back. He might have been okay if he had someone to watch over him. He needed to be taken care of. When his father left him, his mother took care of him. Then the Imperial Theater School took over. When he began performing, he was under the protection of Serge Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes. When Diaghilev abandoned him, his domineering wife Romola Pulsky stepped in. When he cracked, he figured God would rescue him.”
“Why does the artist need to be taken care of?”
“Artists who are lucky enough to be taken care of have the ability to focus on their art without fear and concern for their personal and professional survival. Nijinksy was extremely dependent on others. Today’s dancers and choreographers are rarely taken care of. They have to struggle to find the money and time to fully develop themselves and their ideas. They have to become their own producers, directors, booking agents, and publicists. How can they devote themselves entirely to their art if they have to manage every aspect of their dancing life?”
“Are artists more emotionally vulnerable than most people?”
“I think artists know in their hearts that they are really just children playing in sandboxes. When I am working well creatively, I feel a childlike openness. I forget about everything and let myself be free to be creative without imposing any restrictions. The real trick is to take responsibility for your own life while maintaining a childlike quality.”
“Given the sensitive nature of artists, do you think they are more susceptible to mental instability?”
“If you’re not prone to insanity, you’re not going to lose reality, especially if you’re disciplined. I can tap in and tap out of the characters that I portray. If actors and dancers stay inside their character, they are experiencing neurosis, not art. No matter how brilliant their performances, it’s still neurosis. You have to be able to turn it on and turn it off. It’s like going into the ocean. If you stay in too long and don’t have a life preserver, you’re going to drown. So you’d better go for your swim and then get out.”
“Do you ever find yourself on the edge—tempted to stay in and not come out?”
“I’m always on the edge—always. I’ve been teetering on the edge my entire professional life, but I like that place because it’s risky and dangerous. It’s a real rush—the best rush in the world. I like to sit on the rim of the maelstrom. From that height I have an amazing view—the calm sea and the depths of hell….”
“I suppose Nijinsky was totally on the edge.”
“Yes, absolutely. He was on the edge his entire life. In his diaries he called it the precipice. He was maniacal about his art and took up permanent residence on the edge—that is, until he fell overboard. He probably couldn’t help himself. Nijinksy was absolutely obsessed with dance. He had blinders on. Everything that crossed his path reminded him of dance. If he heard music, he related it back to dance. If he saw a design on the floor, he saw it as a pattern for choreography. Everything was about the dance.”
“Why did you choose to create Nijinsky Speaks and not Fred Astaire Speaks or Bill Robinson Speaks?”
“I chose a show on Nijinsky on the suggestion of Robin Palankar, who is my artistic collaborator and partner in life. I would be lost without her. She keeps me in balance when I’m, you know … on the edge. Nijinsky had a Diaghilev. I have a Palankar. She recognized that as an actor and a dancer Vaslav Nijinsky was the perfect character for me to showcase both my talents.”
“How did you come to understand this complex man in order to portray him on the stage?”
“First, I read every book I could find on Nijinsky, including his diaries. Then I studied films of people with mental pathologies to get a sense of aberrant movement. I use this information in both the character of Nijinsky and in the choreography to give a heightened sense of Nijinsky’s mental disintegration. In order to play Nijinsky, I must be able to combine all of this information and build consistently throughout the performance. The show begins with Nijinsky in a catatonic state and ends with him in a catatonic state. During the body of the show, the audience learns what has happened to him.”
“So what did you learn about him?”
“Nijinsky was the best dance technician of his day. He was a master of high jumps. His father had trained him to jump as high as a ball could bounce and then land as softly as a feather. He was known to take as many as eight classes a day, and continuously explored his body’s capabilities. Chief among his skills was his talent to transform himself into a role. They say when he danced the role of Petroushka, the audience thought they were watching a wooden puppet. When he danced Invitation to a Rose, they said he was the essence of a rose. How do you play the essence of a rose? It’s a flower! Nijinsky was so sensuous in Afternoon of a Faun that viewers thought they were looking at an animal. He was so real in all his roles, audiences didn’t know that it was him unless they saw his name in the program. He was never a dancer doing steps. Nijinsky clearly became his characters. He was a brilliant actor, and that made him a brilliant dancer. He was simply a genius. All we have are written accounts of his dancing. No films exist. But I’m willing to bet that he danced the essence, the purity of his soul. And that’s how I try to portray him.”
“How do you prepare yourself physically and psychologically to perform Nijinsky Speaks?”
“Well, I’m a puke-atonic. I vomit.”
“Before every show?”
“Yes. I get sick before every performance. It’s something I began doing like a ritual—or jinx—when I first started performing on Broadway. I’d just get so nervous and frazzled. I was able to overcome it for a while, but when I started performing Nijinsky Speaks, it came back twentyfold. I was so sick at the premiere I didn’t think I’d make it onto the stage. And every night for the first six months that I performed it you could hear me in the bathroom. But after that, I’m calm. I listen for the overture to begin, and then I know I have about three minutes before my entrance. I’ll be on the stage for approximately an hour and twenty minutes. I get in touch with my breathing and make sure I can regulate various rhythms, which I use throughout the show. I look at my notes and implant in my mind some general thoughts. I relax, shake my body out and, depending on how I feel at the moment, either generate energy or contain it. The overture stops. I take my entrance onstage, and the show begins. Every show for me has a personal and sensitive life of its own. I’m in an altered state.”
“Do you think it is fear of failure that makes you ill prior to a performance?”
“No, I don’t believe it has to do with failure. You never fail if you do it. But if this is your passion, you do have to take the risk of failure every single time. You have to go all the way—and that means being absolutely naked on the stage, totally vulnerable. Every show of Nijinsky Speaks I do has to be for the moment. If it isn’t, then I’m doing a past performance. It’s going to be second best, and not even that. I can never be Nijinsky. I can only strive to portray his essence. It has to be true—100 percent true to that particular audience.”
“Why is the life and art of Vaslav Nijinsky relevant to the dancer of the twenty-first century?”
“Nijinksy went insane. Find a way not to.”
Encino, California, December 2004
