Prince Igor is shown much deference by his captor, who presently suggests that he should purchase liberty at the price of an undertaking never again to take up arms against the Polovtzi. The Prince, scorning the offer, maintains an indignant silence, from which he refuses to be drawn. In the hope of distracting him the Khan summons the tribe and orders a dance to be begun.
It is at this point that the curtain rises, on occasions when only the dances are presented. The stage picture disclosed is effective in the extreme. The camp is crowded with figures, and the gorgeous colours of the Tartar dresses glow brilliantly in the warm
light. When singers are available the chorus is massed round the arena cleared for the dancers, and the added numbers greatly enhance the general effect.
A long-drawn chant is the signal for the beginning of the dance, in which a troupe of slave girls, splendidly attired, first perform. They presently seat themselves, and are joined by a group of warriors. To these more are added, and at the head of the band their captain places himself.
A tall, stalwart figure, the captain shakes his bow aloft and leads his men in the dance with all the furiousbravurawith which, one fancies, he would lead them into battle. There is first an amorous passage—a simulated courtship (or at least abduction!) when the braves steal softly up behind the expectant damsels, seize them, and lift them shoulder high in their arms. Then the Tartar girls mingle with the warriors, and as the dance proceeds it grows more fierce and animated, spurred on by the exultant war song defiantly chanted by the chorus of onlookers.
The appetite for vehemence increases, and a knot of young men dash impetuously forward, slapping their thighs resoundingly as they hurl themselves about with all the skill and daring of a practised acrobat. After them the bowmen dart once more into the fray—for fray by this time it has almost become. Their captain leaps and bounds before them, tossing his bow high into the air, catching it as it falls in mid-career, making as if to loose an arrow from the twanging string. The chanted chorus swells in a triumphantcrescendo. The warriors, in strenuous emulation of their leader, goad themselves to still fiercer transports, until with a succession of mad rushes, rank upon rank of prancing legs and brandished arms, this wild barbaric display is brought to its terminating climax.
The detailed movements of this tribal dance are of no great moment. What is of interest is the robust expression which they give to the virile impulses of an untamed race, not yet sapped by civilisation of its vigour. The movements, violent in themselves, are executed with a vehemence and energy significant in its savage spontaneity. One has a sense of latent joy in violence, of every shape and form, for violence’ own sake. Without the songs which should accompany them, the dances suffer some detraction. They represent the furthest extreme from formality to which the dance can go, and the tremendous exuberance which inspires them seems to demand an extra outlet. As one watches the violent gymnastics of Adolf Bolm, of Fedorowa and the rest, it seems astounding (and inappropriate) that they should indulge such boisterous vigour insilence. In fact, one wonders how they keep themselves from shouting! Not even Borodin’s fiercely martial music supplies the deficiency. If ever there was an occasion when dance and song should be one, this is it.
Hindu Legend in One Act by Jean Cocteau and de Madrazo.
Music by Reynaldo Hahn.
Scenes and Dances by Michel Fokine.
Scenery and Costumes Designed by Léon Bakst.
IT has been previously remarked, in comment on “Narcisse,” that for all their sense of fitness, the Russians sometimes exhibit a curious inability to recognise the limitations of the stage, and in considering “Le Dieu Bleu,” the charge must be repeated. They are at fault usually when they have to present the supernatural. The criticism applies not so much to their impersonations of supernatural characters—the sense of unreality is finely suggested by Nijinsky as the phantom rose, for example, while nothing could be better than the bizarre characterisation of the half-human puppets in “Petrouchka”—as to their representation of the supernatural circumstances by which such characters must generally be attended. It may seem ungenerous, perhaps, to carp at what are, after all, mere matters of detail, but lapses from an harmoniousensemblebecome glaring when judged by the high artistic standard which disciplines the greater number of the ballets.
One is tempted to think that here and there the Russians have essayed a task, not perhaps exceeding their powers of conception and intention, but beyond the capacity of their medium ofexpression. “Le Dieu Bleu” is a fair example of such an attempted flight. It does not fail, but neither does it entirely succeed; and an explanation of the compromise may be found in the synopsis of the ballet printed in the programme. There is no need to quote this interesting passage of description; for the present purpose it is enough to remark that the first thing arising in the reader’s mind is a puzzled query: How are they going to do it? The answer is simply that they do not! The mingling of fabulous or mythical with the real or human is a dilemma upon the horns of which many a stage producer has found himself impaled, and the Russians do not escape the inevitable fate. Their realistic method of treatment consorts ill with the supernatural element in the action of the ballet; and if this is to be expected, and is deemed negligible for the sake of the individual beauties of the performance, it is nevertheless regrettable that, however faintly, a jarring note should be struck. There are features in this ballet which one could spare not less gladly than the miraculous flower in “Narcisse.”
Certainly “Le Dieu Bleu” has many beauties. It shows us, in a multiplicity of radiant dresses massed against a background of daring colour and design, a rich vein in the decorative art of Léon Bakst. It shows us Karsavina in a part that gives full play to the fierce and passionate quality in her miming. But chiefly it is an excuse for the preciosity of Nijinsky. There is something more than the mere accomplished dancer in that remarkable personality. Others there may be (though one doubts it) as graceful, as agile, as versed in all thenuancesof the dancer’s art; but over and above his technical perfections Nijinsky possesses a selective intelligence. His is not a merely imitative instinct; he draws inspiration from sources of his own seeking, and that to which he gives bodily expression is the product of his own original genius working under the afflatus.
In “Le Dieu Bleu,” of which the scene is laid in mythical India, Nijinsky has gone for inspiration to Hindu art, with the manifest intention of exhibiting by his impersonation of the titlerôle, of embodying in himself, the essential principles which underlie the conventions of that ancient phase of artistic expression. The imaginative thought, the sympathetic understanding, which he has brought to his purpose must be judged by the result, of which the subtlety of conception and the precision of execution are beyond comment.
The action of the ballet takes place in a rock-girt shrine—a mosaic-patterned platform shut in by high cliffs of tawny orange hue, from excrescences of which, in lazy festoons, hang monstrous serpents. In the middle, at the back, is a pool in which the sacred lotus is supposed to float; a giant tortoise, with gaudily painted carapace, leans over its rim in act of drinking. Massive gates to the left bar the entrance to the shrine which a deepfissure in the cliffs makes possible: a cleft through which the deep blue of the Indian sky is visible.
Round the sacred precinct is seated, immobile and patient, a throng of worshippers. There are shortly to be enacted over a young neophyte the rites of initiation into the priesthood, and with the opening bars of the music there enters a long procession of priests, attendants and others who are to take part in the ceremony. There are men bearing sacrificial fruits aloft in baskets, others bringing jugs and bowls and salvers for the lustral water, which is presently poured out by the high priest before the lotus pool. Then enters a bevy of girls whose sequence of postures, performed with deliberate care, constitute a ceremony of obeisance to the tutelary spirit of the place. The high priest in turn performs a rite of adoration, his tall figure the centre of a group of strangely posing girls. To these groups are added yet others—girls who lead forward kids for the sacrifice, more priests, and a great number of worshippers who crowd in through the opened gates and stand watchful upon the fringe of the glowing, many-coloured assemblage that is grouped about the lotus pool and awaits the high priest’s bidding.
The sacrificial fire is lit, the neophyte is conducted to his place. While the initiation rites proceed a dance is performed by three girls carrying on their arms peacocks, whose gorgeous trains of eyed feathers sweep gracefully from the shoulders of the swiftly moving bearers to the ground. They are followed by another group of girls, whose dancing and posturing ends with a general prostration of bodies as the neophyte, now robed in the garments of his new vocation, is paraded before the circle of approving onlookers.
As he thus submits himself to public scrutiny, the novice offers to all and sundry a bowl, to the contents of which those helpthemselves who list. The young man walks with abstracted gaze, composing his mind to receive that ecstasy which befits the high solemnity of the occasion. All, save one, regard him with silent indifference. That one is a girl, whose suppressed excitement betrays her to a warning movement as the neophyte approaches. As he reaches the spot where she is seated she leans quickly forward and looks him eagerly in the face. Entreaty is expressed in every line of her figure.
The young man meets that passionate look, and halts abashed. Memories which he thought to have put behind him for ever surge rebelliously into his mind. He hesitates; but with an effort masters his emotion, and hastily returns to his appointed place before the high priest. The incident, occupying but a moment, has passed unnoticed by those around, and as the girl sinks back in an agony of frustrated hope, a number of half-demented devotees resume the rites with a wild dance of frenzied lamentation. As this orgy of self-intoxication swells to a climax, the sacrificial kids are made ready for slaughter. The final moment of dedication is at hand.
Once more the neophyte, led this time by the high priest in person, is paraded before the seated watchers: once more he is obliged to pass the girl who embodies all that life has held for him in the past, before ambition and the lust of sacerdotal power turned him from love and joy. She alone might have the key, perchance, to unlock the door he has so resolutely shut. She has the key, and with a courage born of desperate abandon to love and passion she dares to use it. She breaks from her place, and fiercely casts herself at her whilom lover’s feet. She grovels in abasement, she implores—then, snatching a hope from the indecision which she sees written on his face, she cajoles.
The priests, angry and scandalised at this sacrilegious irruption, seize her and carry her off. But she eludes them, and ere the
neophyte has time to steel himself, she is again before him dancing with an allurement, a provocative abandon meant for him alone, which shakes his resolution to its depths. A second time the priests seize her; a second time with desperate cunning she evades their grasp and returns to her passionate attack. The young man is torn with fierce emotions; an unequal battle rages in him, love and life contending with his pride and sense of duty. And as he gazes on the beseeching figure before him, ambition, lust of power, and all his new resolves slip unregarded from him. Everything that life holds seems centred in the swaying figure of the girl before him, fount of all the hot-blooded memories which now sweep unresisted over him. With sudden determination he tears the priestly vestments from his shoulders, and with glad capitulation yields himself to the triumphant embrace of his mistress.
Together they dash for freedom. But their passage is barred, priests and fakirs wrench them apart, and the young man is carried off into durance. The crowd disperses silently, and the agonised girl finds herself confronted by the high priest and two of his attendants. A third brings manacles and these are fastened upon the prisoner’s wrists. Then, in obedience to the high priest’s directions, the door of a cavern in the side of one rocky cliff is unlocked, and the janitors depart. The girl is left alone, and in the dreadful silence which ensues she collapses in terror before the lotus pool.
The shrine is bathed in moonlight, when at length the prostrate girl rouses herself from the torpor of despair. Her wits returning, she seeks a way of escape. She tries the gates, but they are fastened close and withstand her frenzied shaking. Vainly she looks for other outlet: the high walls are insurmountable. But suddenly she espies the low doorway in the rock. She hesitates for a moment: it scarce looks to open on an avenue of escape.But at least it offers a chance, and on a quick impulse she rolls the obstacle aside.
A black cavernous hole is revealed, into which the girl peers anxiously. For the moment nothing can be descried in the murky gloom, but even as she summons courage to venture within, a hideous affrighting apparition looms out of the darkness before her face. She shrinks back, startled: fear giving place to sheer nightmare horror as a foul and bestial monster crawls slowly forth from the noisome den. The creature is followed by others, which with dreadful deliberateness emerge from the lair their unsuspecting victim has thus incautiously opened. There are some that drag their black and scaly lengths laboriously, like obese lizards, along the pavement of the shrine, others with gross heads and grinningmasks that present a dreadful travesty of human beings in their red, ungainly forms, in the horrid leaps and bounds of squat and ugly legs by which they move.
The girl has fled in panic to the gates across the fissure in the rocks. She clings to them in an agony of fright. But leaping clumsily in pursuit, the crimson monsters seize her in their filthy paws, and bear her bodily away. She slips from their grasp and darts across the shrine, only to find herself surrounded by her captors’ crawling allies. The latter do not offer to seize her, but they eye her with a devilish intentness, and at every step she takes display a paralysing nimbleness, for all the seeming inertness of their flabby bodies, in intercepting her movements and keeping her surrounded by their watchful visages.
In a last paroxysm of fright the girl falls prostrate before the lotus pool. The monsters range themselves around, motionless, but vigilant and intent. But as their victim, bethinking herself of prayer, pours forth a passionate entreaty to the deities of the place, they stir uneasily and presently retire, writhing, a distance of some paces. A brilliant blue light irradiates the pool, the lotus flower that floats within it opens, and slowly there rise into view the god and goddess, tutelary spirits of the shrine. The goddess is enthroned; the god, with reedy pipe in hand, sits with legs and upraised arms bent angularly—a painted Hindu sculpture come to life.
Stepping from the lotus, the Blue God raises and supports the amazed and awe-struck girl. Then, as confidence returns, he gently seats her beside the pool, and before the uneasy monsters begins a solemn dance. Dance it must be called, though it is rather a series of postures—postures which, executed in the flesh, vivify for the onlooker all that he has ever seen in Hindu art purporting to represent the human figure. It becomes apparentthat there is a beauty in the harmonious adjustment of angles not previously realised, or even, perhaps, suspected.
One by one the monsters are subdued, despite a feeble effort at evasion, by the power of their intended victim’s divine protector. The goddess then, descending from her throne, shows by her dancing postures, while the god plays upon his pipe, that thefemale form is not less capable than the male of angular beauty of form. The girl, now reassured, gazes entranced upon her deliverers, receiving with humble gratitude the blessing bestowed upon her by the goddess, as the latter presently resumes her throne.
Scarcely has the god also reseated himself, when the priests and worshippers re-enter the shrine, expectant of finding executed the prisoner’s hideous doom. Stupefied by the dazzling vision which greets them, all fall prostrate in humble obeisance, the girlalone, assured of the divine favour, daring to remain standing. The goddess signifies the protection which she extends, and as the young man for whom the girl’s love has dared so much is brought in, she bids the two embrace without fear. With love and life restored to her, the girl finds outlet for her brimming happiness in a joyous dance, and gladly the reunited pair exchange their vows before the goddess’ throne.
Her mission ended, the goddess sinks slowly from view into the depths of the lotus pool. But the Blue God, ere she vanishes, steps into the midst of the awe-stricken throng. A fragment of the orange cliff rolls noiselessly aside and reveals a broad flight of golden steps reaching into the blue infinity of the heavens. With slow, deliberate steps the god ascends the mystic flight. Momentarily he pauses, and thus is seen, as the curtain descends, above the bowed forms of the prostrate multitude, playing upon his pipe.
Choreographic Tableau by Nijinsky.
Music by Claude Debussy.
Scenery and Costumes designed by Léon Bakst.
IN the preparation of his part in “Le Dieu Bleu,” Nijinsky sought inspiration, it was remarked, from ancient Hindu art. One fancies him, with appetite whetted by this excursion, eager to explore another field of antiquity, and turning naturally to early Greek, Roman and Etruscan art. His interest already engaged by the strangeness (to modern eyes) of the Hindu forms, his perceptions having already fastened on their angular conventions as food for the dancer’s creative or recreative art, one supposes him readily attracted by the equal peculiarity of such archaic forms as are revealed on Greek and Roman pottery. The transition is easy to understand, for a superficial resemblance is apparent, however great the essential dissimilarity.
What prompted the student to ponder specially the figure of the faun or satyr it is quite impossible to guess. That he should do so, however, is scarcely surprising; for interpretation by the dance it is difficult to think of any conception of classical mythology more likely to appeal to an artist of Nijinsky’s temperament and talents. Type of what is animal in man, epitome of all his unsophisticated lusts and appetites, here is surely an ideal theme for the dancer’s art. Possibly Debussy’s music first suggested the faun; if not, the appropriate orchestral accompaniment—for Debussy would seem to be a composer with whose methods Nijinsky finds himself in close sympathy—was ready to hand; providing not only accompaniment but scenario and plot.
But this was not enough. In those antique urns and vases, with their oddly but vividly expressive figures, there was a potent fascination for the dancer, impelling him to translate into living movement their arrested grace. When that impulse hardened into a definite attempt, the result was “L’Après-Midi d’un Faune,” as presented on the stage, with the assistance of Nelidowa (his partner, as the Goddess, in “Le Dieu Bleu”) and other ladies of the Russian troupe, and the services of Léon Bakst as decorator—a performance which may be briefly described as an endeavour to bring to life an antique bas relief or ceramic painting.
Thus far, it is hardly necessary to confess, is pure surmise; let it be added that it is quite probably erroneous! But some such processes of thought, one imagines, must have attended the evolution of this curious “ballet.” It would be a mistake to take it too seriously, and discuss solemnly its daring transgression of all accepted canons. Too obviously it is a wholly individual affair—a freakish whim, if you like—on the part of its creator, though not the less interesting on that account.
In pursuance of the main idea, the movements of the dancers—or perhaps one should say the impersonators, for of dancing, in the ordinary meaning of the word, there is none—take place all in one plane, their figures are seen in profile, and when they move they do so with sidelong action, so as to preserve the semblance of flatness. Except for the mound upon which the faun is discovered and to which he returns at the close of the episode, the scene consists merely of a backcloth designed by Bakst—a riot of colour which however effective in itself as a piece of pure decoration, is scarcely suited to the peculiar exigencies of the moment. More successful is the outward characterisation of the faun, for which the same designer is responsible. The creature’s lithe young body is mottled with large blotches, dark red in colour, that alternate in bizarre contrast with the fairness of the rest of his skin. A knitted, wrinkled brow, beneath small horns that are curled round the top of his head, suggests a dubious quality of mind—the perplexity of a brain that hovers indeterminately betwixt mere instinct and a reasoning intelligence. The suggestion of character thus subtly conveyed is wonderfully sustained by Nijinsky. By look, by poiseand carriage of his body, rather than by gesture (of which there is practically nought) he induces a perception of the vague stirrings of a brutish mind, groping vainly for a realisation of emotions dimly felt.
When the curtain rises the faun is discovered recumbent upon the top of a low eminence. The latter merely projects sufficiently in front of the backcloth to form a ledge, and does not detract from the flatness of the scene. One sees the creature sharply in profile, with head thrown back, playing idly on a long pipe. A bunch of grapes lies beside him, and between this and his woodland music he divides his attention. When he turns from one to the other his movements are quickly executed, so that a sharp profile is almost continuously presented to the spectator.
While the faun is thus engaged, there appears upon the scene below him three nymphs, advancing slowly with sideways gait, knees slightly bent, heads turned in profile, open palms upraised to shoulders. To them enters a fourth running swiftly, but in the same sidelong manner, and preserving the same stilted attitude as she moves. Another party of three is added, and the whole group of seven stand rigidly posed below, and a short distance from, the faun’s elevated retreat. They are garbed in flowing draperies, with hair dressed close and tightly bound with fillets, and as they stand stiffly, angularly posed, in an immobile row, they seem like figures detached from an antique bas relief and propped before the footlights.
The keen animal senses of the faun detect some strange presence near at hand, and peering from his coign of vantage he perceives the nymphs. Such beings are beyond his ken, but the sight of them awakens a vague interest. He yields to a subtle attraction, and descending from his perch approaches the intruders.
The pantomime, if such it can be called, between the nymphs and faun is quite impossible to describe. Such gesture as is sparingly used is strictly conventionalised, and the faces of the performers remain blankly expressionless. Nothing is allowed to detract from the stiff formality of their aspect. For all that, the pantomime is curiously expressive. In his uncouth way, prompted by impulses only dimly comprehended, the faun seeks to woo the nymphs. They are startled and flee, but return almost as soon as they are gone, only to dart off again in sudden alarm. Curiosity alternates with shyness and fear. Only once are the quaint, indeed laughable, angular movements varied, when the faun, with quite electrifying effect, makes a single bound into the air.
Eventually discretion overcomes the valorous curiosity of the nymphs. The last, and most attracted, flees away. The faun isleft disconsolate and puzzled, his slow turbid brain striving to grasp the meaning and nature of the radiant creatures that so lately stirred his appetites. Nothing remains of them save a gauzy scarf, dropped in her flight by the last, at which he stares long and stupidly. At length he picks it up, and holding it wonderingly in his hands, slowly regains his rocky perch. A mysterious influence emanates from the scarf, and yielding himself to it, the faun sinks into voluptuous dreams.
“L’Après-Midi d’un Faune” has earned a great popular success, but it is chiefly a success of curiosity. It is novel, it is quaint, it is amusing; but whether it is properly artistic depends upon the interpretation put upon that word. The whole thing is brilliantly clever, atour de forceon the part of Nijinsky, and considered as such one has nothing for it but praise. But as an attempt to vivify plastic art it fails, for it deliberately adopts conventions and restrictions which are proper to the latter, but were never intended to govern the moving human form. Merely to endow with movement a creation of plastic art seems a futile and superfluous purpose, even if possible of achievement; really to vivify is the province of the dancer’s art, which in this “ballet” is crippled by false limitations.
It has been said that Nijinsky, by this recourse to primitive forms, sought to strip off modern conventions and obtain a more forceful mode of expression. But in that case it is not enough merely to copy; he should have adopted the principle, but the treatment founded upon it ought to have been his own. As it is, the true interest of the piece lies in the characterisation of the faun, and one regrets all the more the unnecessary restrictions with which Nijinsky has hampered himself, when reflecting what his genius as a dancer, given proper scope, might make of such arôle. If he would but play one of Pan’s goat-footed progenylegitimately “in the round,” one might anticipate a creation to supplement, and rank alongside, his wonderful harlequin in “Le Carnaval.”
Dance-Poem by Nijinsky.
Music by Claude Debussy.
Choreography by Nijinsky.
Scenery and Costumes Designed by Léon Bakst.
NIJINSKY’s curious production called “Jeux” comes next in order after “Le Dieu Bleu” and “L’Après-Midi d’un Faune.” In the first of the two latter the dancer was concerned only with his individualrôle; his conception of that was, no doubt, his own, but his part in the ballet as a whole was subject to the directing influence of Michel Fokine. In “L’Après-Midi d’un Faune” he was emancipated from control, and the entire performance was of his devising. Having explored the past, it was natural that he should turn his attention to the present, and in “Jeux” we have an avowed attempt to treat the modern aspect of (civilised) life in terms of the ballet. The result is curious, to say the least, and not very convincing.
A lot of ridiculous nonsense has been written about “Jeux.” It was first performed in Paris, and on the strength of descriptions received thence, it was labelled, long before its production in London, a “lawn tennis ballet.” As a fact, lawn tennis has nothing to do with it—nor any other particular sport or gamefor that matter. It is true that Nijinsky carries a racquet of some kind in his hand, on his first entry, but it is speedily laid aside and is nothing but the merest stage “property.” As for the lost ball which is thecasus belli, so to speak, it bears as much resemblance to a tennis ball as does a pumpkin to an apple.
If “Playtime” be accepted as the interpretation of “Jeux” (a translation which the Russians themselves have adopted), the ballet resolves itself into a representation of the juvenile frolics of three children. Certainly Nijinsky in his flannel shirt and trousers, Karsavina and Ludmila Schollar in their short white frocks, bare legs and little socks, look a trifle more adult than the costumes seem to warrant, but that is a circumstance which cannot very well be helped. Léon Bakst has done his best to dwarf them by his spacious garden, with its high gates and big flower plots, but inevitably the performers appear somewhat robust for their parts.
The ballet can only be called such for want of another term. There is no dancing proper; except for a few leaps and runs, the performers confine their movements to a series of postures, and a queer, stilted kind of pantomime. It has been stated that Nijinsky by this “choreography” intends to express the essential characteristics of the movements of modern athletes and players of games, but the entire absence of athletic virility or spontaneous grace and vigour effectively negatives the idea. Or at least, if this was the idea, it has signally failed of execution.
The “plot” of the piece is the slightest possible. Into this not very realistic garden, empty when the curtain rises, a large ball suddenly drops. A moment later the three children enter in pursuit, and in playful mood begin to look for it. Presently, forgetting the object of their search, they indulge in juvenile flirtation. Each of the girls in turn receives the boyish attentions of their companion, and all three are fast forgetting their
surroundings when a second ball, dropping unexpectedly amongst them, recalls them to their senses and sends them scampering away.
This is not much on which to found a ballet. All that it gives scope for is the presentation of one little scene of no great purport, but the methods adopted to portray the idle moments of a group of children render merely eccentric what might be an engaging spectacle. The intention seems to be, if there is any definite intention at all, to reduce to their essential elements the characteristic movements of childhood. The gestures and poses of Nijinsky the present writer confesses to finding meaningless—at all events in no way suggestive of unsophisticated childhood. But with those of Karsavina and Ludmila Schollar there is a difference. There are occasions now and then—notably when the two girls “make it up” after a tiff prompted by jealousy over the favour of their boy companion—when there is a something about their poise of body which evokes quite startlingly, for all its stilted stiffness, a memory of childish movements sometime noted. There is nothing, it will be understood from what has already been said of the performers’ methods, of the unconscious grace of an eager, impulsive child. But imagine a rapid photographic “snapshot” of such an incident as the one just mentioned between two little girls—the instantaneous plate would show, in its arrest of movement, just such angularity and awkwardness, and also just such a poise, as Karsavina and Schollar display.
No doubt this is all very clever and ingenious, but it seems likewise to be a little futile. Even if essays of this sort come within the legitimate province of ballet, there is very little pleasure, and not a great deal of interest, to be obtained from so highly sophisticated a performance. I do not know whether the music of Debussy was written for the especial purpose of the ballet, or whether Nijinsky, as in “L’Après-Midi d’un Faune,” devised the ballet to an existing composition; in any case the music seems as little appropriate to the theme as the methods of the performers. Debussy indeed is hardly a composer from whom one expectsdancemusic, and his selection in connection with these attempted developments of the art of the ballet seems significant.
The legitimacy—or, to put it more definitely, the feasibility—of these new attempts is open to challenge. The methods adopted by the “dancers” in “L’Après-Midi d’un Faune” have already been described. In “Jeux” the principle seems to be to resolve movement into a succession of arrested poses, and make an arbitrary selection of the latter for presentment. This is as if one were asked to admire some of the individual pictures which in series make up the film of a kinematograph. Granted that it isinteresting and amusing to be shown how the film is constituted, it is nevertheless the animated whole which we really want to see.
But an analogy can only be drawn between the kinematograph and the dancer if the latter’s art is regarded as standing in the same relation to the painter’s or sculptor’s as the kinematograph to the ordinary camera. This indeed seems to be the idea upon which Nijinsky has founded “L’Après-Midi d’un Faune” and “Jeux.” It was submitted in the immediately preceding pages that “L’Après-Midi d’un Faune” was based upon a fundamental misconception ofthe dancer’s art, and the same criticism is prompted by “Jeux.” Even if the premises be granted that to give movement toposes plastiquesis a sufficient end, the dancer’s art, like any other, should conceal art; should build up, not take to pieces. The human figure may be reducible to geometrical forms, but the cubist painter would be better employed in proceedingfromthat principle, instead oftoit.
“Jeux,” in brief, in intention, if not altogether in execution, is as clever as a parlour trick, and with a public which applauds cleverness above all things, it would be as popular as “L’Après-Midi d’un Faune,” if it were but equally obvious. But the cleverness is that of a monkey, and as misapplied.
Pictures of Pagan Russia by Igor Stravinsky and Nicolas Roerich.
Music by Igor Stravinsky.
Choreography by Nijinsky.
Scenery and Costumes Designed by Nicolas Roerich.
WHEN three such remarkable talents as those of MM. Stravinsky, Roerich and Nijinsky form an alliance, something unusual may be confidently expected as the result. The most eager anticipations can hardly have been disappointed, on that score, by “Le Sacre du Printemps,” of which the music is by the first named, thedécorby the second, and the choreography by the third.
One imagines the three collaborators—one had almost said conspirators—assembling in council. Perhaps they find themselves, in their several ways, prompted by a common impulse: perhaps they merely itch to apply their cleverness to something new. Whichever way it is, a happy notion strikes them. “Let’s be primitive!” They talk it over, make plans and agree. They will be primitive—starkly primitive. Stravinsky proceeds, with his practised sleight of hand in the manipulation of an orchestra, to invent music which shall defy all accepted canons, and thus presumably be eloquent of a time when “music,” in any conventional sense, was not; Roerich picks all the primary colours out of his paint-box and sets to work to devise amise-en-scèneso crudethat it must represent the furthest possible degree of unsophistication; while Nijinsky, fresh from his meditations on a primitive phase of art, hails with enthusiasm this new opportunity to apply the principles of expression by gesture and movement which he believes himself to have divined.
The result is a sort of “post-impressionism” on the stage. Expression, it has been said, not beauty, is the aim of the modern school of painters who, for convenience’ sake, have been dubbed “post-impressionists”; and this being also the avowed purpose of Nijinsky and his colleagues, the ballet might not unreasonably be expected to show some kinship with the products of that recent art “movement.” Certainly it is ugly—at the least, unpleasing to the normal modern eye: whether, by compensation, it is expressive, is obviously one of those matters of individual taste about which dispute is idle.
“Le Sacre du Printemps” consists of two tableaux, which are ostensibly representative of pagan Russia, but might equally serve as pictures of primitive civilisation anywhere—or nowhere! The theme is suitably simple. The season of spring is at hand, and mankind is occupied with worship of the two great forces apprehended by the primitive mind—the Earth and the Sun.
The first act shows the Adoration of the Earth. The joy of humankind in the advent of spring finds expression in the dance, and in the performance of due rites, in the ceremony of uniting the Sire of all the Sages to the newly fecund earth. What actually happens is that sundry groups of persons, attired in picturesque but by no means prehistoric garb, are discovered prostrating themselves in various peculiar poses amidst an expansive landscape which is very green, but not much else. One group, under the instruction of “an old woman of 300 years,” begins a ceremonial dance, which is to say that the younger members stamptheir feet and jerk their bodies about in an odd, rhythmic fashion, while the triple centenarian hops spasmodically amongst them. Other groups in turn spring up from their postures of obeisance and do the same, with variations. A number of young girls enter, and join the young men in the performance of the rites ordained. One is to understand that the strange antics which ensue are the primitive types of those folk dances and games which peasant children perform to this day in Russia: but it is doubtful whether even to a spectator familiar with modern rustic life in the remotest parts of that country, the connection would be apparent between the traditional games of feast days and the eccentric contortions of the performers on the stage. A feature of the games, the only one definitely recognisable (because the only one specified in the printed synopsis of the ballet) is a simulated abduction of some of the girls by a number of the young men, which is premonitory of the sacrifice to Iarilo, god of light—i.e., the Sun—depicted in the second act.