Esther Apituley

De Sprong van Nijinski is a theatre concert based on the life of dancer Vaslav Nijinski. Musical starting point is Le Sacre du Printemps by Stravinsky, one of the most revolutionary pieces of the 20th century. 

The story of Nijnski is one of an obsessive craving to the sublime. It is also the story of the goodbye to 'the self' and being part of the bigger picture. The boundaries of 'the self' dissolve and the nerves, the senses, grow out to everything and everyone outside the body, outside the individual. For many a heartfelt wish, a release, an ideal. And also a clinical picture. Nijinski is diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1919. His progress is logged in the diaries he writes between 1916 and 1919.
 

“We are all responsible for everyone, but I am more responsible than all the others.”
   - Dostojevski, brothers Karamazov

This multidisciplinary performance is a plea to think the unthinkable, the play, the creation, the search of the moments where you are hovering, and the fear for the moments of coming down. 

Nijinski, a man of few words, tries desperately to keep himself and humanity in check. The words and thoughts do not follow a logcal order anymore. They do not analyse or explain anything anymore: they resolve into incomprehensibility, into everything. Between the rubble sits Nijinsky, the dancer, catatonic, petrifief. Rubble, like palying blocks, where the first child would crawl towards and play with. Free, playing, excitedly looking in the world that could be. How far do you need to tear yourself from the world, in order to change the world?