and how they inspired the content, process and aesthetic of The Spirit of Vaslav Nijinsky.

The Electric Body

The relationship between the discovery and application of electricity and the human body in the 19th and 20th centuries is complex and multifaceted. Used to stimulate nervous and muscular reactions in the fields of medicine and biology or to record the more intimate movements of the body (cf. the electrocardiogram), electricity established the basis of what today we might call the modern electric – or digital – body. Another aspect, hitherto little explored, is that of the relationship between the electric body and the aesthetics of movement in dance. Visionary choreographers – those who anticipated ‘modern dance’ – such as Vaslav Nijinsky realised that the involuntary movements, often spasmodic and out of control, which electric stimuli could incite (Luigi Galvani comes to mind), could also suggest totally new ideas to the dancer. On the other hand, this kind of movement, syncopated, spasmodic and often uncontrollable, also elicited somewhat morbid analogies with mental disease – a field of research as much ambiguous and equivocal as the new European dance itself wherein hysteria mingled with ecstasy and schizophrenia with emancipation from all conventions. The focus of this essay is on Nijinsky’s choreographic concepts vis-à-vis ecstatic or ‘lunatic’ movement, for his, indeed, was a modern ‘electric body’.

El cuerpo danzante en la invención del lazo social: el caso Nijinsky

Este artículo investiga el problema de las condiciones de posibilidad de los lazos sociales en el caso de sujetos psicóticos. Desde el marco teórico del psicoanálisis lacaniano interroga la tesis del “fuera de discurso” de las psicosis. Desde un punto de vista metodológico, procede por construcción y análisis del caso del bailarín Vaslav Nijinsky a partir de sus cuadernos autobiográficos, de su biografía y de distintos testimonios. El análisis de este caso nos permite concluir que el armado de un cuerpo a través de la danza fue posibilitado por la función del “nombrar para” que Lacan describe en 1974 y que sustituye al funcionamiento metafórico del Nombre-del-Padre. La constitución de un cuerpo danzante y su ejercicio actuaron en Nijinsky como causa del deseo del poderoso representante Diaghilev, quien lo transformó en una estrella, ovacionada para el público.

Os Faunos de Nijinsky: As (Re) Interpretações de L’Après-Midi D’um Faune

Com música por Claude Debussy, design de Liev Bakst e coreografia de Vaslav Nijinsky, L'Après-midi d'un Faune estreou, no palco do Théâtre du Châtelet, em Paris, no dia 29 de maio de 1912, com grande polêmica. Retratando a história do encontro de um Fauno com um grupo de ninfas por meio de movimentos marcados e uma posição-base pouco convencional para o ballet clássico à época, o primeiro trabalho como coreógrafo do aclamado "deus da dança" foi imerso nas controvérsias que levariam o espetáculo, e a personagem do Fauno, a serem vistos como sinônimo do nome Vaslav Nijinsky. Enquanto única coreografia do bailarino russo a sobreviver os quase setenta anos entre sua estreia e a reconstrução feita na década de 1980, L'Après-midi d'un Faune viveu na memória. Este trabalho busca refletir se essa diz mais respeito à coreografia em si ou ao coreógrafo.

A Directory of Diaghilev Dancers

Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes came to an end with his death in 1929, but it has since been an endless source of fascination and inspiration for dancers, dance historians and fans. It would seem that every aspect of the Ballets Russes has been exhaustively explored and documented – from the art, the music and the choreography, to the personalities who created them. The names of Anna Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina and Vaslav Nijinsky are legendary, and many others (Michel Fokine, George Balanchine, Ninette De Valois, Marie Rambert) went on to influence and define the art of ballet for much of the 20th century. But what of the hundreds of dancers who actually gave life and form to the Ballets Russes? Who were they? Where did they come from? How long did they spend with the company? The following listing of more than 400 performers is a comprehensive record of the dancing artists who performed with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.

Gestural Imaginaries

Gestural Imaginaries: Dance and Cultural Theory in the Early Twentieth Century offers a new interpretation of European modernist dance by addressing it as guiding medium in a vibrant field of gestural culture that ranges across art and philosophy. Taking further Cornelius Castoriadis’s concept of the social imaginary, it explores this imaginary’s embodied forms. Close readings of dances, photographs, and literary texts are juxtaposed with discussions of gestural theory by thinkers including Walter Benjamin, Sigmund Freud, and Aby Warburg. Choreographic gesture is defined as a force of intermittency that creates a new theoretical status of dance. The book shows how this also bears on contemporary theory. It shifts emphasis from Giorgio Agamben’s preoccupation with gestural mediality to Jacques Rancière’s multiplicity of proliferating, singular gestures, arguing for their ethical and political relevance. Mobilizing dance history and movement analysis, it highlights the critical impact of works by choreographers such as Vaslav Nijinsky, Jo Mihaly, and Alexander and Clotilde Sakharoff. It also offers choreographic readings of Franz Kafka and Alfred Döblin. Gestural Imaginaries proposes that modernist dance conducts a gestural revolution that enacts but also exceeds the insights of past and present cultural theory. It makes a case for archive-based, cross-medial, and critically informed dance studies, transnational German studies, and the theoretical potential of performance itself.

Kostümentwurf von Léon Bakst zum Ballett „L’Après-midi d’un faune“ für Vaslav Nijinsky

Der russisch-französische Maler und Bühnenbildner Léon Bakst (eigentlich: Leib-Chaim Israilewitsch Rosenberg), der am 9. Mai 1866 in Grodno (heute: Weißrussland) geboren und am 27. Dezember 1924 in Rueil-Malmaison (Frankreich) gestorben ist, zählt zu den größten und besten Kostüm- und Bühnenbildnern, die die Ballett-Welt kennt.