In the history of ballet, Vaslav Nikinsky has the reputation of "the god of dance", and is even called "the eighth wonder of the world" by later generations.
His stage career has only been 10 years, but because of his subverting the aesthetic dance skills of classical ballet and his mysterious and crazy inner world, he has become one of the most legendary figures in the history of dance.
From June 9th to 10th, the Shanghai Grand Theater, the French 48 Association Dance Group and the French Century Orchestra will use a lineup of 130 people to reproduce the three classics of Nikinsky - "The Lady's Lady's Afternoon", "Game" and "Spring Festival".
choreographer Dominic Bren, the choreographer of the movie " Chanel's Secret Love History" , presented three dances that Niginsky shocked Parisian audiences more than a century ago.
"The Lady's Afternoon" is basically presented in Nikinsky's original manuscript; the stage design and choreography of "Game" were inspired by the painter Hugo's seven gouache paintings in the 1910s; "Spring Festival" recreates the rich charm of the dance itself with the discovery of historical documents; the French Century Orchestra specially used ancient instruments left in the early 20th century to restore the colorful music style of the time.
However, many people are interested in Niggins basics. What kind of person is such a genius?
I heard that "Looking back at Nikinsky" is coming to Shanghai Grand Theater. Dancer Huang Dou Dou takes the initiative to speak and asks for a lecture on Nikinsky's dance life. He spent 8 days searching and preparing speech materials, which was a dancer's mutual appreciation and sincere respect for another dancer.
is the transcript of Huang Doudou’s lecture.
生0000号生号生号
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Vaslav Nikinsky is the most prestigious dancer ever.
1890, Nikinsky was born in a home of Polish descent in Kiev. It is said that his parents were both professional dancers. It is quite omen that he and Nikinska, the younger sister who later became a dancer, were born on their parents' travel performances, which seemed to be destined to become professional dancers who regard the world as their own lives like their parents.
Niginsky spent his childhood in Warsaw, the capital of Poland. He was born to be unpretentious and remained silent all day long and did not know how to communicate with others. When he was a child, Nikinsky performed everywhere with his parents' mobile performance troupe, living a life of sleeping in the open. More than a year later, his little sister Nikinska was born.
According to my sister's later recollection, when she was young, my brother took her to participate in a pantomime performance in a circus troupe - my sister played a little newbie, driving four big dogs, and my brother played a chimney swinger, rescued a dog, a rabbit and a piglet from a house that was on fire, and bravely put out the fire.
That year, Nikinsky had just passed six years old and his sister was less than five years old.
Later, the father cheated and abandoned the family, and the mother raised three children alone, and the eldest son fell off the 4th floor, so he could not recover for life. This experience had a great impact on the young Nikinsky, resulting in him becoming an introvert, withdrawn and extremely sensitive personality.
Through long observation, the mother was delighted to discover that dance, the silent language inherited by the family, will make her beloved son outstanding. Therefore, in order to raise children and to reduce the burden on the family, the mother sent Nikinsky to the St. Petersburg Empire Ballet School in 1900 to practice dance.
That year, he was ten years old.
After becoming famous, Niginsky said: "My parents think teaching me to dance is as natural as teaching me to walk and talk. My mother must remember when I grew my first tooth, but I can't say when I gave me the first dance class."
It is said that Niginsky's entrance exam took quite a lot of trouble: he is introverted by nature and is too cowardly to speak in front of the examiner. His physical condition is not good, he is not tall, his limbs are thick and well-developed but not slender. Fortunately, the examiner asked him to try a big jump. After he started, he jumped up like a gazelle, stayed in the air for a while, and then fell down gently. This "destructive" visual impact conquered the examiner and determined his fate.
1907, Niginsky, a student, danced a four-person dance with the famous ballet actress Gashit and his two teachers. It is said that his stage performance at that time was no less than that of his teacher.
After graduation, Nikinsky joined the Mariinsky Grand Theater. At that time, ballet superstar Chesskaya's power in the Russian drama industry had reached its peak. She deliberately cultivated and used him, which invisibly guaranteed his future in life. He has since been a dance partner for big stars such as Pavlova and Karlsavona.
Among Nikinsky's all classical dance techniques, the most breathtaking thing is his unparalleled jump. When someone asked him if it was difficult to complete such a jump, he replied plainly and simply, "No! No! It's not difficult. You just need to go up and stop on it for a moment."
Vaslav Nikinsky
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Niginsky's artistic talent attracted the attention of performance manager Jagilev, who enthusiastically invited Nikinsky to be the male star of the Russian Ballet he was preparing to build.
In 1909, the Russian Ballet landed in Paris and won the first battle. Its performance lineup is actually the strongest lineup of the Ballet of Mariinsky Theater : the chief choreography is Fujin , the chief female stars are Pavlova and Karl Savenna, and the chief male star is of course Nikinsky.
In Paris, the premiere of the group's pioneering masterpiece "The Fairies" is: Pavlova, Karsavina, Balkina, and Nikinsky. Nikinsky instantly became a typical representative of the male dancer of the Russian Ballet in the minds of Parisians.
The following year, they returned to Paris, and the cheers from the audience to the Russian Ballet were rising and falling.
After two victories in Paris, Dagilev led the troupe back to Russia on the surface, and caused the actors to return to their original troupes one after another. But as an experienced performer, he has long been secretly planning a permanent Russian dance troupe of Jagilev.
In early 1911, Nikinsky was negligent and starred in " Giselle " with Karl Savenna, and did not put on a pair of shy shorts on his tights according to the local customs at that time. Queen Duwager and a group of royal members were sitting in the box. This unruly "ugly behavior" forced Mariinsky Theater to make a decision to suspend him and reflect. Nikinsky took this opportunity to resign and began to work closely with Jagilev.
also has historians asserted that this was a conspiracy carefully planned by Jagilev. He began to be fully responsible for the management and planning of Nikinsky's trivial matters in art, career and life. With Nikinsky's pillar, Jagilev strengthened his ambition to lead a delegation to fight again in Europe.
When he was expeditioning to Paris again in 1911, the dance troupe created and launched two of the most brilliant dances in Nikinsky's personal performances - "The Soul of the Rose" and "Petruska".
These two masterpieces created by Fokin based on Nikinsky's stage glory have significant differences in both the subject matter and the action style. The tragic puppet protagonist Nikinsky played in "Petruska", whose character and fate are very similar to his final encounter.
Since then, Nikinsky has created many unforgettable characters on the stage. He has an innate charm of dramatic performance. Once he appears on stage, he can become a role on the stage.
Ms. Moore, pioneer of American ballet historiography, pointed out: "Niginsky lives in his role. As soon as he enters the theater, he becomes the character he wants to perform that night. His attention is highly focused on his role, so he walks around like sleepwalking. Once he gets on the stage, enters the lights of the footlights, and is driven by the magic of music, his life will be resurrected, as if he survives in the world just for the brief moment of the supreme dance."
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Just as Nikinsky's stage performance career was about to reach its peak, the scheming and concise Jagilev began to create all conditions for Nikinsky to transform into a director out of his preference for him and his plans for the future and interests of his dance troupe.
"The Lady of the God of the God of the God of the God of the God of the God of the God of the God of the God of the God of the God of the God of the God of the God of the God of the God of the God of the God of the 1912 marks the beginning of Nikinsky's directorial career.
"The Lady of the God of the God of the God of the God of the God of the 1990s"
The music of the play is selected from the classic works of Debussy . The dancers move parallel like Greek sculptures, and the opposite of the academy The emphasis on "opening, jumping, straightening" and the traditional fixed position of hands and feet broke the shackles of classical ballet with the court aristocratic style as the only aesthetic ideal - such an "ugly" posture was unacceptable to the audience who were used to watching Prince and swans at that time.
From content to form, this one-act drama with only 12 minutes broke out a stage revolution, and the audience was stunned, protesting and booing. It is said that Jagilev forced Nikinsky to make modifications on the spot and ordered the dance troupe to repeat it according to the modified version.
"The Last of the Shepherd" in the art world was highly intensified. : On the one hand, there are fierce critics from the French newspaper Le Figaro and others, and on the other hand, there are fanatical congratulations from the French sculptor Rodin and others.
We can't watch Nikinsky's dance with our own eyes, but we can invite someone who everyone knows and likes from all over the world to listen to his impressions - the great Mr. Chaplin!
Dance forest rumors: The actors of the Russian Ballet have visited Chaplin's set for several days in a row. Everyone was amused by Chaplin in the filming, and only Nikinsky never laughed. So the last day , Chaplin secretly told the photographer: "There is no need to put film today, because Nikinsky affected my working condition."
A few days later, Chaplin went to watch the performance of the Russian Ballet. During the intermission, Nikinsky rarely asked Dajilev to invite Chaplin to meet in the backstage dressing room.
Chaplin recalled that Nikinsky asked him to make a makeup change while asking him a series of unique and bizarre questions. Until the second half of the performance began, the two were still talking. When the overture of "The Goddess's Afternoon" was about to end, Dajilev came to urge the show. Unexpectedly, Nikinsky said, "Let the band perform another overture, we still want to continue chatting for a while. ”
After watching a dance with Nikinsky in a dungeon, Chaplin said: As soon as he appeared, I was shocked! In the world I live in, I have only seen a few geniuses, Nikinsky is one of them; he seems to have a hypnotic force, like a god; his calmness suggests a state of mind beyond the world; every move of his movement is poetry, and every jump is a leap into a strange fantasy realm.
But, as long as If you are a human, you have weaknesses. Nikinsky's pursuit of absolute perfection in his personality has made his creative cycle multiplied and he has never been able to adapt to the survival status of a tour ballet like the Jagilev Russian Ballet, such a tour ballet that lives without a fixed place. After
, Nikinsky released his second work "Game", which shows a "love triangle-like life scene".
To be honest, "Looking back at Nikinsky Among the three dance works of "The God of the Gods", what I most look forward to is "Game". Perhaps it is because the explosive feedback caused by the previous work "The God of the Gods" and the latter work "The Spring Festival" were too shocking that the "Game" that was sandwiched between the two was not paid attention to and could not be retained intact.
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Niginsky started the creation of "Game" while working on the desk work of "The Spring Festival".
1913 In 2019, half a month after the premiere of "Game", it was the first anniversary of the premiere of Nikinsky's directorial debut "The Lady of the Goddess". On that day, the Russian Ballet launched "Spring Festival". The 24-year-old Nikinsky far exceeded the original rehearsal planning cycle and went through more than 130 rehearsals before he could barely complete the third dance.
"Spring Festival" was composed by Stravinsky, and the dance background was related to the ancient Russian tribe in the original state.Although Diagilev has made some preparations to deal with the unexpected, to everyone's surprise, the riot caused by this new work has far exceeded the "Last of the Shepherd's God".
What happened on the night of the premiere of "Spring Festival"? We can feel the scene at that time through a passage from Teacher Lin Huaimin:
On May 29, 1913, "The Spring Festival" premiered at the Champs-Elysées Theater in Paris. The literary youth wearing wax hats are all over the building, taking the rich class in the private room as the imaginary enemy, and is determined to fight for the defense of avant-garde art. Sure enough, before the curtain began, someone complained as soon as the overture was played, and the sound of the humming quiet sounds followed one after another. So, the young man and the gentleman and the lady started a melee based on their respective aesthetic views.
It is said that someone threw fruit at Jagilev;
It is said that Stravinsky fled to the backstage in fear;
It is said that a lady pulled her hat and slapped at Gocto, and some people scolded Ravel: "The bastard Jew!";
It is said that the whole theater was like an earthquake.
The audience's noise overshadowed the band's music, and Nikinsky stood on a chair next to the side curtain and counted beats loudly in Russian until the performance was approaching the end of the show.
If you still want to hear the legend of the Dance Forest related to the premiere of "Spring Festival", we can continue to listen to how a person at the premiere described it more than a hundred years ago:
"I remember that at first it was just a few unpleasant demonstrations, but then the protesters expanded, and then there was a protest from opponents. The two sides instantly broke out in disputes, and the commotion broke out." Stravinsky said.
According to the legend of Wulin, among the audience on the night of the premiere of "The Spring Festival", composer St. San expressed his dissatisfaction by leaving the stage halfway. However, young artists including Ravel and Chanel are all supporters of "vanguard".
The protagonist of this dance - the girl who was sacrificed, was originally planned to be Nikinsky's sister Nikinska, but as the creative rehearsal time was repeatedly delayed, the sister's belly became bigger and bigger.
At this time, Nikinska had been married to Alexander Kochiravsky, an actor in the same group, for more than two years. In the end, she was pregnant and could not participate in the premiere. Nikinsky was furious about this and angrily accused his brother-in-law of being a "farmer, not considering his wife", and was also anxious about his temporary loss of this only artistic understanding.
Niginsky's "Spring Festival" was interrupted in only six performances in Paris and London. However, Stravinsky's musical masterpiece that heralds the arrival of a new era, Niginsky's quirky choreography evokes the arrival of a new era of music and dance.
"Spring Festival"
"Spring Festival"
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1913, the Jagilev Ballet applied for a trip to the ocean to perform in South American countries. Jagilev was afraid of taking a boat and finally decided to stay in Europe. This sudden decision finally allowed Nikinsky, who had survived under his shackles for many years, to gain the long-lost freedom.
Just halfway through this performance, Niginsky got married with Romona, a member of the same group. Because of his admiration for Nikinsky, the Hungarian female dancer joined the Russian Baba Dance Group and finally married her lover as she wished, and from then on, she devoted all her love and life to taking care of him.
Unexpectedly, Jagilev fired them both in anger. After Nikinsky returned to Europe, he had to form a small ballet troupe by himself, but because he was not good at managing and suffered too much losses, he had no choice but to follow his wife back to her hometown, the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Disaster never happens singly, and World War I brought the dancer who was already facing difficulties into it: as a Russian citizen in a hostile country, he was locked up in concentration camps. The horror and humiliation he suffered at this stage, and a big star who is extremely sensitive to a person who is used to living like a star who is a star who is used to living like a star, must be a source of excitement for life.
Niginsky was in a desperate situation for two years. In 1916, thanks to the active efforts of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, Nikinsky was allowed to go to the United States as a exchange object - a third country that had not yet been involved in the war.In this way, Nikinsky survived.
The couple met Dagilev again in New York and returned to the Russian Ballet. In April of the same year, Nikinsky held a grand premiere of his visit to the United States at the magnificent Metropolitan Opera House.
After the first round of the US performance, Diagilev decided to return to Europe and led a delegation to continue performing on the American continent by Nikinsky. In the fall of that year, Niginsky performed his last dance drama "Till Oiren Spiegel" at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.
Niginsky shoulders the heavy responsibility of management, rehearsal and performance of the entire dance troupe. He also has to direct new works and lead the lead. The overload of work makes him feel overwhelmed and even discouraged. He was so nervous and too tired! It was the first time he was emotionally out of control during this US tour.
After performing in the United States, he led the troupe back to Europe and went to Spain to perform with the troupe. His mental illness was getting worse. During this period, he was still confused and called South America to book a performance. This call was regarded as a statutory contract in Spain, which forced him to cheer up and lead the group to South America again, otherwise he would be at risk of going to prison again.
After the busy South American performance, the whole group finally returned to Europe safely. Amid the fire, Nikinsky and his wife moved to relatively safe Switzerland. During this period, he tried to get involved in painting.
Among the paintings left by Nikinsky later, there is a painting similar to "the eyes watching the world", as if looking at a multi-angle angle of a single image from the focus of a prism. The style, color composition and the use of flat images are all reminiscent of the style of the "analytical Cubism" period of Picasso .
In fact, like Nikinsky, Picasso was also a member of the Dyagilev Russian Ballet - stage design. More than 0 years later, Picasso served as the design of Nikinska's dance "Blue Train". Interestingly, the costume design of "Blue Train" is Chanel, and the four-person dance arranged by Nikinska in "Blue Train" is undoubtedly a tribute to his brother's dance "Game".
Niginsky and Nikinska are deeply in love. The life of the dance troupe and the artillery fire in the war caused the brother and sister to lose contact for seven years. In order to allow the brother to have a dance troupe in the future, the sister specially opened a dance school in the UK while looking for her brother.
Finally one day, my sister read a news from the newspaper about her brother's whereabouts-Niginsky had already moved into a nursing home in Vienna. She immediately entrusted the school to a student and led her family to illegally cross the Polish border and headed straight for her brother in Vienna.
However, when Nikinska saw his brother, he had completely collapsed. The spirit of the past was gone, the glitter in his eyes disappeared, and he became another person-eyed and had no response to everything that happened around him.
Niginsky at that time had become increasingly strange due to heavy pressure and a series of unsatisfactory behavior.
It is said that in 1919, Nikinsky suddenly had a whim to make a performance for his friends, but he refused to do any preparations. As a result, the performance became a thorough improvisation. A few days later, his condition worsened. Finally, the bad news came - Nikinsky was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and the doctors diagnosed him included Floyd.
That year, Nikinsky was only 29 years old.
From then on, Nikinsky completely broke away from real life and sank into his personal spiritual world.
"The Diary Of Vaslav Nijinsky" is Nijinsky's handwritten diary, which can be called a legend in the world dance forest and the world. The diary, written during his six weeks in Switzerland before he was sent to a mental hospital, involved a large amount of autobiographical materials and a rich and twisty artistic experience. At that time, there was still a trace of rationality in his heart.
On April 8, 1950, Nikinsky died in London.
10 years of hard childhood, 20 years of brilliant ballet, 30 years of schizophrenia, even so, Nikinsky is still the undisputed "god of dance" and no one can replace it.
(This article is selected from Huang Doudou Lecture "The Dance Life of the "God of Dance"", and the content is abridged)
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