"The Queer Afterlife of Vaslav Nijinsky" is three books in one: an
impressionistic account of the dancer's homoerotic career, an
analysis of his gay male reception, and an exploration of the
limitations of that analysis. The impressionistic account, based on
the aestheticism of Walter Pater, focuses on significant gestures
made by Nijinsky in key roles, including the Golden Slave, the
Specter of the Rose, Narcissus, Petrouchka, and the Faun. The
analysis of his reception, based on the semiotics of Roland
Barthes, is deconstructive. And the exploration of the the
analytical limitations sets the stage for cultural studies that
move beyond Barthesian semiotics--beyond, that is, the author's
last two books.
Why, given that most of his followers were not gay, describe
Nijinsky's queer afterlife? The author's answer is that Nijinsky
was the Lord Alfred Douglas of the Ballet Russes. The dancer,
however, had even more "lilac-hued notoriety" than
Douglas--notoriety based upon common knowledge of his sexual
relationship with Serge Diaghilev, upon his having been one of the
first sensuous young men to dominate a Western stage recently riven
by the homosexual/heterosexual division we are still contending
with today, and upon his mastery of leading roles and body
languages that had very little to do with conventional masculinity.
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