The lonely genius of Bronislava Nijinska

Even in her lifetime, people had a habit of overlooking the talent of Bronislava Nijinska. Her famous brother Vaslav Nijinsky initially refused to recommend her to his lover Sergei Diaghilev when the impresario was signing up dancers for the 1909 Paris season of Ballets Russes. He didn’t introduce her to his friends, either and – in what can only be seen as an act of cruelty – took away her roles in the ballets she had helped him create.

Diaghilev himself, whom she regarded as a father figure, treated her with something like disdain, declaring: ‘I cannot have two geniuses of the dance from one family’, and asked her to dye her hair red ‘and dress more like a ballerina’. Even when she was the company’s leading choreographer, her face was omitted from the souvenir programmes. ‘Poor Bronislava had no luck with Diaghilev,’ Stravinsky said. Her ‘sex, looks and name were against her’.