Nijinsky's Distinction

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WE must not belittle him by merely admiring him for his miraculously agile leaps and jumps. As I said at the start, dancing is not only sauterie. There was probably no sauterie at all in the dancing of the ancients. I am told that Nijinsky was much affected by the dancing of Isadora Duncan when, some years ago, she appeared in St. Petersburg, and I can well believe it, for there was manifested in her at her best what was probably the supreme object of religious dancing—-and all ancient dancing was religious—the training of the body to the point of making it docile to the rhythm of the soul. There are many young men in the Russian ballet who dance excellently with their bodies, even if they cannot leap as high as Nijinsky, but what really separates him from them is the fact that he dances not only with his body, but with his soul. Unfortunately this expression is often used lightly to mean merely "with enthusiasm." But it can be used in a graver sense, and it is in that sense that I use it.

0036m

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