1987 Articles

Bronislava Nijinska: A legacy uncovered

Garafola, Lynn

Although she choreographed over seventy ballets, for most of the twentieth century Bronislava Nijinska has had a bad press, when she has had a press at all. In the annals of twentieth-century dance, Nijinska for the most part has been forgotten. Invisibility has been the lot of women artists generally. But in Nijinska's case, something more than the usual sexism has been afoot. Compounding the accident of sex was a second accident of birth. Arriving in the world two years after the brother who became this century's most celebrated dancer, she was sister to a legend—a phrase that could have served as her epitaph.