Abstract
Vaslav Nijinsky was granted only ten glorious years at the head of Sergei Diaghilev’s legendary «Ballets Russes». He intoxicated audiences with virtuoso leaps and androgynous charisma as the Faun and the Golden Slave. His audacious choreographies provoked scandals. He loved a man and married a woman. The dancer fell at the pinnacle of his fame: mentally ill, he was damned to spend thirty years in sanatoria before he died in London in 1950. Involuntary commitment to a psychiatric clinic, dubious diagnoses, and experimental therapies drove his soul beyond the reach of others. Marco Goecke dedicated a feature-length ballet to this epoch-making dancer and choreographer, and the result fascinatingly merges Goecke’s distinctive, nervously trembling, frantic body language with reminiscences of Nijinsky the artist, bringing in elements from his dancing career. The choreography takes a close look at Nijinsky the man and his essence, transferring emotions into highly aesthetic movements. Although Marco Goecke accompanies the exceptional artist through the stations of his life, the piece goes far beyond a pure biography: the focus is on the magic and value of art, but also on the price it relentlessly demands of all creative people.
Marco Goecke has been a guest of the Ballett Zürich numerous times, most recently with his choreography Almost Blue. He created the ballet Nijinski for Gauthier Dance in Stuttgart, and produced a revised version of it in Zurich in 2019. In addition to Claude Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, the musical framework for Goecke’s ballet is formed by Frédéric Chopin’s two piano concertos. The evening is a revealing parallel to the famous choreography Les Noces by Nijinskiy’s sister Bronislava, which premieres this season as part of the Timekeepers program.
