Bronislava Nijinska

Bronislava Nijinska.

Bronislava Nijinska (Polish: Bronisława Niżyńska; Russian: Бронислава Фоминична Нижинская, Bronislava Fominichna Nizhinskaya; January 8, 1891 (old style 27 December 1890) - February 22, 1972)) was a Russian dancer, choreographer, and teacher of Polish descent.

Nijinska was born in Minsk, the third child of the Polish dancers Tomasz and Eleonora Nijinska (née Bereda). Her brother was Vaslav Nijinsky. She was four years old when she made her theatrical debut in a Christmas pageant with her brothers in Nizhny Novgorod.

Nijinska played a leading role in the pioneering venture that turned against 19th-century Classicism. A breakthrough came in 1910, when she created her first solo, the role Papillon in Le Carnival.

Nijinska was a member of the Imperial Ballet and then the Ballets Russes, for whom she choreographed her best known works, Les Noces (1923), The Blue Train (1924) and Les Biches (1924). She also choreographed the dances (to Felix Mendelssohn's music) for Max Reinhardt's 1935 film version of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Bronislava Nijinska died in Pacific Palisades, California.

She was twice married. Her first husband was Alexandre Kochetovsky, a fellow Ballet Russes dancer by whom she had two children - a son, Leo Kochetovsky, who was killed in a car accident and a daughter, Irina Nijinska, a ballet dancer in her own right who subsequently carried on her work, including editing and publishing her mother's memoirs in 1972. The true love of her life, but to whom she was never married, was the Russian bass singer Feodor Chaliapin.

She was the subject of an album The Nijinska Chamber by Kate Westbrook[1] and Mike Westbrook.

Her students included the prima ballerina Maria Tallchief and the dancer Cyd Charisse.

Nijinska was inducted into the National Museum of Dance C.V. Whitney Hall of Fame in 1994.

See also

• Category:Ballets by Bronislava Nijinska

External links

• Timeline of Life and Work
• NY Times obituary by Anna Kisselgoff, February 23, 1972

Persondata
Name	Nijinska, Bronislava
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1891
Place of birth
Date of death	1972
Place of death