4 replies to this topic

[ViolinConcerto]

On this website, for a company that coordinates estates and exhibitions, you will find a photo of a pair of Nijinsky's ballet slippers.  By clicking on the image, you can see a few other personal articles of his clothing.

[Amy Reusch]

I wonder about the leather triangles.  They are remeniscent of Bournonville style slippers.  I wonder what the function was?

[Mel Johnson]

They're gussets - providing for expansion of the vamp of the shoe across its width at the throat.

[sandik]

Oh, the infamous Giselle shorts!  Or "culottes," as they are listed in the text.

I love the photos of the costumes, but I'm even more intrigued by this

"Another important aspect of this collection is a rare and unusually comprehensive record of Nijinsky and his fellow dancers from the 1911 to 1921 London Ballets Russes seasons with photographs by the Edwardian photo-modernist Emil Otto Hoppé. These intimate largely unpublished portraits represent a body of work that depicts Diaghilev's Ballets Russes dancers in their prime."

You can see some of the photos here -- I can't find any additional information about the text they list (One Hundred Photographs: E.O. Hoppé and the Ballets Russes, essays by John Bowlt and Oleg Minin (2011)) -- does anyone here have any references?

[rg]

re: the GISELLE "bloomers" these would not be the infamous ones Benois designed for Diaghilev's production from act 1, but more likely the ones intended for act 2 (as seen in some photos puckered out from the slits in the shorts that make up the costume's panatloon-styled bottom half).