Nijinska ballets in chicago

Though a prolific and acclaimed 20th-century choreographer with an unusually long career, Bronislava Nijinska is not a household name. And that's easy to understand.

Diaghilev ballet russes

She was no doubt eclipsed by the notoriety of her older brother, Vaslav Nijinsky, whose radical choreography revivified ballet and whose tortured life made him the subject of gossip and media attention.

Born in , Nijinska reached the height of her choreographic talent during the s with the Ballets Russes, the trail-blazing company founded in St.

Petersburg in by the prickly impresario, Sergei Diaghilev. Often credited with paving the way for modern dance, the wildly collaborative avant-garde group gained fame in Paris and jumpstarted the careers of composers Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Prokofiev, choreographer George Balanchine, artists Pablo Picasso and Joan Miro, and French poet Jean Cocteau.

This year, dance companies around the world are marking the th anniversary of the founding of the Ballets Russes, which fol