Bronislava Nijinska

Bronislava Nijinska, a Russian dancer of Polish heritage, became a groundbreaking choreographer. She grew up surrounded by professional dancers in a traveling family. Her career started in Saint Petersburg, and she quickly joined the Ballets Russes, a company that found great success in Paris. Nijinska was a key figure in the shift away from 19th-century classical ballet. She brought in modern movements, steps, and a stripped-down storytelling style, which paved the way for later choreography.

After serious training at home, she entered the state ballet school in the Russian capital at age nine. She graduated in 1908 as an Artist of the Imperial Theatres. Her first major break came in Paris in 1910, when she joined Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. She created the solo role of Papillon in *Carnaval*, a ballet by Michel Fokine.

She helped her famous brother, Vaslav Nijinsky, as he developed his controversial choreography for *L’Après-midi d’un faune*, premiered in Paris in 1912. She also assisted him with the 1913 ballet *The Rite of Spring*.

During the First World War, the Revolution, and the Civil War, she survived in Petrograd and Kiev, working in dance and striving to develop her own artistic vision. She performed in dance halls and theaters, then designed and staged her first choreographies. In Kiev, she started a ballet school with progressive ideas. She also published writings on the art of movement. In 1921, she fled Soviet authorities, who had closed her school.

Back in France, she rejoined the Ballets Russes, and Diaghilev made her the company’s choreographer. She thrived, creating several popular, cutting-edge ballets set to contemporary music. In 1923, she choreographed her iconic work *Les noces* (The Wedding), with a score by Igor Stravinsky.

Starting in 1925, she designed and mounted ballets across Europe and the Americas for many companies and venues, including Teatro Colón, Ida Rubinstein, Vienna Staatsoper, Opéra Russe à Paris, Wassily de Basil, Max Reinhardt, Markova-Dolin, Ballet Polonaise, Ballet Theatre, the Hollywood Bowl, Jacob’s Pillow, Serge Denham, Marquis de Cuevas, and her own companies.

With the outbreak of war in 1939, she moved from Paris to Los Angeles. She continued choreographing and working as an artistic director, and also taught at her studio. In the 1960s, she staged revivals of her Ballets Russes-era works for The Royal Ballet in London. Her *Early Memoirs*, translated into English, was published after her death.

Bronislava Nijinska was the third child of Polish dancers Tomasz Niżyński and Eleonora née Bereda, who were traveling performers in provincial Russia. Her father came from a landed gentry family; her mother, from a Warsaw family of carpenters. Nijinska was born in Minsk. All three children were baptized in Warsaw’s Holy Cross Church, she on April 30, 1891. She was the younger sister of the world-famous dancer Vaslav Nijinsky.

Both parents began their dancing careers in Warsaw at the Grand Theatre. They met later, each already a ballet professional with the Setov troupe based in Kiev. With that troupe, they performed in provincial capitals of the Russian Empire. They married in Baku. Tomasz, five years younger, had risen to premier danseur and ballet master. Eleonora, orphaned at seven, had followed her elder sister into ballet and was dancing as a first soloist.

Using his skills as a ballet master, Tomasz formed and directed his own small troupe of a dozen dancers plus students. He created a ballet pantomime and performed in circus-theaters, using Polish and Russian music. In 1896, he staged *The Fountain of Bakhchisarai*, based on an 1823 poem by Pushkin. Eleonora danced the captured princess; her children Vatsa and Broni watched her on stage. Tomasz choreographed two very successful ballets, the other being *Zaporozbeskaya Tcharovnitza*. Nijinska implies their troupe prospered, though this has been questioned. Besides renting theaters, Tomasz contracted with café chantants, popular nightspots where patrons dined while watching music and dance. Family life was surrounded by artists at work and at home. Her father loved to be with painters, writers, actors, and musicians. Two touring African-American tap dancers, Jackson and Johnson, visited their home and gave Nijinska her first lessons.

In the past, Tomasz had turned down dance offers due to family obligations. In 1897, near Saint Petersburg, he and Eleonora danced on stage together for the last time. He then continued on the road alone. On a prior trip to Finland, he had become involved with another dancer, which led to a permanent separation from his wife. His relationships with his children suffered; he saw them infrequently.

Eleonora established the family’s permanent residence in Saint Petersburg. She had struggled for years with constant travel while caring for her three children. She rented a large flat and opened a pension. Bronislava records that her brother Vaslav became bitter and later turned against his father because of the suffering their mother endured.