Sculpture

The one-act ballet choreographed by Nijinsky, L'après midi d'un Faune, opened at the Théatre du Châtelet on 20 May 1912, performed by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, starring Nijinsky as the faun. It was Nijinsky's first and only surviving ballet. According to The Encyclopaedia of Dance and Ballet, edited by Mary Clarke and David Vaughan, in it he 'made a radical departure from orthodox methods of composition; the dancers moved in two-dimensional profile, flat-footed, turned in, and the choreography was not tied to the metre of the music. These innovations were of more long-lasting significance than the scandal provoked at the premiere by the Faun's final suggestive caressing of a scarf dropped by a startled nymph, a gesture modified at subsequent performances'