ABSTRACT
A much reproduced drawing by Jean Cocteau shows Nijinsky in the wings after Le Spectre de la Rose (1911). Like a boxer between bouts, he lies back exhausted on a chair holding a glass of water while Vassili, Diaghilev's valet, fans him with a towel. In the background, looking concerned, are Diaghilev, Bakst and Misia Edwards (later Sert) and her husband. Part of the mythology about Nijinsky concerns his incredible leap out through the window at the end of this piece and, in general, the extraordinary agility and elevation of his jumps. Michel Fokine, however, talked down Nijinsky's leap (Fokine 1961: 180-1). An ton Dolin claims that he had danced most of Nijinsky's roles either with the Ballets Russes or subsequently and with many dancers from the original casts. In his opinion Nijinsky's roles were not that demanding technically. This is perhaps to miss a crucial point about the attitude towards technical feats shared by Nijinsky, Pavlova, Fokine and other dancers of their generation from the Imperial Theatres. They disliked the tours de forces performed by the older generation of ballerinas and male dancers, feeling that these looked mechanical and were unsympathetic to the creation of an artistic feeling in performance. (But the younger dancers had all been trained to perform and all did perform the virtuoso roles in the Petipa repertoire.) Nijinsky's sister Bronislava, in her Early Memoirs, gives us several very detailed accounts of her brother 's performances and how he prepared for them. She tells how his daily practice was geared towards developing his strength and that he would practise much more difficult feats than were needed for his roles. She also says that he would practise to minimize the preparations for jumps, and that he worked at finding how to land softly afterwards, so that when he was on stage his performance would appear effortless and flowing.
