Inner Ninji

Saturday night, I went to my first National Ballet of this season: a remount of last year's Nijinski. This ballet by John Neumeier explores the life Vaslav Nijinski. This famous Russian ballet dancer ("Dieu de la Danse") from the turn of the last century had his career cut short by schizophrenia.

At the opening of the ballet, we found ourselves in the ballroom of a hotel in St. Moritz. The elegantly-clad upper crust slowly filled the room, first to schmooze and then to witness Nijinski's (Guillaume Cote) last public performance. They were shocked by his madcap and clownish movements. As a few started to leave, he danced his more celebrated roles. As the applause thundered, the dancer began to hallucinate about his past.

So over the first act, we experienced details about his life: his talented family, all dancers from his mother Eleonora (Svetlana Lunkina), his sister Bronislava (Jenna Savella), and his brother Stanislav (Dylan Tedaldi); his tumultuous relationship with mentor/lover Serge Diaghilev (Evan McKie); and his fiery wife Romola (Xiao Nan Yu). We also saw other "Nijinskis" (Naoya Ebe, Keiichi Hirano, Jonathan Renna) in his famous roles whether as Harlequin, Faun, or Golden Slave. They danced in tandem, in mimicry, or in duet with Cote. They also performed with the ballet dancers of his oeuvres (Les Sylphides, Petruschka, Le Sacre du printemps).

In the second act, the chaotic and confusing hallucinations gave way to direr visions. Interspersed with these performances were glimpses of the horror of the Great War, especially after his brother's deaths. Dancers put on military jackets, thumped and stomped to martial drum beats, and fell down dead by the dozen. By the time we returned to the ballroom, the world has changed for the worse.

Some older mavens were surprised by the material. Given Nijinski's status, perhaps they were expecting limpid classical ballet. But this was relentless contemporary ballet. The classical movements were intertwined with angular, furious modern dancing. Sometimes Cote contorted himself with such abandonment that I was worried about some injury. In addition, there were some crazed vocalizations from hysterical laughter to Nijinski repeatedly screaming "Death" in time to the marching rhythm. There were some small flubs with props and positions. But overall, it was an intense show of physicality and feeling.