THE DANCE INSIDER
…
Speaking of "Faune"
-- and don't worry, we'll get to "Rite of Spring" in a bit! -- this
would be a good time to turn to Herve Nisic's 26-minute film, "Revoir Nijinsky,"
featured in this exhibit. Here we get some material that's a rave for fans and
scholars alike: First, there's tape of Paris Opera Ballet star Charles Jude
-- Nureyev's longtime friend and protege -- being taught the Faune in 1976 by
Massine, who was to succeed Nijinsky at the Ballets Russes. Then, we are in
the year 2000 -- and Jude is teaching the movement, particularly the hunching
of the back, the angling of the elbows, and the positioning of the Faune's fingers
-- to his own dancers at the company of the Opera of Bordeaux.
Following this, we get into the real nitty-gritty regarding those specifically
placed fingers, with an interview with Ann Hutchinson Guest, a co-founder of
the Dance Notation Bureau and doyen of Labanotation, who recalls, demonstrating
on her own hands, how Nijinsky's wife, Romola, asked her to decipher Nijinsky's
own notation for "Faune."
First, there was, surprisingly, little that had to be decoded in Nijinsky's
homemade version of notation. "For the Nymph," Guest explains,"the
hands were: finger, slightly bent; other times quite angular; the range of difference
in the hands and feet -- all these were in the notation."
LINK TO THE COMPLETE ARTICLE :
http://www.danceinsider.com/f1025_1.html
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2000 The Dance Insider