By Iñaki Martinez Azpiro |
Santiago de Chile (EFE).- The Santiago Ballet, one of the most prestigious in Latin America, premieres an unprecedented work that recovers the figure of the Russian choreographer Bronislava Nijinska (1891-1972), an avant-garde exponent of world ballet excluded from the first pages of history books due to the machismo of her time.
No company in the world has ever staged a ballet about its history: under the title “Nijinska, secret of the avant-garde”, the Santiago Ballet now dares with a feminist plea that reviews the moments that marked the life of the artist, who dared to change the aesthetics and the roles of the dancers.
“Nijinska was a fighter, emotionally, intellectually, psychologically, socially. Bringing her to the stage was essential. We cannot work and understand the future if we do not understand our past”, said the director of the work, Avatâra Ayuso, in an interview for EFE.
“Changed the aesthetics”
The Russian choreographer was a pioneer in using baroque music in contemporary ballet and also in creating characters that could be interpreted by men and women, interchangeably.
Her fame led her to collaborate with great composers and artists, such as the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso or the French poet Jean Cocteau.
Despite her artistic success, Nijinska remained invisible to critics in the mid-20th century, partly due to the overwhelming success of her brother, Vaslav Nijinsky, acclaimed to this day as one of the most important ballet dancers in the history of world dance.
Pioneer of neoclassical ballet and abstract dance, the figure of Nijinska is reborn in Chile with this work performed by more than 40 dancers and divided into two acts, which explain both her beginnings as a successful dancer in the Russian ballets and the difficulties she had later due to war contexts or the death of her son at an early age, among other moments in her life.
The embryo of the work on Nijinska arose about four years ago, explained Ayuso, when the Spaniard learned of the history of the Russian artist and saw that all the colleagues around her were unaware of her existence.
“What I discovered was a great avant-garde artist. She dared to take risks and changed the aesthetic of female dancers in ballet,” she recalled.
“It’s never too late to dance”
The Chilean Edymar Acevedo, 53, embodies Nijinska in the work, although she had retired from ballet for more than a decade because it is not usual for middle-aged women to be protagonists in ballet due to the high physical demands it requires.
“When they offered me the character, I felt like I was floating, I didn’t know if it was a dream or a reality. Now more than ever I can say that it is never too late to dance ”, Acevedo recalls to EFE in his dressing room.
She is aware that she cannot do some of the movements of her young companions, but she defends that she provides an essential “stage weight” for the character Nijinska, which is only achieved with extensive experience on stage.
“I feel the strength that Nijinska had as a woman, to walk in front of the men and say that they hired her, that she was good. Men denied her quality, but she did not give up. She managed to get sponsored and work as a choreographer”, says Acevedo.
Another of the company’s principal dancers, María Lovero, “is projected onto the figure of Nijinska,” she told EFE.
This will be her last work within the Santiago Ballet, because she will try her luck in a European company: “Nijinska had characteristics that inspire me as a woman. She was one of those who push forward with courage and rise up in the face of problems. She has been very inspiring,” she maintained.
“A bravo to Avatâra Ayuso for vindicating Nijinska, because she had been left behind, hidden, without the importance she deserves. The work vindicates history, which is always necessary to continue building from knowledge, from a more cultured place in our hearts”, he concluded.