[33][34] As his pupil she became the first person to know and be influenced by his radically new ideas regarding dance and his desire to substitute a rigorously stylized form of movement for the classical ballet tradition.

[39][40] Nonetheless, Baer writes: Although Bronislave Nijinska is often identified as the sister of the celebrated Vaslav Nijinsky, she was a major artist in her own right and a key figure in the development of twentieth-century ballet.

"[80] Author and critic Robert Greskovic describes a common understanding of her gifts, "Nowhere near the beauty and exemplar of her art that Pavlova and Spessivtseva were, Bronislava Nijinska (1891–1972) instead began to make her mark as a choreographer.

Léon Bakst designed the sets which "were of surpassing grandeur and magnificence and no expense was spared ..."[160][161][162] Although the main choreographic credit remained with Petipa, the "Additional choreography by Bronislava Nijinska" was recognized.

[191] Les Contes de Fées was another spin-off from The Sleeping Princess, drawn from fairy tales in Aurora's Wedding (originally in Act III of La Belle au bois dormant).

After first seeing it, H. G. Wells wrote: The ballet Les noces is "a rendering in sound and vision of the peasant soul, in its gravity, in its deliberate and simple-minded intricacy, in its subtly varied rhythms, in its deep undercurrents of excitement ..."[217]Stravinsky's idea for the score evolved during war, revolution, and exile.

"[221][222] Dance writer Robert Johnson claimed[223] that Stravinsky's text for Les noces manifests his interest in psychology and a collective unconscious of the type posited by Carl Jung.

Les noces, probably the greatest dance work of the decade, teamed three of his closest Russian collaborators: Stravinsky, his 'first son', as composer; Natalia Goncharova, as designer; and Bronislava Nijinska, as choreographer.

[245]"Bronislava Nijinska's Les noces [grew] out of boldness of conception without regard for precedent or consequences," wrote John Martin, dance critic for The New York Times.

Poulenc's commissioned music for ballet, which originally included sung lyrics, was a "wonderful chameleon of a score", that was "mischievous, mysterious, now sentimental, now jazzy, now Mozartian ..."[254][255] Dance writer Robert Johnson comments that beneath this ballet's sun-washed, Riviera setting lie "shadowy scenes painted by Watteau: the Parc des Biches where Louis XIV trysted, and the forest where voluptuous courtiers rediscovered Cythera, the isle of love... .

In this role of the yellow-clad hostess, Nijinska flew round the stage, performing amazing contortions of her body, beating her feet, sliding backwards and forwards, screwing her face into an abandoned attitude on the sofa.

[256] In Les Biches, writes Lynn Garafola, Nijinska's choreography "cracked open the gender codes of classical style, transforming a piece of twenties chic into a critique of sexual mores.

But current critic Lynn Garafola sees in ballet revivals like Les Fâcheux that employ their music a "gaiety and freshness" in their "unpretentious tunes and depiction of everyday life".

[302] For his 1867 'symphonic poem' La Nuit sur le Mont chauve Mussorgsky was inspired by the witches sabbath as told by Nikolai Gogol in his St. John's Eve story.

[307][308] Nijinska created a special ambiance through the language of dance, she introduced angular and geometrical movements and organized dancers on stage as interactive groups, that alluded to images of sports activities, such as golf, tennis and recreational games on a beach.

Yet, according to accounts, their simple and severe design "added immeasurably to the broad flowing movement and stately rhythms of the choreography, suggesting androgynous beings moving in heavenly harmony."

Baer further observes, "By varying the levels, groupings, and facings of the dancers, Nijinska created a pictorial composition made up of moving and intersecting planes of color."

The composer writes it "was indicative of the passion I felt at that time for jazz ... enchanting me by its truly popular appeal, its freshness, and the novel rhythm ..."[325] Exter's costumes followed an 1897 Russian performance of L'Africaine.

Nancy Van Norman Baer conjectures that it developed from a solo called Fear designed and danced by Nijinsky in Kiev in 1919, and inspired by the dynamic movements of a Samurai warrior.

[340][341]In 1926 and 1927 for the Buenos Aires theater, Nijinska created dance scenes for fifteen operas, including Bizet's Carmen, Wagner's Tannhäuser, Verdi's Aïda and La Traviata, Stravinsky's Le Rossignol, Rimsky-Korsakov's Tsar Saltan, Massenet's Thaïs, and Gounod's Faust.

[351] A ballet of Le Baiser de la Fée [Kiss of the Fairy] originated when Ida Rubinstein asked Igor Stravinsky to compose music to be choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska.

Yet, in recreating the tale, music composer Igor Stravinsky had changed the eerie maiden into a fruitful Muse, inverting Andersen's original story in which the ice-maiden, disguised as a beautiful woman, attracts young men who are led to their death.

[397][398] For Le Chant de la Terre (Pieśń o ziemi naszej) [Song of the Earth], Nijinska drew in part on a recent folk festival in Vilna featuring dance.

In successive scenes of inventive and sometimes humorous incarnations Apollo reappears in the guise of a medieval monk, Louis the XIV, a nineteenth-century poet, and finally as a modern-day champion of athleticism.

"[403] The structure of the piece—like that of much of Mme Nijinska's work—is based on a formal contrast: in the background, rigid impersonal groups or clusters of dancers, which seem to have the weight of statues; in the foreground, rapid arrowy flights performed by individual soloists.

Mais pas et figures étaient déformés, outrés, fortement accentués en burlesque, et ils devenaient une sorte de gesticulation frénétique et d'ailleurs expressive.

[415] Nijinska in 1939 began to choreograph a "rustic and comic" two-act ballet of the 18th century, Jean Dauberval's La fille mal gardée ['The ill-watched Daughter' or 'Useless Precautions'].

Yet critic Edwin Denby notes that "by preserving just enough independence of rhythm in relation to the sugary Glazounoff score [her groupings and dance phrases] keep a certain acid edge.

[445] In 1944 for an opening at the International Theater in New York she choreographed Pictures at an Exhibition, an 1874 suite of piano pieces by Modest Mussorgsky, later orchestrated by Maurice Ravel, and by Ivan Boutnikov.

[501][502] Among her earlier students: Serge Lifar in revolutionary Kiev; Anton Dolin, Lydia Sokolova, Frederick Ashton, Alicia Markova, Irina Baronova, David Lichine in interwar Europe; Lucia Chase in New York.