Observations placeholder
Nijinsky - I am outside, I make myself dance from the outside
Identifier
023353
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Psychic Discoveries behind the iron Curtain - Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder
Nijinsky – the great Nijinsky. The most meticulous audiences of Paris sat and watched as the curtains opened and suddenly a human form soared and glittered and spun across the stage, dazzling them, enthralling them as if he were a real god with real wings on his heels. Even the critics wrote that Nijinsky never exited like other dancers; he simply seemed to float up and off behind the curtains.
People who worked with Nijinsky noticed something about his leaps that the audience missed. "It's not that he goes up higher,” some said, "it's that he comes down slower!"
In his book Between Two Worlds, the psychiatrist Nandor Fodor speaks of an interview with his close friend, the dancer's wife, Romola. Nijinsky, she said, never understood why other dancers couldn't stay up as he did, why they couldn't also control the speed of their descent. Romola once remarked to Nijinsky, "What a shame you can never see yourself dance."
“But” he said, "I do! Always. I am outside. I make myself dance from the outside."