{"id":144880,"date":"2026-03-12T08:00:39","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T12:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=144880"},"modified":"2026-03-12T21:41:38","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T01:41:38","slug":"what-mad-nijinsky-wrote-about-diaghilev-its-vaslav-nijinskys-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=144880","title":{"rendered":"“I am not descended from flesh. I am God.”: It’s Vaslav Nijinsky’s Birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nFrom Tennessee Williams’ semi-autobiographical last play, Something Cloudy, Something Clear<\/a>\"\"<\/i>:<\/p>\n

CLARE. [to Kip] I\u2019m about to deliver a lecture to him on making concessions in art.<\/p>\n

KIP. For or against?<\/p>\n

CLARE. I think any kind of artist \u2014 a painter like Van Gogh, a dancer like Nijinsky \u2013<\/p>\n

AUGUST. Both of them went mad.<\/p>\n

CLARE. But others didn\u2019t, refused to make concessions to bad taste and yet managed survival without losing their minds. That\u2019s purity. You\u2019ve got to respect it or not.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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\nVaslav Nijinsky was born in the late 19th century and was recognized as extremely gifted very early on during his time at the ballet school in St. Petersburg. He was chosen by choreographer and ballet master Serge Diaghilev to be the lead dancer in his company, the Ballets Russes. (See the fantastic documentary, The Ballets Russes<\/i> for the story of this legendary company.) <\/p>\n

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Nijinsky was only in his early 20s, but he was already creating his own work, in particular three ballets that one can say without exaggeration changed the world: The Afternoon of a Faun<\/i>, Jeux<\/i>, and The Rite of Spring<\/i>. The Rite of Spring<\/i>, with its score by Stravinsky, is the most famous: at the ballet’s first performance in Paris in 1913, the audience rioted in outrage. Literally. The performance caused a riot. The Rite of Spring<\/i> was part of a much larger artistic “movement”, representing the avant-garde, the experimental, slowly infiltrating the art world. (1913 was also the year of the famous Armory Show in New York, another “and nothing was the same after that” event. 1913 was a big year). Old forms were breaking up, 19th-century traditions shattering. Literature, music, dance, art, architecture, fashion, social mores: all were going through massive upheavals. In 1913, Gavrilo Princip stands in the wings, waiting for his entrance. <\/p>\n

Ballet is one of the most conservative artforms on the planet. Opera is probably a close second. This is not to say, a la Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet, that they should be retired as artforms because “nobody cares” about them. Such an ignorant thing to say! For ballet and opera, tradition has been key to its survival. And I’ve said it before: you ask any young ballerina about the history of her own artform, and she will be able to tell you. She will know about Margot Fonteyn and Anna Pavlova. This is UNLIKE, by the way, young actors, who can’t tell you who Spencer Tracy is or don’t understand why anything that happened before them is important. My overall point is: if tradition is important in ballet, then Nijinsky’s The Rite of Spring<\/i> confronted tradition and pushed on past it. His ballet strolled into the future. It CREATED the future. The Rite of Spring<\/i> came OUT of a tradition, but didn’t bow down before it. Hence: RIOTS. <\/p>\n

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\nNijinksy and Diaghilev were lovers, and for a time it was a productive love affair. They were both working at the top of their forms. Their breakup was stormy and then Nijinsky married a woman named Romola, who sounds like a wretched human being. Nijinsky was fired from the Ballets Russes, and things really started to spiral out of control. Perhaps he had always been a little bit mad, but as long as he had the outlet of his art, and the protection of Diaghilev, his madness was used for creative purposes. Perhaps. These are the things people still discuss when it comes to Nijinsky. Was he mad? Could his tragic end have been prevented? So WHAT if he was a little bit mad? He was hospitalized repeatedly. The treatment in those “hospitals” was brutal. If you weren’t sick when you entered the hospital, you sure as hell were MADE sick during your stay. Romola would park her husband in a sanatorium and then travel the world, living it up, eating out on his name, lying to the press: “He’s getting ready for a comeback!” Meanwhile, Nijinsky was in a locked room, dozing off, his head drooping into his bowl of soup . He painted the walls with his feces. He was given hundreds of shock treatments and insulin treatments, which probably caused irreversible brain damage. It\u2019s just a fucking devastating story. <\/p>\n

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\nHis diaries were eventually published: The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky<\/a>\"\"<\/i>. I read them in high school with a sense of queasy curiosity. They haunted me. There were pictures of people visiting Nijinsky in the asylum and making him jump for them. It was so awful<\/i>. His face is blank, he is an old stout-ish man, with a deteriorated mind, jumping in place to satisfy visitors he didn’t know. I consider his diaries a must-read: they are an extended rant about what it is like to be him, his hallucinations, his fantasies. He felt he was God-like, he was paranoid, he felt persecuted (understandable), and in moments of lucidity mourned all he had lost. The scariest part is he knew he was losing his mind.<\/p>\n

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Auden, in his great poem, “September 1, 1939”, writes:<\/p>\n

The windiest militant trash
\nImportant Persons shout
\nIs not so crude as our wish:
\nWhat mad Nijinsky wrote
\nAbout Diaghilev
\nIs true of the normal heart;
\nFor the error bred in the bone
\nOf each woman and each man
\nCraves what it cannot have,
\nNot universal love
\nBut to be loved alone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The myth of Nijinsky is so gigantic – which is fascinating – since there is almost no footage of him dancing. ALMOST. There’s a rare clip of him from 1912 performing Faun<\/i>. <\/p>\n

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