To see Nijinsky dance again
Vaslav Nijinsky, the former first dancer of the Russian Ballet of Diaghilev, remains as one of the most prominent mythical figures of ballet and movement in the twentieth century.
He lived at a time when artists like the futurists, researchers like Muybridge or Marey, and audiences of the cinema of the beginnings, where eager to record, view and understand the way the human body was moving.
Type (Documentaire / Documentaire fiction / Série documentaire)DocumentaryGenre en anglaisArts & culture Directed by Hervé NisicWith the support of CNC, ProcirepYear2000Duration26min
Yet, no film remains to show us how Nijinsky was dancing. We have still images, drawings, photographs, paintings, sculptures or working notes on his choreographs. This material is the basis of the exhibit curated at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris by Martine Kahane.
In the absence of film or video, what can those photographs, and drawings tell us about dance ?
Press coverage
In the absence of seeing the one who sculpted gesture and froze movement to dramatize it more effectively, there is a desire to (re)experience his creations.
Le Monde
Hervé Nisic brings to life the various ways of re-presenting a work, exploring this act of memory and palimpsest that governs the reconstruction of a dance.
Télérama
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