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Nijinsky's Choreographic Method: Visual Sources from Roerich for "Le Sacre du

printemps"

Millicent Hodson

Dance Research Journal, Vol. 18, No. 2, Russian Folklore Abroad. (Winter, 1986-1987), pp.7-15.

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Nijinsky's Choreographic Method: Visual Sourcesfrom Roerich for Le Sacre du printempsMillicent Hodson

Nicholas Roerich, the scenarist and designer of Le Sacredu printempsfor the original production, by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, in 1913,built the ballet around the saaifice of a young maiden.As the climaxto a series of ritual tasks bymembers of an archaic tribe, the ChosenMaiden dances herself to death to assure the return of Spring. Inthe logic of the rite her sacrifice is seen as a marriage with Yarilo,the sun deity of pre-Christian Slavic mythology. The composer ofthe ballet, Igor Stravinsky, claimed from the outset that he had con-ceived the idea for Sacre as he was finishing Firebird in 1910? But aninterview with Roerich in the St. ~e t e r i b u r ~ress and otherdocumentation show that he had alreadv written a scenario whenStravinsky approachedhim with the notion of a ballet about archaicRussia? Roerich's scenario was entitled 'The Great Sacrifice," andit survives as the second act of what we know as Le Sucre duprintemps. Contrasted with the somber tasks and grave tone of thesecond act are the vigorous games and ceremonies which Roerichand Stravinsky ogether planned for the first ad . Stravinsky markedthe score for Act I "Day" and Act I1 "Night," a polarity that is car-ried out in all aspects of the music, decor and choreography.

Much of what Roerich contributed to the collaboration on Sucrewas based on his extensive archaeological background. The pur-pose of this article is to indicate some of the sources he shared withNijinsky which helped to shape the strangely introvertedmovements of the dance? The use of primitivist models was a criti-que of contemporary culture for progressive artists prior to WorldWar I, and the example of Gauguin, Picasso and others stimulatedthe Russians to mine the rich ore of their mythological past; theydid not have to look to Oceania or Africa for sources, as elementsof pagan culture had persisted in Russia, partly because of late in-dustrialization and partly because of the protracted struggle be-tween adopted European traditions and indigenous customs sincethe time of Peter the Great!

How Roerich introduced Vaslav Nijinsky to visual sources fromthe early Slavs is hinted at in an article by Henri Prunihres, editorof the Revue Musicale in Paris. The article closes the M s emorialissue after the death of Serge Diaghilev in 1929 and the disbandingof his company. The great achievement of the Ballets Russes, ac-cording to PIIUI&~~S,as the unity of dance and dkor , and he citedSucre as a particularly effective collaboration:

Serge Diaghilev asked painters not only for models of decorsand costumes but ideas for plastic-realization. At base the greatrevolution accomplished with Le Sucre du printernps was in-spiredby looking at archaeological documents, primitive Slavicpaintings collected by Roerich, in which the characters werecontorted, the knees turned in, the arms twisted back. Nijin-sky followed suitby reversing the ."positions" of the academicdance. In "first" the dancer, instead of placing himself with thetoes turned out, turned them in.5As reconstructor of the choreography for this ballet, I asked myself,

what could these "archaeological documents" have been? The on-ly "primitive Slavic paintings" were those on the walls of caves.Roerich could not have collected them, of course, but he could haveshown Nijinsky photographs. When Nijinsky set the solo for theChosen Maiden on his sister, Bronislava, he asked her to visualizecertain Roerich paintings and told her that "the beauty of the tintedstones and the wall paintings of the cave dwellers have inspiredRoerich's own art."6 n her memoirs Nijinska recalls the discussionsbetween Roerich and Nijinsky, which her brother reported to herat length. Among the canvases he asked her to visualize was Theldols ofAncient Russia. In this and other works of the period, Roerichfeatured the brightly painted, carved wooden idols that werecharacteristic of pre-Christian Slavic settlements. Quite possibly,as the Roerich scholar Kenneth Archer suggested to me, the "ar-chaeological documents" referred to by Prunieres were Roerich'sown paintings on such subjects, although earlier he could haveshown Nijinsky small idols in his collection?

The wooden idols are the most probable source of Nijinsky'spostures and gestures. Indirectly, Leonide Massine says as muchin writing about his version of the ballet, the so-called "secondSacre,"which Diaghilev commissioned n 1920, seven years after Ni-jinsky's departure from the company. Massine defended his ownuse of parallel instead of inverted foot positionsby pointing out thatthe ancient carved figures did not really have turned in feet! Hispoint was well taken; which only serves to underscore Nijinsky'soriginality in pushing the postures, and the gestures as well,beyond the limits of his visual sources. That Nijinsky com-municated to the dancers in Sucre the concentrated focus of thecarved figures is evident in one critic's comment on the maidensand youths in the first act:

Their eyes have the fixity of those of wooden fetishes; theircheeks are painted red like their dresses; they hover awkward-ly, heavily, with movements which still belong to animalism . . . ? .In Roerich's ldols of Ancient Russia (Illustration I), parts of the

carved figures are accentuated with red paint, a detail which mayhave motivated the stylized make-up for the dancers in Sucre. Thesage, later in the first act, appears with his face painted like an idoltoo, but with long black lines, probably to denote his extreme age.A photograph of a typical Slavic idol (Illustration 2) reveals strik-ing similarities to the original Sucre movements, as preserved, forexample, in a backstage photo of the young men (Illustration3).Thesingle most important factor nNijinsys choreography, ashi s assis-tant for Sucre, Marie Rambert, emphasized to me in an interview,is the basic posture of the dance and the creative limitations it im-poses on d l aspects of movement?O In the introduction to herchoreographic notes on a piano score of Sucre-what Robert Crafthas called Rambert's "promptbook score"-she specifies Nijinsysfundamental principle, simple movement from a restricted base:

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111 1.Ehinting byNidrdasRmich, IdolsofAncientRussia. CChrintsofthisdaredated fnnn Wn-m.)ijinsky asked his sister, B m i s h , o visualize this and otherRoetichpintin@ as they set the solo o fthe ChosenMaiden,which W i s h e d he tmxbularyo f Sam.- -

t'

lllustmtion2. Slavic wooden idol. Note the h m alisman locatedbetween the k w l ofthe arms and legs, thus seeming tohrmgfnmra belt at the waist, as in some fthethe ostumesforSacre.Credit: Robert Wallace and the e d it m o f Zime-Life Books, TheRise ofRussia (Nededand:Em-Life International, 1967), p. 16.

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From the point of view of steps (in the academic sense), Ni-jinsky limitedhimself in all three of his ballets (Mpres-midid'unfaune, lax, and Sacre du printemps) to the simplest vocabulary;mostly plain walking, running and simple jumping. But foreach ballet he fixed a basic position of the body which madethe execution of these simple steps extremely difficult?2Nijinsky's choreographicmethod began with a definitive posturewhose design he extended to gesture and then to the shapes madeby groups as well as the ground patterns they described in the stagespace. Working from the individual to the crowd isa characteristic

of modern choreography which probably derives from the artistcreating in solitudeforhis or her own body. It isnot an opera-housemethod of devising material for soloists or corps de ballet, and im-plied in the method of spinning movement out of oneself is the no-tion of discovery-finding a new idiom for each dance rather thanrearranging academic steps. No doubt Nijinsky adapted thismethod from what he knew of Isadora Duncan's ways of working,and certainly he tried out the method in embryo when he createdFaune on his sister in the front room of their apartment in St.Pe te r~bu rg ?~ijinsky's method is sculptural, and quite possibly itwas further developed by his experience of being sculpted byAuguste Rodin, in the aftermath of F ~ u n e ? ~n any case, Nijinskyworked with the body in Sucre as a kind of block, as JacquesRiviireexplained in his seminal essay several months after the premiere.The body, he says, "moves only as a whole, it forms a totality andits manner of speaking is to leap suddenly with arms and legsoutspread, or to move to the side with knees bent and the head onthe shoulder."l5 Riviere's description clarifies both the wooden feel-ing and the fetish-like focus of the dancers, which Nijinsky seemsto have developed from the idols:

Rather than glide over things in his flight the dancer comesdown on them with the full weight of his body, he accountsfor every one with his heavy and complete attack. He jumpswith both feet onto every idea that he comes upon which hewishes to express; with a quick leap he turns to it, covers it,and stays for an instant to copy it. He forgets everything elseto make himself one with it for a moment . . . ?6In the sculptural form of the idols Nijinsky found, I think, a visualmodel for the more ephemeral qualities of ritual dance, whichRoerich surely discussed with him as well. Self-abnegation, absorp-tion in a ritual responsibility- these qualities of archaic religionare fossilized in objects like masks and idols, which, for the genera-tion after Gauguin, exemplified what was missing from modem life.Toward the end of Riviire's essay he gives a sort of stylisticchecklist for Sacre, declaring that it adds up to a radical redefini-tion of grace:

If one can, for once, stop confusing grace with symmetry andthe arabesque, he will find it on every page of Le Sacre duprintemps, in the sight of profiles of faces posed upon full-frontshoulders, in the elbows glued to the body, in the horizontalforearms, the rigid and open hands, in the trembling whichdescends like a wave from the head of the dancers to their feet,in the obscure, sparse, and preoccupied march of theadolescents in the second act?7It is useful to read Riviire's check-list while looking at thephotographs of the Slavic idol and the Sacre dancers. The rightangles of the carved figures on the idol create much the same ef-fect Nijinsky achieved with his profile postures. For instance, notethe second man from the left in the backstage photo, for the pro-file of a face "posed upon full-front shoulders." All the men, ex-cept the one on the far right, have their elbows close to the ribs ifnot "glued to the bod$' a distinctcharacteristic of the carved figureson the idol. This closure of the elbows breaks a cardinal rule ofclassicism, the framing of the torso or head with open arms. Even

when a Sucre dancer maintains the three-quarter view preferred inballet -like the man on the far left-closure of the elbows obstructsthe line of the torso, reinforcing the block-like impression of thebody, as does the bundling of the costumes. What Rivibre calls "thehorizontal forearms" are not demonstrated in the photo, but thereader can follow the line of movement and see how "glued elbows"require that some movements would be made from that joint in-stead of from the shoulder, causing the forearms to jut out fromthe waist in a stunted port de bras. If one looks again at the idoland studies the gesture of the top figures, it would seem to leadinto any of those for the Sacre men, even the dancer on the far right.From the position of one hand angled up and one hand down-"elbows glued"- slide the "rigid and open hands" to the waist,and that isthe Sucre gesture, moving from the shoulder with elbowsnow released. Yet none of the closure is lost, because of how thehands are held flat and how they adhere to the body rather thanfloat in space.Slavic idols were typically carved at right angles on the four sidesof a wooden column. The same figures were often repeated on eachside, so that an identical image was projected to the four directions,a result perhaps of the placement of idols at crossroads. Nijinskymay have been struck by this visual repetition as an analogue tothe obsessively repeated rhythms of Stravinsky's score, a legacy ofRussian folk music and shamanistic rite^?^ The titles for the variousscenes of Sacre, such as the fifth scene of Act I, "The Procession ofthe Sage: or the third scene of Act11, "Evocation of the Ancestors:'call attention to the importance of ritual structure to the originalballet. Roerich was clearly the collaborator who imparted thisknowledge to the others. When I interviewed the artist's son,Svetoslav Roerich, he recalled his father's interest in the vitality ofold Slavic customs in Russia even in this century. One occurrencenear the arts colony at Talashkino, where Roerich worked on hisSacre sketches, particularly fascinated him, as his son remembered:

Princess Tenisheva built a big idol at the crossroads inTalashkino, where several roads met - a big idol, carved inwood. Really it was to show the direction towards the estate.So it was standing there, a very big figure carved and painted.What is interesting is that the local villagers would bring of-ferings to it. You could find eggs with figures on them. Theywould bring towels and hang them on the projections of thewood. So that idol had become part and parcel of the life ofthe people?9The destruction of a wooden idol provides the climax to the BolshoiBallet's version of LeSacre du printemps, choreographed by NataliaKasatkina and Vladimir Vasiliov in 1965 (Illustration4).This action,which demonstrates he death of the old gods, reversed the mean-ing of the original ballet.When Sacre was first created, all the collaborators were intriguedwith the culture of pre-Christian Russia. Roerich returned to thistheme for paintings throughout his life, and Stravinsky, though hisinterest lasted a shorter period, made extensive formal use of tradi-tional material. The Slavic scholar Simon Karlinsky has writtenabout the pagan survivals in Stravinsky's music:

From Petrushka to The Soldier's Tale, Stravinsky seems deter-mined to compile a sort of register of archaic Russianceremonies and entertainments. The Rite of Spring (Vesnasyashchennaya, 1913) which followed Petrushka, fits quitenaturally into this register, having as its theme an enactmentof a pre-Christian rusalia or a Yarila ceremony?OKarlinsky noted, as few writers on Sacre have done, that there isno clear precedent in Slavic mythology for the sacrifice of themaiden. In Karlinsky's discussion about the authenticity of the rite,he suggests the sacrifice may derive from Mexican mythology:

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Zllustmtion3.Thegestures ofth e figuresa he wooden idolsare strikingly similar to those Nijinsky g m o the youngmen,as indicated in this backstage photo fnnn the 1923 Sucre. Credit: Photo Gerschel, Paris.

Zllustmtion4.Destruction oftheoldgods:Photogmph ofthefina lscene from the Bolshoi Ballet production of Le Sacre d uprintemps (1965).Credit: Natalia R os lav lm , Era ofthe RussianBallet (London:Gollana, 1966), p. 265.

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The final sacrifice of a chosen virgin, it is true, is an inventionthat has no historical Slavic antecedents. It seems to be Aztecand not anything connected with native Russian religion orfolklore?'Even though some historians recognized a synthesis of ritual

tradition in Sacre, few specify the possible origins of the sacrificialceremony, an exception being Cyril Beaumont. He discussed theend of Le Sacre in his early book on Nijinsky:

Just as the Aztecs sacrificed the handsomest young manamong them in honour of the god, Tezcatlepoca [sic], so onespring evening, after initial ceremonies, we see the fairestmaiden of the tribe forced to dance until she dies from exhaus-tion . . . .22

Roerich wrote an essay on the Stone Age, which does not relatedirectly to Sacre, but in it he associates the rites of Slavic and Scan-dinavian tribes with those of MexicoT3 So he may have found aprecedent for the dance of the Chosen Maiden in each of these tradi-tions, but he left no documentation of it. Given Roerich's commit-ment to archaeological authenticity and the encouragement he gaveboth Stravinsky and Nijinsky to use their Slavic heritage, it iscurious that he rewrote mythology for the climax of Sucre. I wonderif the decision enabled him to resolve the desire to use an archaicsubject with what he considered an appropriate way to end a ballet.Death of a young woman, or apotheosis of her spirit, is, after all,the cnuc of Romantic ballet. In a sense Alexandre Benois made thesame decision in Petmshka, combining a folk subject with the pathosof loss, the death of the most vulnerable character. I also wonder,though, whether Roerich perceived the impending destruction ofwar, like Vassily Kandinsky and other artists rethinking culturalvalues through primitivist rn odel ~?~acrifice of the young is stillthe image that shrouds the generation of 1914, and it was the sub-ject Nijinsky chose to dance in the solo that concluded his careerin 1919?=Roerich made sacrifice the climax of all the ritual actionsin Sucre, and it was this emphasis which, in retrospect, gave con-temporary relevance to the archaic rite. Jean Cocteau, among others,later regarded this ballet as a prediction of what was to him and hispeers, "the Great War."26

In the Stone Age essay Roerich affirmed his faith in the aestheticdevelopment of primitive man:The caves in the South indicate beyond any doubt the truesense of art in ancient man; they bear traces of the first mineralpaints and sometimes have complex designs on their ceilings.Such dwellings are sure to have been lighted with suspendinglamps, especially as the discovered objects of that period reachthe qualities of jewelry: finest needles, bridles for deer, or-naments made of pierced sea-shells and of the teeth ofanimals?'

Such objects were Roerich's models for the accessories to thecostumes for Sucre:great loop earrings for the women, ornamentedheadbands and belts, some with a charm attached-a horse, whichis associated with divination ceremonies of the early Slavs-andfor the men, belts with decorated weaponsT8 There is somethingrefined about their ornamentation," Roerich continued, "whichreminds you of India and Japan," and as he narrated what wasknown of a festival for "the victory of the Spring Sun," it is possi-ble to imagine his conversation with Nijinsky:

Quick, alert dancing is going on, to the piping of wood-and-horn pipes. Many of the various garments amid the crowd aretrimmed with furs and with touches of colored needle-work. .. .The younger generation forming rings for dancing andsinging wears amber ornaments, embroidery, stone beads andthe talisman teethF9Roerich concluded that "the day will come yet when we shall learn

much about the Stone Age . . . and learn a lotfrom it too," adding"only the Indian and the Shaman wisdom has kept somereminiscences of it," a statement that articulated the thought ofmany artists in his generation.

Nijinsky's choreographic method started with the design ofposture and gesture on the individual dancer. In Sacre he seemsto have had a direct visual model in the wooden idols that were ofparticular interest to Roerich. Other visual sources came throughRoerich as well, probably influencing the shapes of groups andground patterns. Nijinsky andhissister, Nijinska, evolved a methodof choreography that freed the body of classical restrictions butchanneled its energy through equally ~&orousisciplines of design,such as the inverted postures of LeSacre du printemps and the parallelmovement en pointe in Nijinska's Les Noces. Their choreographyunified posture and gesture for separate dancers with the organiza-tion of ensembles and their configurations on the stage. For bothof the Nijinskys there seems to have been an attempt also to coor-dinate the design of the movement with forms in the dicor. In Sacrethe figures are huddled together in clumps on the ground,repeating in successive planes the rounded hills of Roerich's drop-with a group in red repeating the shape and color of the sacredstone, a large reddish rock painted at the center of the dr0p.3~Likewise, the pristine postures and gestures and group formationsof Les Noces were related to the dhcor; the piling up of dancers indouble lines and pyramids is comparable to the multiple levels andreal volume in the Constructivist-inspired set designed by the ar-tist Natalia Goncharova.3' Nijinska regarded Les Noces, choreograph-ed for Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes in 1923, as her companionpiece of Russian ceremony to Nijinsky's Sac~e.3~That Nijinsky took Roerich's plans for costuming into considera-tion in his choreography is clear from Stravinsky correspondenceduring the early rehearsal period. On December 14,1912, the com-poser wrote from Clarens, in Switzerland, to Roerich in St.Petersburg:

I have just returned from Berlin and received your costumedesigns for our "Spring." I am pleased they were sent to mefirst so that I could see them- they are a real miracle, and Ionly hope the realization of them will be good!-but I regretthe delay before Nijinsky receives them, which is the reasonthat my telegram said, "Send to Nijinsky." I am forwardingthem to him t0day.3~

Stravinsky also told Roerich that "Nijinsky started his staging ofthe 'Spring' only yesterday(' which would have been December 13,and probably means the f is t rehearsal with dancers, other thanhis sister for her solo as the Chosen Maiden" Diaghilev telegraphedStravinsky on December 18, advising that neither had arrived, norrehearsals started.35The rehearsal on the 13th was only, it wouldseem, for acquainting small groups of the cast with the music, ratherthan for setting movement. The timing of the communiquCs is ofinterest because Serge Grigoriev, the company regisseur,Gate alsoon the Bth, reporting that "Nijinsky has not started the rehearsalsof our new ballet; he is waiting for the drawings of the costume^."^^Presumably, the drawings were those Stravinsky ust sent, which,as an earlier letter from Roerich indicated, were in two books, ac-companied by twenty-four finished c0sturnes.3~t may be that Ni-jinsky simply wanted to have a visual sense of the whole produc-tion before embarking on the ensemble dances. Or, he may havebeen concerned about the bulk of the garments, as it would affectthe movement. But he may have wanted to construct the Sacregroupwork and ground patterns in a way directly connected to thecostumes.The two books of designs that Roerich mentioned are not knownto survive, although separate drawings may be among those in col-lections in the Soviet Union, United States, and Western Europe.38

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Most of the seventy-nine costumes he created have been preserved,and the large group of them housed at the Theatre Museum of theVictoria and Albert Museum, London, are in good condition, sothat Iwas able to study them first-hand. Because of Roerich's lifelonginterest in iconography and systems of ritual signs, I attempted toanalyze the costume motifs for their mythological references. In thecourse of this analysis, I began to notice correspondences with thechoreography. It stood to reason that Roerich might use motifsassociated with Yarilo, the solar deity who was the subject of therite. One male costume, which had a label for the dancer AlexanderGavrilov, was notable for the emblems that ran up from the borderat the hem; the emblems ook like ladders surmounted bywheels,and they may represent the wooden wheels that were threadedwith dry twigs, placed atop ladders or poles, and set afire tocelebrate the return of the sun.39A photograph of the costumes,from the sale of the collection at sotheby's, features this garmentwith the firewheelsPoThe colors Roerich used supported the in-terpretation of these emblems as firewheels for Yarilo- the lad-der and wheel were orange, and the spaces between the spokeson the wheels were dark aqua, as though the sky were showingthrough them. On the sleeve of the same costume was a figure sten-cilled in orange and dark aqua with magenta added. It occurredto me that it might be a totem of Yarilo, such as are shown on thewooden idols of the early Slavs. At the same time, it reminded meof Bronislava Nijinska's description of the dance of the ChosenMaiden, which she wrote in a letter to the Soviet ballet historianVera Krassovskaya. Detailing a section toward the end of the solo,Nijinska suggested that "the movements give the image of aprehistoric bird whose wings try to raise the body, which is clum-sy and not yet ready to fly."41 When I met Svetoslav Roerich, Ishowed him my study sketch for the costume (Illustration5), andI asked him what he thought it signified. A bird, he said withouthesitation, and I queried whether or not it might be a totem of somedeity, but he repeated, 'An ancient bird."42The leaps of the youngmen who wear the firewheel costumes adumbrate those of theChosen Maiden in her awkward effort to join Yarilo in the sky.

Beyond the symbolic references of the costume motifs, Ihoped,if possible, to decode dance movements from them. O n thefirewheel costumes the border print included circles with adarkened circle in the center, and outside the circumference of thecircles were the curves of broken or incomplete circles. Accordingto my cross-referencing of sources for the reconstruction, a groundpattern very like this concentric circle motif appears in the secondact of Le Sacre; once the Chosen Maiden has been selectedby a trickof fate and surroundedby the other young women, the elders beginto close in around them-(Illustration6). A number of ground pat-terns familiar from my research were identifiable, perhaps by coin-cidence, on the costumes. It may well be impossible to prove anyrelationship between the dancers' garments and the dance design,but such continuityexists in ritual traditions from various culturesP3

That Roerich and Nijinsky may have planned specific cor-respondences in the choreography and costume motifs is consis-tent with the manner in which they worked together. Nijinsky doesnot seem to have put any of the ensembles together until mid-to-late January 1913, by which time he had received Roerich's draw-ings and costumes. Many of the ground patterns in the originalSucrehave antecedents in the ritual dance of shamanistic tradition -circles, concentric circles, squares, and the circle-in-the-square.Surely Roerich passed on to Nijinsky the importance of such pat-terns in the archaic rites of the Slavs. As designer, he would havealready incorporated them as motifs on the costumes, which Ni-jinsky insisted on seeing before his preparation of the ensemblemovement. So it is reasonable to suppose that the ground patternsof the ballet have this derivation fromRoerich and ritual tradition.On January 27, Nijinsky wired Gabriel Astruc, director of the

Theitre des Champs-Elysees, for the dimensions of the stage, whichmeans that he was-working on the relationships of the pups, theirproximity, the time it would take for one group to passanother andother ensemble questionsP4 Two days earlier, Nijinsky wrote toStravinsky from Leipzig, where the company was still touringbefore the London season. The letter is such a comprehensivereport on rehearsals and the choreographer's refletions on Le Sacrethat it makes all the more enticing the fact that similar cor-respondence with Roerich did exist, although its whereabouts arenow unknownP5 Nijinsky also wrote regularly to his mother inPetersburg during his travels with the Ballets Russes, and those let-ters, too, would have disclosed much about his creative process,but they were lost in World War IIP6 What Nijinsky expressed toStravinsky on January 25, 1913, summarized this process.

Dear Igor, I have been able to make five rehearsals since ourdeparture from Vienna. This is not very many, of course, con-sidering how much remains to be done, but with the burdenof work that we have, and with these tiring moves from townto town, where we stay only two or three days, it was not possi-ble to do more. I squeezed as much out of these rehearsals asI could, and if I am able to continue this way, I will possiblyhave enough time for everything - without damaging myhealth and at the same time dancing well at the performances.We have composed almost everything through the games anddances in the ring, and the game of abductionP7Nijinsky may mean that in less than three weeks he completed the

first two scenes of Act I, Augurs of Spring (which clim&es in thegame with the twigs) and the continuation in Dance of the Maidens(which includes chain movement that become circles, or rings) plusRitualAbdution- seven minutes of the thirty-five minute ballet.This rate of productivity is high by any company standards, if Ni-jinsky's performances as a principal are borne in mind. But on theother hand, he may mean that he has finished the first four scenesof Act I, Augurs of SpringlDance of the Maidens; Ritual Abduc-tion; Spring Rounds (possibly the "dances in the ring"); and theGames of theR i d Tribes, which would mean a third of the wholework. According to Nijinska, her brother went over every accentwith every dancer, and he " would not proceed in his compostionuntil he obtained the exact execution," which "created the h pres-sion that Nijinsky himself was proceeding at a slow pace" in hischoreographyP8 The Leipzig letter helps establish the fact that, giventhe complexities of Sucre and the touring schedule, Nijinsky was

apace. Part of the purpose o fthe letter may have beento demonstrate as much to Stravinsky, who had already pro-mulgated the idea Nijinsky was a slow workerP9That idea, togetherwith Stravinsky's verdict that Nijinsky was unmusical, went a longway to discredithisdance in the years before the composer retractedhis interim views and declared that the original choreography wasthe best of any for S~ cre .~ ohe letter continued with Nijinsky fullof hope and &citement over his creation:

I am very pleased with the way everything has turned out. Ifthe work continues ike this, Igor, the result will be somethinggreat. I know what Le Sacre du printemps will be wheneverything is as we both want it: new, and, for an ordinaryviewer, a jolting impression and emotional experience. Forsome it will open new horizons flooded with different rays ofsun. People will see new and different colors and differentlines. All different, new and beautiful. I go to Dresden today,where it will be impossible to rehearse since we are only therefor one day. From Dresden we go to London. A bow to yourwife. I kiss your hand. Vaslav?

When the Ballets Russes arrived in London at the end of January,1913, Stravinsky joined them for Sacre rehearsals. Nijinsky confid-ed to his sisterhk frustration over what he considered time lost inrehearsals with the composer's 'lectures" concerning "the begin-

12 Dance Research Journal 1812 (Winter 1986-87)


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lllustmtion 5. Costume by Nicholas Roerich fir Young Man in Sacre.RaoonstncctMId d g nd costumestudybyMillicent Hodson,Act 1, Scene4, Gamesofthe Rival Tribes, a sudden leap with arms and legs outspread,based on obseruations in ]aqua R i m 2 s essay on Sacre, 19B.

Illustration 6. Details fm n costume: "the prehistoric bird" and the concentric cifcles. Ground pattern: Act I, Scene2, Glorification of the Chosen Maiden. D-ngs by Millicent Hodson.Dance Research Journal 18/2 (Winter


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ning theory of musi~."5~ijinsky said, "I only wish I could hearthe music without so many unnecessary breaks," and he added,"Iwish he would tak more about hi s music for Sacre . . . Is3 He alsospoke at that point of how he was inspiredby the libretto and howhe "was being greatly encouraged in his creative work by Roerich:'which again suggests communication about the relation of danceto design in Le Sucre during the actual period of its const~u ct ion.~Anatole Bourman, Marie Rambert, and other Ballets Russes dancershave described how the tensions mounted during the rehearsalperiod for Sucre, but Nijinska, with her unique perspective on Ni-jinsky, best explained the causes and effects for her brother. Muchof the problem she attributed to his perennial isolation from therest of the dancers, due to his relationship with Diaghilev. Whenhe most needed the company's solidarity, there was no bond tostrengthen and intensify, and instead the alienation betweenchoreographer and cast grew ever greater? Although Roerich hadbeen connected with the Ballets Russes off and on since its firstseason, he did not have the familiarity with the company that, forexample, Bakst had. When Roerich came to Monte Carlo for theSucre rehearsals, according to Nijinska, he focused his attention onthe choreographer:

Only Roerich supported Vaslav. He often came to the rehear-sals and encouraged Vaslav, who would listen attentively. Theonly time Vaslav appeared relaxed during rehearsals was whenhe was with Roerich.56At the end of the London rehearsals or beginning of those in

Monte Carlo, Nijinsky was working on the final scenes of Act I, theGames of the Rival Tribes and Procession of the SagelDance of theEarth, about which Roerich wrote to Diaghdev: The wisest ancientis brought from the village to imprint his sacred kiss on the new-flowering earth. During his rite the crowd is seized with a mysticterror, and this our excellent Nijinsky has stylized for us admirablywell."57During the early spring rehearsal period, Roerich came toMonte Carlo, where the company resided from mid-March, stay-ing on through their April season there, until they left in early Mayfor Paris. Still at this stage in the construction of the dance, con-versations continued between the scenarist-designer andchoreographer. Nijinska recalled:Vaslav often told me how much he liked to listen to Roerichtalking about his studies of the origin of man, describing thepagan rites and the prehistory of the tribes "that roamed theland we now call Rus~ia."~8

The collaboration with Nicholas Roerich thus seems o have beena constructive experience for Nijinsky. Not only were the woodenidols a potential source of posture and gesture but also the motifson the costumes-with all the mythological references embodiedin them-created options for the shape of the whole dance on thestage. Although Nijinsky began working toward his choreographicmethod with Faune, it crystallized in Sacre. Inritual tradition a votivedesign is thought to contain the energy of whatever it signifies.Acircle, like the sun, is potent in and of itself because of its cor-respondence to that source of energy. So the continuity of designfrom a shaman's rattle to the steps of his dance is a form of inmmen-tal repetition which multiplies the impact of the rite. Some magicalsystemizing of this sort pervades Nijinsky's movement for Sucre.What remains to be explored choreographically is whether thissystem, or method, of extending the design of movement for asingle dancer to the configurations of a full cast requires a ritual sub-ject. Neither Nijinsky nor Nijinska exhausted the creativepossibilities of this method.

NOTES1.Robert Craft, "Genes is of a Masterpiece:' introduc tion to Igor Stravin -sky an d Robert Craft, The Rite of Spring Sketches, 1911-1913 (Lon do n: Booseyand Hawkes, 1969), p. xvi-xvii.2. Bronislava Nijinska quotes the St. Petersburg Gazette interview in whichRoerich describes his scenario, in Bmnislava Nijinska: Early Memoirs, editedan d translated by Irina Nijinska and Jean Rawlinson, introduction by An-na Kisselgoff (New York: Holt, Rinehart an d Winston, 1981),p. 448. A let-ter from Svetoslav Roerich, the artist's son, gave me full details o n he originalscenario (August 22,1981). The issue is discussed in E. Polyakova,Rerikh:Zhiz n lskusstvo (Roerich : Life inArt), (Moscow : Iskusstvo, 1973), pp. 168-170.3. This article develops material from my doctoral thesis, Nijinsky's NezuDance: Rediscovery of Ritunl Design in "Le Sacre du printemps" (Univ ersity ofCalifornia, Berkeley, 1985). The thesis is not published but parts wereadapte d for two articles in Dance Research, the Journ al of the Society or DanceResearch, London, Vol. 3, No. 1(Autumn, 1985) an d Vol. 4, No. 1(Spring,1986).I would like to acknowledge th e help a nd interest of my th esis chair-man, Prof. Bertrand Augst, Com parative Literature, and com mittee member,Prof. Robert Hughes, Slavic Studies.4. Useful references on primitivist models of Russian artin the late 19thandearly 20thcentury areCamilla Gray, The Russian Experiment in Art, 1863-1922(London: Thames and Hudson, 1962), reissue d in new format (N ew York:Harry N. Abrams, 197l) and Susan I? Compton, The World Backwards: Rus-sian Futurist B& 1912-1916 (London: The British Library, 11978). More generalworks on the social background of R ussian art are Robert Auty an d DirnitriObolensky, An introduction toRussianArt and Architecture (CambridgeUniver-sity Press, 1980, paperback, 1981) an d M ikhail Alpatov, Russian lmpact onAr t (New York: Philosophical Library, 1950).5. "Conclusion:' RevueMusicale, XI (December,1930), p. lO3. Unless indicatedotherwise, tra nslations in this article are by the author.6. Nijinska, p. 449.7. Interview with Kenneth Archer (London, April 3, 1981).8. M y Life in Ballet, edited by Phyllis Hartnoll a nd Robert Rubens (London:Macmillan, 1968), p. 152. Also, interview with Leonide M assine (Berkeley,Ma y 12, 1977).9. Emile Cottinet, "Le Sacre du printemps," Le Feu, Paris (July,1913), p. 831.10. Interview with Marie Rambert (London, April 20, 1979).11. "Nijinsky an d 'LeSacre: "New YorkRmriew of Books (April 15,1976), p. 39.12. "Introdu ction to Typesc ript of Note s for Le Sacre du printemps, P i o corefor Four Hands" (Introduction, 1967; Notes, 1913). I would like toacknowledgeJane Pritchard, archivist of th e Ballet Rambe rt, who m ade thismaterial available to m e.13. Nijinska, pp. 315-316.14. Ibid., p. 443.15. Jacqu es Riviere, "Le Sacre d u printemps:' La Nouvelle Revue Fran~aise,Vol. VII (Novem ber 1,1913), p. 723. The translation of this passa ge is fromthe doctoral thesis of Tru man C. Bullard, The First Petformance oflgor Stmv in-sky's "Sacredu Printemps" (University of Rochester, Eastrnan S choolof Music,June 6,197l). In add ition to his written text, which is Volume I, Bullard in-cluded a collection of contemporary rwiews, which is com prehensive if notcomplete, his translation of them comprises Volume I1 and the reviews inthe original French constitute Volume ID. His translation is direct, oftenliteral, an d I have found it useful for searching out choreographic clues.Anoth er translation which reads we ll but is less helpful for dance data isthe se lection of exc erpts by Miriam Lassman, inc luded as an appendiw inLincoln Kirstein, Nijinsky Dancing (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1975). Th eRivisre quo te giv en her e is from Bullard , Vol. 11, p. 296.16. Bid.17. lbid., p. 300.18.Information on Yarilo cults and northern Slavic rites I have gathered fromsuch source s as th e following: E. LouisBackrnan,Religious Dances in the Chris-tian Church and in Popular Medicine (London: Allen an d Unwin, Lid., 1952),a general book which de als with pag an antecedents; J am es Billington, TheIcon and the Axe (Ne w York an d London : Vintage, 1966); R.W. Ralston, Rus-

14 Dance Research Journal 1812 (Winter 1986-87)


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sian Folktales (New York: Arno Press, 1927);"Slavic Mythology," StandardDictionary of Folklore, Legend and Myth olog y (New York: Funk and Wagnalls,1949,1972), pp. 1025-1027in particular; B. Unbegaun, "La religion des an-ciens Slaves," Mana, Vol. 11, 3 (Paris, 1948).19.Interview with Svetoslav Roerich (Bangalore, India, September14,1983).20. Simon Karlinsky, 'Treliterate Russian Theatre," a chapter from a book-in-progress, which the author shared with me during a conversation on LeSacn du pintemps (Berkeley, May 20,1982).The quote is from the typescript,p. 23.21. Bid.22.Cyril Beaumont, Vaslav Nijinsk y (London: Beaumont, 1932), p. 19.23. Nicholas Roerich, 'The StoneAge, "Adamant (Paris:Franco-Russe, 1923,in French; New York: C o m aMundi, 1924,in English, a translation whichseems to have been by Roerich himself), pp. 125-139.24. For discussion of the issue of rethinking cultural values, see Gray,

especially pp. 110-130, and Compton, pp. 18-19, 26-31, and 92-95.25.Richard Buckle,Nijinsky (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 19?l), pp.406-408.Buckle quotes Romola Nijinsky's account of the dance and putsit in context.26.Jean Cocteau, "Reminiscence," in Minna Lederman (editor), Stravinskyin the Theatre (New York: Pellegrini and Cudahy, 1949), p. 13.27. Roerich, pp. 131-132.28.The information about the horse as a sign of divination is from "SlavicMythology," Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and kgend, p. 1027.On Roerich's costumes for the women and men the horse charm and thedecorated weapons can be seen in a photo of Sacre costumes published inAlexander Shouvaloff and Victor Borovsky, Stravinsky on Stage (London:Stainer and Bell, 1982), p. 69.29. Roerich, p. 136.30.Thisdesign forAct I is reproduced in "Nicholas Roerich andhisTheatricalDesigns: A Research Survey" by Kenneth Archer in this issue, p. 4. Dur-ing the week of the Sacre premiere, the artist Valentine Gross made manysketches of the ballet, including five pastels which demonstrate the rela-tionship of the choreographicgroups and their costumes to the shapes andcolor masses of the dgcor. The series of pastels will be reproduced in thepresent author's book on Sacre at the time of her reconstruction of Nijin-sky's choreography with the Joffrey Ballet in 1987-1988.31.The design for Les Noces is published in Mary Chamot, G o n t c h a m (Lon-don: Oresko, 1979).32.Conversations with Irina Nijinska (Los Angeles, December17-18,1979).33. Vera Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents(New York: Simon and Schuster, lm),p. 92.34. rbid.35. aid.,p. 93.36. I&id.

38.These collections include he Bakhrushin Theatre Museum inMoscow,the Stravinsky-Diaghilev Foundation in New York, the ~ ibl ioth h~ueel'Op6ra in Paris and the Theatre Museum, currently housed at the Victoriaand Albert Museum in London.39. See note 18.40. Photographs of the costumes sold at Sotheby's are in the sale catalogueCostumes and Curtains for Dia ghi lw and De Basil Ballets (London: Sotheby andCo., December 19, 1%9).

41. Vera Krassovskaya, Russkii Baletnyi Teatr Nachala Veka (Russian BalletTheatre at the Beginning of the 20th Century (Leningrad: Iskusstvo, 197l),p.438. Susan Cook Summer in New York and Ludrnilla Bibikova Matthewsassisted me with the translation of Krassovskaya's work.42. Interview with Svetoslav Roerich.43. Contemporary research needs to be done on the relationship betweenritual dance pattern and talismanic designs on musical instruments andvotive objects. What is available to read is either out-of-date or restrictedto a single discipline, such as musicology or mythology. Probably the bestresults could be attainedby co mb i igmethods of dance anthropologywiththose from the history of design. The necessity of combining methods nodoubt results from the integration of ritual dance in social, cultural andmetaphysical systems which draw upon consistent visual symbolism. Anumber of available texts touch on this subject. Among those I found mostuseful are: Jane Belo, Trance n Bali(New York, Columbia University, 1960);Franziska Boas, The Function of Dance in Human Society (1944; reprinted inNew York: Dance Horizons, 1972);ErikaBowpigon, 'Trance Dance:' D a mPerspectives, 35 (Autumn,1968);Maya Deren, Divine Horsemen (New York:Thames and Hudson, 1953);Joan Halifax, Shamanic Voices(New York: Dut-ton, 1979; London: Penguin, 1980);John T. Hitchcock and Rex L. Jones,editors, Spirit Rsse ssion in the Nepal HimaZayas(Warminster:Aris andPhillips,1976);Laszlo Legeza, 'EwMagic: The Secret Langauge ofDiagmmsand Calligmphy(London: Thames and Hudson, 1975).44. Richard Buckle, Diaghileu (New York: Atheneum, l979), p. 242.45.The correspondence between Roerich and Nijinsky I learned about fromSina Fosdick, who was then director of the Nicholas Roerich Museum inNew York. She quoted an article by Roerich in which he reflected on thelife of an 6migr; and the dispersion of treasured possessions. In the articlehe asked, "And where are the letters from Nijinsky now?" Mrs. Fosdick,a Russian er n ie eherself, was then in her nineties, having worked inNewYork since her arrival in the earlv1920s.shortlv after which she met Roerichand began a lifelong association with him and his cultural projects. In ourdiscussion she could not remember the name, date, or title of the article,or whether it had been published, but she could visualize the typed page,which was in Russian. Interview with SinaFosdick (New York, October 15,1982).46. Conversationswith h a ijinska. Bronislava Nijinska told her daughterof a wicker sewing basket in which she had kept Vaslav's letters to theirmother; it was left for safekeeping with a Moscow friend when Nijinskaleft the Soviet Union in 1921,and contact with the friend ceased during thewar.47. Stravinsky and Craft, p. 94.48. Nijinska, p. 460.49.Stravinsky and Craft, pp. 92-94.This view is clear from the letters dur-ing the early rehearsal period, December 1912, through January 1913.50. Krassovskaya, and Marie Rambert, Quicksilver (London: Macmillan,1972).p. 59.51. Stravinsky and Craft.52. Nijinska, p. 458.53. rbid.54.Bid.55. Nijinska, pp. 460-46156. Bid.57.The letter is published in Serge Lifar, Serge Diaghileu (London: Putnam,1940),p. 200.58. Nijinska, p. 461.

Dance Research Journal 18/2 (Winter 1986-87) l5