all photos on Nijinsky’s masterpiece
Periodically I will find photos from the epic debut of the 1987 Joffrey Ballet “Le Sacre du Printemps” on EBAY. Now, mixed in are porn photos. WTF? These photos have the name Rima Corben attached. Now I could gpo through the machinations of cleaning them up and posting a nice little gallery but I am going to just post them as is and I will not include the porn.
So if you want to see photos of the 1987 Joffrey mixed in with hardcore porn, Ebay is the place for ya.
HERE COMES BALLET SHADE #5.
THIS is not going to be a post about Nijinsky’s recovered choreography of 1913. It’s going to be about the barf on the stage floor that only appears when an atrocity – an afront even – to that brilliance of Vaslav Nijinsky is left behind in a delusional horrible dance. Big shout out to some stupid dance companies.
I’ve never been able to understand how Pina Bausch could take such a pedestrian approach to the Rite of Spring after she had seen the original choreography? She is a genius or was and I can’t believe it is her behind stripping a girl down and having her dance with her tit out? First year dance student at a junior college could have done better than this but let’s move forward to something I never ever thought I would see and I think Pierre Boulez probably wishes he never did.
“Le Saddle du printemps” ok that’s not what it was called but can you believe that there was a horse scene? I mean there are horses in this ballet! Ths dude Bartabas who created it was once the third of Barnum Baily and Bartabas but the former 2 kicked him out for being too serious. So he stole their horses, hoodwinked Boulez and well well,., here we are with a well kept secret horse ballet.
OF COURSE! The Rite of Spring means nothing without a gang rape said a chain smoking french pig choreographer. Angelin Prelocaj concluded – stupidly – that it is not a gang rape if the Rite of Spring is in the background. This dude should have been arrested but it seems gang rape is legal provided Stravinsky is playing in the background. I wonder what crimes you could get away with to Edgard Varese? Fuck your disgusting ballet.
OH GAWD….Sasha waltz created the ugliest choreography I’ve ever seen. If you’re going to have a naked girl dance in The Chosen One I guess making her look like a crab from outer space might sort of take a little heat off of you? Like in your gut you know it sucks so get a weird creepy dancer to blame. Just in case. It’s gross. Too hard to look at even.
Oh Bejart this was horrendous and lazy like you were busy and called your assistant to say “make it about humping in leotards, maye some jazz hands”, hung up and went about your day. I can’t shit on you too hard, however, because of what you did with the Nutcracker? You literally made it the ball buster I always thought it was and it got you a ticket out of my blog post that nobody’s going to read anyway.
When I saw Isadora Weiss choreography I spent way too much time trying to figure out where her cake was. I mean is the woman a slave is she a complete masochist or is she a dominant sadist it’s impossible to tell so I wrote to her and asked. It was in 2023 so there’s still time I suppose for her to get back to me fingers crossed bitch .
Of course I left a message a day on the voice mail of the Governor of Alabama who doesn’t understand Christianity and they finally answered the phone and said stop calling. I replied “Yeah I have already moved on to a better headcase.”
Marie Chouinard is fucked in the head. My biggest fear is that she will team up with Jan Fabre. I have nothing more to say.
LET”S CLOSE WITH…what?
Huh? Was MacMillan a great choreographer who fucked up the Rite of Spring or was he a terrible one in a world where dancers dream of being in stupid cartoons? That a Chosen One from the Nijinsky choreography – and she was brilliant – would make this her final performance over the authentic one where she excelled…how do you describe that…OH!. STUPID! That’s the word I was looking for. Stupid.
Yours because no one else wants me,
Fatova
Yours for
It was a long time ago when I began a Blogger Called This Is Not Swan Lake (igorandmore was the link as I was quite devoted to Stravinsky and just tuning in to The Recovery of Le Sacre du Printemps). BTW…I will never call it a reconstruction.
RECONSTRUCTION: a thing that has been rebuilt after being damaged or destroyed. plural noun: reconstructions.
RECOVERED: find or regain possession of something stolen or lost.
Le Sacre du Printemps was both stolen and lost and by definition later recovered by Robert Joffrey, Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer. So suck it.
I’ve played that ecovered tune from the rooftops – and the gutters – on an old violin that turned out to be worth a fortune. I had no idea that I would become the “digital archivist” of Sacre. This is a humbling term given to me by Millicent Hodson. But really…what the hell? Why was nobody documenting this ballet? I became obsessive and at the same time I had insomnia and for some reason I was prescribed a pill that kept you awake.
You can’t get that anymore. It was a big pharmaceutical fuck up. Of course it wasn’t the “stay awake awesome have fun type of thing” it was more the “stay awake what’s wrong with me why can’t I sleep oh my God what am I going to do what am I going to do I’ll keep myself busy by looking up Stravinsky stuff.”
That was actually on the label.
And so it was there in those rolling time zones that I bumped into people and situations that would change my life in ways I could never imagine. From the ballet’s champion Millicent Hodson to 2 rude English ballerinas to the remarkable Marie Stravinsky to the Chosen One warriors like Ana Lacerda Alba Tapia Priscilla Albuquerque and Gaia Straccamore and then to dancers like my friend in FInland Kirsi Tiilharjua to Anna Simondi of Zurich and the entire archive catalyst Heather Aagard who, all 3 together, were criminally not photographed in the most difficult solo in dance…from all of that and thanks to them I became the finest version of myself. I had something to be truly and quietly proud of.
I don’t believe they know this. They changed my life. And from there, I would do the same.
My old blog tagline was “selling ballet one f-bomb at a time” and somehow I ended up becoming syndicated in a rotation of ballet sites back in 2008. I was in the top 10 which proves you can indeed sell ballet with f-bombs.
My Youtube channel contained the only video of the 1987 Joffrey debut of Nijinsky’s recovered ballet and the place music theory students had to go in a Stravinsky course. It was amazing to watch commenters learn something from me then teach the same thing 3 comments later to another. See?
I am a genius.
Yours until someone else wants me
Fatova
She is a powerhouse. That’s the word.
Millicent Hodson’s name will be forever attached to and revered for the reconstruction of Le Sacre du Printemps though I am loathe to call it a reconstruction: restored. That’s the word for it but God help anyone who tries to use that word legitimately. Except for me, I use it and I am sort of legitimate, right?
I sometimes forget how graceful she is for example: she mentions only the dancers or companies that produced anything worth seeing – that’s how I see it. Many years ago I asked about the Birmingham Royal Ballet and she brought up working on Riot at the Rite and Zenaida Yanowsky who played the Chosen One in the film (and with the BRB). I heard it as grace. They probably were… awful. I have no proof and no dancers have ever responded to me.
It is possible I am blackballed though I can’t be certain.
I found this old poor quality clip from her rehearsal with the Mariinsky (what?!). I was stunned that it was not perfectly shot but in 2008 Russia, you maybe had to ration film although, again I can’t be certain. I tend forget Millicent is a dancer and my God this clip outdoes even Margarita Simonova with motion of spotting in this wild turn (it’s probably termed another way but, again I can’t be certain).
Millicent Hodson has had one illustrious and industrious career. It’s takes all I have just to turn the laptop on and write meanwhile she is writing books on planes between time zones to work with ballet companies and speak at lectures and that is where I first met this tiny powerhouse.
I had moved that morning and had a tooth extraction the evening before so I think the photos were horrid. Though, yeah I can’t be certain.
Anything historical you wish to know about this ballet is found here in a spectacular interview with Millicent and Kenneth Archer. They met in London while researching the ballet and counting thousands of circles and squares to be accurate with costumes, fell in love and got married. And that was in the 80’s when the world was getting divorced. They are still married and clearly still in love. You can see it when you meet them.
Wrapping this post up makes me realize how jealous of Millicent Hodson I am. She is one of my 4 heroes. Without her, I would not have begin this archive or written this post which feels like a good one though I can’t be certain.
Yours for certain,
Fatova
I have watched more crappy videos of the various courageous ballerinas who danced the role of The Chosen One over the last 12 years but I’ve pretty much stopped looking. It still boggles the mind that such a jewel in a ballet company’s Crown was filmed so poorly by nearly everyone but the Mariinsky .
Of course there are other companies -I’m certain – that have nice quality but for some reason they don’t want to release it. I suppose there is a great fear that Philistines may become educated and then where WOULD we be? Or, they just weren’t good.
And then out of the blue I stumbled upon a 1994 rehearsal video – still crappy quality – of CNB’s Ana Lacerda.
I had long thought it was impossible to get a greater lunge out of that solo then the one Zenaida Yanowsky got but I was wrong. All of the extension and perfection only turned inward and awkward it’s just stunning. There is something very special about Ana Lacerda. She is an elegant ballerina an emotional contemporary dancer a gorgeous model and on top of all that she’s a sweet person. This combination doesn’t usually conclude with the words “sweet person”. I suppose you could say simply she is an exceptional person.
the
And I’m so glad that the video is rehearsal so that the dress is not covering what she’s achieving. She’s elegant, she is right on time boy right on each mark though sadly the video will show something a little different because it’s so old and the settings were a little weird.
I wish I could see rehearsal footage of each dancer just to see what is happening, what they’re doing with their body that you cannot see because of the costume.
Would that not interest you? Doesn’t this amazing stunning video of Ana Lacerda make you want that? If you are not saying “yes” then you may have wandered off the path from the Nutcracker or some other torturous thing. Cirque du Soleil.
Yours because no one else wants me,
Fatova
I started this collection, this scavenging operation in 2007. I have made no money. It’s all been for the good of the people. Sounds lofty but listen, I am talking about people like me who are drawn to the choreography for some reason. We found each other on my YouTube channel and the conversations began and my God…what a blessing. Didn’t see it coming.
A kid in middle school wrote to me today about wanting to see rehearsal footage to help him do a little staging for school. Adding that to the request for a full performance other than the old Joffrey or the many boring Mariinsky, I started to get a little bummed out. But it is out of reach. For me. Other people, other companies can have it. But for some reason I am refused. And what the hell is that about?
Why won’t these companies do what I do and share that which is so significant that the question of copyright should be a sacrilege. Why must they refuse the music majors the visual experience that has become part of the curriculum for the Rite of Spring course? I don’t get it and for some reason I am taking it so personally.
For the first time, I want to quit.
Probably because there is an 8th grade kid named Alex who, like many who are oddly drawn to the choreography, he can’t get it out of his head but he takinf steps and he is getting school mates to perform it. He was hoping for rehearsal footage to help him. Anything. I had nothing to give.
He made t-shirts that look like the different costumes.
Act One
Have you ever held a door open saying “after you” to which that person says “no, after you”?
Although I can’t prove it, I’m almost certain that this exchange happened at such a level of ethereality that you have to suspend disbelief if you want to go any further in this article because only one of these people was alive.
Not for long though.
(Stay with me)
After a grueling stretch of picking the bones of this long lost skeleton we know as 1913’s “Le Sacre du Printemps”, Millicent Hodson, Kenneth Archer with Robert Joffrey presented one of the most defining moments in dance history; one so far reaching that I don’t believe anyone really knew in the beginning just how far it would go and the types of people it would reach. I am proof. So are 1200 people who have commented on the Joffrey “Le Sacre” video on YouTube since 2007. That’s another story.
Thank heavens they delivered. If they did not pursue Sacre as hard as they did for all those years to find Nijinsky’s masterpiece then I would be telling a very different tale right now perhaps called What the hell was Kenneth Macmillan thinking??
So was it good? Was the 1989 Joffrey performance – aside from being historically significant, good? That’s baby talk.
It was alarming An 80 year lost ballet became the current-day yardstick by which we measure bad choreography. That’s the bigtime.
But let’s talk about the young man who was deliberately left behind: Vaslav Nijinsky.
Denied, cast off, crumbling mentally, no longer dancing, fearing his life is becoming threadbare, he suffered from the cold fact that his masterpiece was not only misunderstood, but intentionally forgotten. Slowly, he became notes left in a drawer here, a scrap there, a memory, a sketch…he was being erased.
Each year his ghost became less until it had no voice , until there was no form, until only the vague defeated lingering presence of Nijinsky was occasionally alert in the wings of some stage or other, certain that he would never see his work realized, or even be realized for it.
Someone is reading this thinking all that is missing is mist floating around a fat soprano hollering Italian at us. And one can think that, absolutely. They would, however, be missing the biggest piece of this undefinable salvage of dance and spirit and the mystery of human nature but, hey, stick with the probable and I will take the possible. Like Jerry Lewis at a Mariinsky reception, I will still take the possible.
Now remember what Stravinsky said about being “the vessel through which le sacre passed”? If Stravinsky’s own words hold sway on the concept of receiving something – and we are talking about a man proclaimed a genius for all time – then the logic would follow that there was, indeed, a deep spiritual event taking place that spring in the months leading up to May 29, 1913. Of course “Spiritual Event At The Rite” doesn’t sell like “Riot…” and well well, here we are.
But it never happened.
With the first whistle or yell or shout, there was an undoing of what should have been done and by an annoying rioting aristocracy. However…when you examine our own human nature it is likely that these people railed against themselves and their own inability to see, hear or process what was going on. It was a sensory overload and when we do not understand something or we are disturbed by something that feels strange we lash out. We do not, in all cases, stretch ourselves to meet the strangeness.
These French patrons of the arts were stuffy, entitled and living in an era where it was acceptable to be so and their money dictated the stage. Wrong people. Wrong era. And there would be no stretching. Just an effigy.
Stravinsky was flush and Nijinsky never had a chance. Imagine, to be so thickly present and indulged the world over, draped in accolades and given the opportunity to choreograph what will be synonymous with your name, you go all in and lose it all.
He did something so risky with the Sacre choreography because he had the courage to stand by his artistic vision and honor the scenario. How many artists will walk head held high all the way to a metaphorical dumpster without giving in? It’s unlikely he considered it this way because the few who have followed their artistic calling are not aware of how big that moment is.
Nijinsky broke the ground and opened a door for everyone who couldn’t or, worse, didn’t . Then someone reached from the other side and helped him keep in open: Robert Joffrey.
Millicent Hodson, in congress with forces she may have suspected – I think she did – brought something close to perfection to the stage . Did she and Kenneth Archer realize the alchemy of that? Did they suspect that Nijinsky was present? Or that he was finally free after 70 silent years to create a crown from an albatross?
Did he feel the weight of his loss become weightless in Robert Joffrey’s triumph? I say yes. Nijinsky left what meant the most to him as an inheritance to a man who would soon die and leave it to what meant the most to him: his ballet company.
What explanation is there for a regularly changing group of dancers to exist for 34 minutes as something outside of themselves year in and year out? To even exist for 4 minutes in that unmoored and almost aggressive space would be a struggle at best. But not for them.
Robert Joffrey got that choreography onto the stage before he died, freeing Nijinsky. Who waited at the door to free Robert Joffrey. And together they left. One hell of an Inheritance.
Artist. The strokes to define it get broader and broader…but there is a pearl in every 50 or so clam shells. Artistry is free to be what it chooses, ask any jazz player who has never played with more than 15 people in the audience. But that’s another story.
I had begun exploring the strong spiritual connection to Le Sacre du Printemps that exists in non-dancers. It’s like a barnacle. It attaches and won’t be ignored. So we create from there: painting, photography, writing, debating on my ’87 Joffrey video on YouTube for 7 years….
If you’re going to have a barnacle, this is the one to have because it pulls something out of you but then returns it to you with another layer.
Artist Roza Puzynowska created something with paint and canvas that was well received and celebrated in Poland and globally. This happens.
But her subject was Le Sacre and she returned it to us with that other layer! And this is something that only the gifted can recognize and embrace and give back. I look at the scale of her subject and that alone is overwhelming. Gericault”Raft-of the Medusa” overwhelming. But a bit more novel.
She used the dancers of Teatr Wielki Opera Narodowa as models and distorted them into something that is as equally compelling in its stationary existence as the ballet is – or should be – in it’s frenetically intense motion.
Are you with me?
Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is a musical miracle, freestanding, dependant upon nothing else but itself.
Nijinsky’s “Le Sacre” should spring from the score and reach its own space but it does not necessarily do that. There is no math. There is no logic. It is from the gut (like say, TMRJ?) or it doesn’t come. As a stand alone piece it runs the risk of derailing anytime the curtain goes up, save The Joffrey which holds the Nijinsky Inheritance (you can read on that here).
Puzynowska’s stationary presentation of Le Sacre is not some paint and canvas installation. It is startling: a denial of space restriction, a sporadic saturation, an intimate knowledge of the demand on the body: bodies she knows personally that releve’ this way, constrict that way and she delivers a free standing work of art.
She threads a needle here because the paintings did not spring from the solidified Rite but rather from the complex ballet that sometimes struggles to solidify itself.
This is the “layer” that the barnacle returned. The proof is on the canvas.
Congratulations to the artist Roza Puzynowska for her fearlessness in picking up something that is so alternately strong and fragile in spirit that its failure would seem a sure thing.
Instead, she has given us another meaningful layer in the mystery of Le Sacre.
It will not go away.
-Fatova
Who is Heather Aagard? She was the catalyst for the Chosen One Collections, for this ongoing search to find every dancer who stepped into that Circle and danced herself to death.
She was given the opportunity only once by the Joffrey Ballet and it changed her life. But there would be no photo no program no listing. I have found these things for almost everyone because of her but not for her .
Dancer #5 in your companies, nothing but a blurry photo for posterity, unknown in history but you, dear “Firsts”, are eternal. You are the dancers who actually created The Chosen One.
The emotional breakdown of being made to dance yourself to your own death did not yet exist.
The steps, yes. The concept, yes. But that was all.
And so when you performed you were flying blind. Each night, with that first jump, you were fleshing out the Sacrificed Virgin. It is you, the dancers not worth filming, the girls in the chorus who are responsible for creating that crucial element that has solidified Le Sacre du Printemps for all time: the Chosen One’s desperate struggle. The theoretical character existed through and was nurtured by Hodson and Archer and generously of course.
But ultimately you, all alone in Roerich’s dark libretto against Stravinsky’s frenetic Rite and Nijinsky’s choreographic “fuck you” to ballet would have to present the torture of the Chosen One and it would have to come from within your own selves.
Her struggle to survive would have to come from your own struggles. Her fear, anxiety, confusion, resistance and abandon – all within the difficulty of that performance – would have to be yours. In the moment, swimming in your own painful experiences on stage before an audience looking for Le Sacre du Printemps,YOU, the under-valued, seldom thought of dancer, were breathing life and death into the Chosen One.
In the Spanish Inquisition of solos.
You are the “all-in Ballerinas” – the ones who pushed through the slow shock and growing momentum of that solo, creating something that would set the pace for the dancers to come and the expectation of audiences forever. You were creating the most important aspect of the Chosen One through the sacrifice of your own pain. You were the groundbreakers. And groundbreakers are not likely to be recognized in their own time.
Just ask Nijinsky.
You were bearing a mighty responsibility in the silence while those around you carried nothing in the celebrations. One internal experience, one performance at a time, you created the great role that the great dancers would not perform.
Those few early clips and photos I have found are a fury of intensity. And as I have poured over your photos and performances, each time there is something new and something new then something else. I don’t think anything like this will ever happen again. I don’t. Do you?
Cristian Maciel wears a haughty expression in the Mystic Circle. “I will not be intimidated”. She dies anyway.
This shot of Anabel Segura…CNB put no names to their company photos – had to get it from other dancers…is raw with agony and this deep torture that looks like it is tearing through her.
As it tore through Susanna. Alba. Nina. Katja.
Renata. One by one, you poured yourself into this great and painful process until at last The Chosen One truly existed.
I get pissed off when I see a company or soloist going through the motions, walking to their marks without any idea of what’s happening and probably not interested in learning (see any Mariinsky Act One performance).
It’s been 30 years and for them it is not a new thing, its impact is lost, it is just another ballet, what time is the party? Soloists stroll through the steps fraught with your emotional experiences with blank faces or feigned suffering. It’s a ballet. An obligation. There are steps which exhaust you and then it’s over and let’s take some selfies or whatever.
But for you…for you, Le Sacre du Printemps was not an obligation but a deep invitation that only you could hear and would you take that chance?. It’s your own journey through your own dark night. With your toes turned in.
One “forgotten” told me she cried while dancing, overwhelmed by her own past. Another told me it was an out-of-body experience. And another said it was so cathartic that she didn’t need a photo, she will always have that moment of her single performance.
These women have no photos.
And some of the “firsts and forgottens” don’t care at all which leaves me to conclude they didn’t contribute a thing to the creation of this tragic ballet heroine anyway.
I look at Elizabeth Lopez at the end of the solo, coming out of those few turns throwing her head back, her arms into a sharp punctuating position with an exactness I don’t see anywhere. And at the point of physical exhaustion in the performance! It is her signature. Some dancer somewhere has used it but has no idea who Elizabeth is.
Beatriz Rodriguez is still getting 2 feet from the stage in the last leaps as if she’s spring loaded. It is amazing! And through out her performance – I don’t know what was behind it – but her mouth would be open as if she were crying out in madness which would make sense for the character but in that very first performance? That was from her own world, her own small space. And has been mimmicked but seldom felt.
As the center, as the pinnacle, as the point of the thing you were each presenting this EVENT to the world. You suffered Le Sacre du Printemps and it is everlasting even if it is by way of Pavlenko doing Straccamore .
Today they perform the intense role of your emotional sacrifice. They get the luck of performing something with a blueprint, but not the privilege of creating it.
Feeling it.
And owning it.
Today it is not likely that this photo above of would be identified as Ana Lacerda despite her success.
Today, I will have at least one comment on my Youtube channel on the 1987 Joffrey video; people seeing it for the first time, freaking out, asking questions and I can draw a direct line from that comment on Beatriz’ first contribution to Alba Tapia’s last but I can’t show it because of shitty companies who did not understand the historical significance of debuting Le Sacre and the privilege of having dancers who would dare to perform it.
The students and viewers on YouTube will never see your Firsts, those who should be remembered as the owners of The Chosen One.
For that dreadful act, YOU should be remembered.
Heather Aagard
I might poke a stick at this for a bit. You might get what you want out of me then disappear. You might share something of yourself with us which is Nijinsky. After all – that’s who we are,
I love you bitches.
le sacre du printemps: the collections 