Music: Can He Jump?

When Vaslav Nijinsky’s brain cracked so that he could no longer recognize people or places, his friends had the idea of taking him once more to see the Diaghilev Ballet which he had helped to make the world’s greatest dancing corps. Only once during the performance did Nijinsky appear to see through the fog. Serge Lifar, a young protégé of Diaghilev, started to dance Le Spectre de la Rose in which Nijinsky did his never-to-be-forgotten leap through an open window. When the music started Nijinsky’s dead, dumb eyes suddenly brightened. He turned to his wife and said, “Can he jump?”* Partly because of this episode, partly because Lifar, now ballet master at the Paris Opera, does many of Nijinsky’s roles, the saying has gone around that the 28-year-old Russian “now wears Nijinsky’s mantle.” Excited by such advance talk, New Yorkers jammed a theatre to overflowing this week for the U. S. debut of Serge Lifar. But when the evening was over consensus was that Lifar’s “mantle” was threadbare and worn beyond recognition. If it had ever been Nijinsky’s it had shrunk to a loincloth. Like Nijinsky, everyone wanted to know if Lifar could jump. He could and it was a pretty jump, but not impressively long or high. He could do smooth, floating arabesques. He leaped once into the air. did a picturesque wriggle and landed gracefully curled up on his side. But his dancing had little of the flowing, unbroken quality which made Nijinsky’s seem like a logical supplement to the music. His choreography was banal, his company incompetent. Only in L’Apres-Midi d’un Faune did he achieve the unusual. Then, in flesh-colored tights and a leafy wreath, he went through a series of postures which were a model of muscular grace.

Green Table

Ten artificial-looking gentlemen in cutaway coats, white gloves and spats, red ribbons of honor, assembled around a green baize table one evening last week in Manhattan to settle the affairs of the world. True diplomats all, they greeted one another suavely, appeared profoundly impressed by the speech of a pompous longbeard. Then they started wrangling. But when they opened their mouths no words came out and their faces, which were only masks, looked extra-foolish and empty. Two pianos playing a trivial tango provided the only sounds until the diplomats, unable to argue away their differences, drew cap pistols out of their pockets, fired them off and started a war. The war was the occasion for a grim succession of deaths and for the U. S. debut of Kurt Jooss (pronounced Yoce), the 31 -year-old German dancer who created The Green Table ballet and trained his own company to mime it. Darkly malevolent in a black helmet and sooty makeup, Kurt Jooss was the war-god Death, stalking imperiously through scenes of battle and rape, destroying sol diers and their womenfolk, sparing not even the paunchy little profiteer who had danced around cockily for a time. When the curtain fell, only the false-faced diplomats were left, grouped around the green table again, bickering as they had bickered before. New Yorkers found it one of the most exciting and original dances of their time, and cheered accordingly. But most people did not know that they had Adolf Hitler to thank for their chance to see The Green Table. Until last spring Kurt Jooss and his dancers were living in Essen, performing occasionally at the local opera house. Six of the 25 members of the company are Jews, including Fritz, Cohen who wrote The Green Table music, played one of the pianos last week. The anti-Semitic drive made them decide that it was time to leave Germany and try their luck abroad.

*Nijinsky had one answer for the countless people who asked him how he accomplished his leap. Said he: “It is not difficult. You have just to go up and pause there a little.”