Dance-Poem by Nijinsky.

Music by Claude Debussy.

Choreography by Nijinsky.

Scenery and Costumes Designed by LÉon Bakst.

NIJINSKY’s curious production called “Jeux” comes next in order after “Le Dieu Bleu” and “L’AprÈs-Midi d’un Faune.” In the first of the two latter the dancer was concerned only with his individual rÔle; his conception of that was, no doubt, his own, but his part in the ballet as a whole was subject to the directing influence of Michel Fokine. In “L’AprÈs-Midi d’un Faune” he was emancipated from control, and the entire performance was of his devising. Having explored the past, it was natural that he should turn his attention to the present, and in “Jeux” we have an avowed attempt to treat the modern aspect of (civilised) life in terms of the ballet. The result is curious, to say the least, and not very convincing.

A lot of ridiculous nonsense has been written about “Jeux.” It was first performed in Paris, and on the strength of descriptions received thence, it was labelled, long before its production in London, a “lawn tennis ballet.” As a fact, lawn tennis has nothing to do with it—nor any other particular sport or game for that matter. It is true that Nijinsky carries a racquet of some kind in his hand, on his first entry, but it is speedily laid aside and is nothing but the merest stage “property.” As for the lost ball which is the casus belli, so to speak, it bears as much resemblance to a tennis ball as does a pumpkin to an apple.

If “Playtime” be accepted as the interpretation of “Jeux” (a translation which the Russians themselves have adopted), the ballet resolves itself into a representation of the juvenile frolics of three children. Certainly Nijinsky in his flannel shirt and trousers, Karsavina and Ludmila Schollar in their short white frocks, bare legs and little socks, look a trifle more adult than the costumes seem to warrant, but that is a circumstance which cannot very well be helped. LÉon Bakst has done his best to dwarf them by his spacious garden, with its high gates and big flower plots, but inevitably the performers appear somewhat robust for their parts.

The ballet can only be called such for want of another term. There is no dancing proper; except for a few leaps and runs, the performers confine their movements to a series of postures, and a queer, stilted kind of pantomime. It has been stated that Nijinsky by this “choreography” intends to express the essential characteristics of the movements of modern athletes and players of games, but the entire absence of athletic virility or spontaneous grace and vigour effectively negatives the idea. Or at least, if this was the idea, it has signally failed of execution.

The “plot” of the piece is the slightest possible. Into this not very realistic garden, empty when the curtain rises, a large ball suddenly drops. A moment later the three children enter in pursuit, and in playful mood begin to look for it. Presently, forgetting the object of their search, they indulge in juvenile flirtation. Each of the girls in turn receives the boyish attentions of their companion, and all three are fast forgetting their

surroundings when a second ball, dropping unexpectedly amongst them, recalls them to their senses and sends them scampering away.

This is not much on which to found a ballet. All that it gives scope for is the presentation of one little scene of no great purport, but the methods adopted to portray the idle moments of a group of children render merely eccentric what might be an engaging spectacle. The intention seems to be, if there is any definite intention at all, to reduce to their essential elements the characteristic movements of childhood. The gestures and poses of Nijinsky the present writer confesses to finding meaningless—at all events in no way suggestive of unsophisticated childhood. But with those of Karsavina and Ludmila Schollar there is a difference. There are occasions now and then—notably when the two girls “make it up” after a tiff prompted by jealousy over the favour of their boy companion—when there is a something about their poise of body which evokes quite startlingly, for all its stilted stiffness, a memory of childish movements sometime noted. There is nothing, it will be understood from what has already been said of the performers’ methods, of the unconscious grace of an eager, impulsive child. But imagine a rapid photographic “snapshot” of such an incident as the one just mentioned between two little girls—the instantaneous plate would show, in its arrest of movement, just such angularity and awkwardness, and also just such a poise, as Karsavina and Schollar display.

No doubt this is all very clever and ingenious, but it seems likewise to be a little futile. Even if essays of this sort come within the legitimate province of ballet, there is very little pleasure, and not a great deal of interest, to be obtained from so highly sophisticated a performance. I do not know whether the music of Debussy was written for the especial purpose of the ballet, or whether Nijinsky, as in “L’AprÈs-Midi d’un Faune,” devised the ballet to an existing composition; in any case the music seems as little appropriate to the theme as the methods of the performers. Debussy indeed is hardly a composer from whom one expects dance music, and his selection in connection with these attempted developments of the art of the ballet seems significant.

The legitimacy—or, to put it more definitely, the feasibility—of these new attempts is open to challenge. The methods adopted by the “dancers” in “L’AprÈs-Midi d’un Faune” have already been described. In “Jeux” the principle seems to be to resolve movement into a succession of arrested poses, and make an arbitrary selection of the latter for presentment. This is as if one were asked to admire some of the individual pictures which in series make up the film of a kinematograph. Granted that it is interesting and amusing to be shown how the film is constituted, it is nevertheless the animated whole which we really want to see.

But an analogy can only be drawn between the kinematograph and the dancer if the latter’s art is regarded as standing in the same relation to the painter’s or sculptor’s as the kinematograph to the ordinary camera. This indeed seems to be the idea upon which Nijinsky has founded “L’AprÈs-Midi d’un Faune” and “Jeux.” It was submitted in the immediately preceding pages that “L’AprÈs-Midi d’un Faune” was based upon a fundamental misconception of the dancer’s art, and the same criticism is prompted by “Jeux.” Even if the premises be granted that to give movement to poses plastiques is a sufficient end, the dancer’s art, like any other, should conceal art; should build up, not take to pieces. The human figure may be reducible to geometrical forms, but the cubist painter would be better employed in proceeding from that principle, instead of to it.

“Jeux,” in brief, in intention, if not altogether in execution, is as clever as a parlour trick, and with a public which applauds cleverness above all things, it would be as popular as “L’AprÈs-Midi d’un Faune,” if it were but equally obvious. But the cleverness is that of a monkey, and as misapplied.