"Nijinsky"
The National Ballet of Canada
Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts
Toronto, Canada
November 22, 2017
by Denise Sum
copyright © 2017 by Denise Sum
Fresh from bringing John Neumeier's "Nijinsky" to Paris' Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in October, the National Ballet of Canada performed this ambitious work in their home theatre with renewed vigor. One can only imagine how powerful it must have been for the company to perform a ballet about this dance legend on the very stage where his "Le Sacre du Printemps" premiered in 1913. The entire performance was very strong and the dancers looked confident and well-rehearsed. Rather than a linear biographical narrative, Neumeier presents a melange of swirling vignettes that is part retrospective, reverie, and hallucination. The perspective is not that of an impartial observer; rather the ballet represents Vaslav Nijinsky's chaotic inner world with all its ambiguities, fantasies and trauma.
Guillaume Côté in "Nijinsky". Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann.