Bronislava Nijinska (1891-1972). Dancer, Choreographer, Director, Teacher

Bronislava Nijinska was born in Minsk, Belarus, in 1891, the younger sister of Vaslav Nijinsky. She studied at the Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburg and joined the corps of the Maryinsky Ballet in 1908, but left to work with Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in 1909. From 1911 she toured with Diaghilev as a soloist alongside her brother, who by then had become an internationally acclaimed star of the Ballets Russes.

During the 1920s Nijinska was active as a choreographer, first in Kyiv, and then for Diaghilev with the 1921 revival of The Sleeping Princess. He also commissioned original ballets from her, including Le Renard (1922), Les Noces (1923), Le Train Bleu and Les Biches (1924), and Romeo and Juliet (1926). For Ida Rubinstein’s company, she then choreographed Boléro and Le Baiser de la Fée (1928) and La Valse (1929).

In the 1930s Nijinska mounted ballets for the Opera Russe à Paris, for her own Théâtre de Danse in Paris, for the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and for Colonel de Basil’s Ballet Russe (notably Les Cent Baisers in 1935 and a revival of Les Noces in 1936). In 1937 she was ballet mistress for the Markova-Dolin Company and also choreographed several ballets for the Polish National Ballet. Then, in 1938, although she could barely speak any English, Nijinska went to America to live and to teach, establishing her own school in California while still teaching and choreographing for a number of companies. In 1944 she produced Brahms Variations for American Ballet Theatre. She was ballet mistress again for the Colón in Buenos Aires and also for the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas.

In 1964 Frederick Ashton invited Nijinska to mount Les Biches for The Royal Ballet in London, and in 1966 to stage Les Noces, which by then was recognised as one of the greatest balletic achievements of the 20th century. Bronislava Nijinska died in Los Angeles in 1972.