Dance - Part One

My mother has always taken me to see dance. I even wanted to do ballet for awhile. My school wanted me to play rugby. Strangely soccer was the compromise.

When I was taking music at primary school a movie called Flashdance had come out and the leg warmer was all the rage. This doesn't make any sense, but fingerless gloves don't make sense either. I had a pair of leg warmers. Actually, I had two pairs.

My class were all sitting around in a circle. The music teacher asked us all to say what our favourite piece of clothing was. When it came to my turn I was quite pleased that I had remembered my leg warmers and I told the class knowing they would be impressed by my originality.

Most of the people in the class laughed at me. They did it in a sort of nasty way. There was a bit of talking behind hands and sniggering as well. My music teacher was rather nice and moved things along while I remained confused. At the end I asked my friend James why everyone laughed. He said: "girls wear leg warmers".

*

Don’t ever, ever let your sister see your wang.

"Nijinsky's penis, at least in its nonerect state, was said, by his sister, to have been undersize (she may have been remembering him as a child). Richard Buckle wrote that Nijinsky 'was small in a part where size is usually admired.' (I have searched all of Nijinsky's medical records for confirmation, since it is important to rule out a pituitary tumor, which can inhibit genital development. Few of the doctors who examined Nijinsky described his genitalia, but those who did reported it as "normal". A nude sketch of Nijinsky at age twenty-two or twenty-three, made by Aristide Maillol in Paris, also shows him quite amply endowed.)"

Vaslav Nijinsky: A Leap Into Madness

Peter Ostwald

(pp.20-1)

What is this Ostwald fellow doing looking through medical records for clues about Nijinsky's penis? This is very odd behaviour. He seems surprised that most of Nijinsky's doctors haven't commented on his genitals. This strikes me as a good thing. I imagine if men thought that they would have to have their genitals graded everytime they went to the doctor there would be a sharp drop in attendance.

"You just need good old fashioned bed-rest. Take a panadol if you need to. Oh, by the way, I've given you a 'normal' for your genitals."

Nijinsky was probably bisexual. This is a mistake. If you are bisexual you attract biographers into the following speculations:

"If anal intercourse was expected, it may have been difficult for Nijinsky to be receptive. He writes that his 'back passage was not large' and that he 'suffered from pain in [his] back passage.' These remarks, it must be noted, were made in connection with aspects of digestion, rather than sexuality." (p.32)

The blurb on the back of this book says: "Full of details I had never known before..."

No kidding.

*

There are two things about Nijinsky that we need to know for this story. He danced, and he became mentally ill.

Nijinsky made his debut [in Paris] in the spectacular ballet Le Pavillon d’Armide. Wearing white tights, striped short pants that covered his ample thighs, a gorgeous silk-embroidered jacket, a feather turban, and delicate jewel-encrusted choker around his slender neck, Nijinsky performed the role of Armide’s slave. He danced superbly, with an air of detachment that made him look even more exotic. In the pas de trios he did something so sensational that the audience’s attention was drawn completely to him: instead of just walking off the stage to await his solo as was customary, he took a flying leap into the wings. “He rose up,” writes Karsavina, “described a parabola in the air, and disappeared from sight. No one of the audience could see him land; to all eyes he had floated up and vanished. A storm of applause broke; the orchestra had to stop.” Nijinsky was an instant celebrity…. [Afterwards] someone asked Nijinsky whether it was difficult to stay in the air after jumping…. “No! No! not difficult. You just have to go up and then pause a little up there.” (Leap into Madness, p.35)

A few performances later and the French were calling him God of the Dance.

Some years later, after his breakdown, Nijinsky kept diaries that are full of spirals. Spirals and words.

“I have had a good lunch, for I ate two soft-boiled eggs and fried potatoes and beans. I like beans, only they are dry. I do not like dry beans, because there is no life in them. Switzerland is sick because it is full of mountains. In Switzerland people are dry because there is no life in them. I have a dry maid because she does not feel. She thinks a lot because she has been dried out in another job that she had for a long time. I do not like Zurich, because it is a dry town. It has a lot of factories and many business people. I do not like dry people, and therefore I do not like business people.”

Beans. I know what he means. Dry beans are pretty bad.

“The maid was serving lunch to my wife… together with the Red Cross nurse. She wears crosses, but she does not realise their significance. A cross is something that Christ bore. Christ bore a large cross, but the nurse wears a small cross on a little ribbon that is attached to her headdress.”

It would be hard to be a nurse and carry a full-sized cross around. Especially if it was hanging from her headdress.