I am asked regularly by my awesome Commenters (I consider them mine.  We, all 2,000 philistines have been rocking the 87 Joffrey on YouTube for 7 years.  Other than breathing, I have done nothing that long).

Already off track.

I am asked “what is this about other than scaring people”.
“is this fake or like real mythology”. “so what’s the story behind this.  I  heard  everyone hated Stravinsky.”

Shit, what happened to that post from 2010!  Nearly 6,000 people read it: a soup to nuts on Le Sacre.  Probably full of inaccuracies but I assure you, I made up for it in drama and emotion.  I was in a trance over Le Sacre du Printemps, the Nijinsky choreography as RECOVERED by Hodson,Archer, Robert Joffrey. Take that you bitchy prima from _________.  Sending me a note to be careful with my wording:  it is a reconstruction.

I wanted to say “is this because you were a horrible Chosen One. Bitch.

Ok…This was supposed to be simple facts for new Commenters and I am off the rails in the first 5 minutes on the keyboard.

Ready, Steady, Go!

1.  Vaslav Nijinsky was the darling of the Russian Imperial Ballet, famous world round for his leaps.  Nijinsky could dunk a basketball from a standing position. Not really.,  Basketball didn’t exist yet.

2. The “Impresario” Serge Diaghilev, in love with Nijinsky or the fame he would bring his Ballet Russes, steals the whole Russian company (almost) and, with Stravinsky whom Diaghilev recognized as a genius, throws a MASSIVE (fire) BIRD at Russia.  

3.  Stravinsky has great success with “The Firebird”, not asking much yet of the ear of Parisian aristocracy.   It was tricky and a little advanced for people who only like “ec ta ta”…but there were tutu’s so it was ok. 

4.  Nijinsky leaps through one traditional ballet after another, sleeping with Diaghilev though who was using who we will never know.  Something tells me they didn’t even know. 

5: NOW COMS Petrushka.  Nijinsky is the star of Stravinsky’s ballet.  The Maestro does not like him and this photo is A PROMO SHOT not an indication of a relationship. (Stravinsky would not accept that Nijinsky understood his music or created something brilliant until 1961)

HOWEVER…in his later years he ” would tell stories of how Nijinsky inspired him.  Look:

6:  Nijinsky is given a shot at his own choreography by his boyfriend the “Impresario Diaghilev”.  It is completely odd, bodies bent in the opposite direction of traditional ballet, a strange libretto with an end that implies masturbation.  Set to Debussy, he got away with it.   It was called L’apre midi d’u n faune” (this small clip of Pietragalla and Charles Jude is near perfect). His next choreography would ruin him and solidify Stravinsky as one of the greatest composers in history.

7.  Nicholas Roerich writes a libretto of Russian Pagans who must sacrifice a virgin each year to a Sun Dude named Jarillo who will give them the energy of the sun and they can stomp it into the earth and plants will grow and they will not starve.  Of course, he wants a virgin who will have to oddly  sacrifice herself!  Which is why they “glorify her” .    The young maidens choose the virgin which boils down to “who do we hate”.! That circle would be a fist fight were I Chosen.’

The Sacrifice jumps herself to death.  Over 135 leaps in under 5 minutes – these dancers an elite group and don’t go looking for any “Ekaterinas”.  

She dances herself to death – watch the Joffrey’s Beatriz Rodriguez before anything else.   She dances herself to death with something like 139 leaps in less than 5 minutes.  

8. Nijinsky uses 50 performers and treats them as soloists in groups of 5 or 6 (I got that from Millicent Hodson – the most enlightened and patient choreographer/woman I have ever met).  But man, this is something too new for 1913.  He magnifies the ever changing Rite of Spring by finding a way for each “group of soloists” to represent the 100 instruments playing in the pit.  But most importantly he stuck to the libretto.  Nijinsky was later diagnosed a schizophrenic.  It is thought the illness broke during his choreography.  I don’t buy it. 

8.  A so called “Riot” ensues.  Nijinsky’s ballet is performed 9 times and lost for 80 years.  It was his masterpiece and he was denied the acknowledgment.  He is sent on tour during which time he marries a woman and  Diaghilev kicks him out of the ballet in a jealous fit. 

9.  Nijinsky’s career ends within ten or so years.  His wife and child watch him take n away, institutionalized for the rest of his life. 

10.   HORRIBLE choreographies, maybe 30 are set to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.  They were ridiculously stupid,  and I have lambasted each one somewhere in this blog, with the exception of Tero Saarinen’s  interpretation; the first multi-media performance I ever saw.

11.  Robert Joffrey has dance historian Millicent Hodson begin a restoration of Nijinsky’s hidden ballet.  She meets and marries Kenneth Archer, himself an archeologist if art and historian at the top of his profession. Because of Dr. Archer, we learn about Nicholas Roerich:  a huge clue to Le Sacre du Printemps.

12.  A decade passes, Robert Joffrey’s cancer pushed into stage 4, Nijinsky stepped it up for his Champion and is resurrected.  The Joffrey Ballet performs it for the world, an unknown dancer named Beatriz Rodriguez played The Chosen One a terrifying and nearly unbearable solo:  dancing herself to death. The corp de ballet is transfigured, I dare you to find someone not plugged in.  Robert Joffrey dies months after the debut, his long search for Nijinsky complete. 

13.  The ballet world changes.

14.  The Nijinsky Inheritance is left to The Joffrey who saved him and his ballet from a certain death.

15.  You just commented on it,

Slow curtain, the end.