Nijinsky's Choreographic Method: Visual Sources from Roerich for Le Sacre du printemps

Abstract

Nicholas Roerich, the scenarist and designer of Le Sacre du printemps for the original production, by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, in 1913, built the ballet around the sacrifice of a young maiden. As the climax to a series of ritual tasks by members of an archaic tribe, the Chosen Maiden dances herself to death to assure the return of Spring. In the logic of the rite her sacrifice is seen as a marriage with Yarilo, the sun deity of pre-Christian Slavic mythology. The composer of the ballet, Igor Stravinsky, claimed from the outset that he had conceived the idea for Sacre as he was finishing Firebird in 1910. But an interview with Roerich in the St. Petersburg press and other documentation show that he had already written a scenario when Stravinsky approached him with the notion of a ballet about archaic Russia. Roerich's scenario was entitled “The Great Sacrifice,” and it survives as the second act of what we know as Le Sacre du printemps. Contrasted with the somber tasks and grave tone of the second act are the vigorous games and ceremonies which Roerich and Stravinsky together planned for the first act. Stravinsky marked the score for Act I “Day” and Act II “Night,” a polarity that is carried out in all aspects of the music, decor and choreography.