Kyra Nijinsky

 ( 1913 Births ) 

"Kyra turned out to be an unusually attractive child, with curly black hair and 'beautiful green eyes, as strangely fascinating, as oblique as Vaslav's very own.' She also was 'extremely muscular,' Romola says, and seemed to mirror her father's beauty: 'The more she grew the more she resembled Vaslav'." Ostwald, p.126.

While living alone in Berlin in 1931, Kyra began dancing in Ida Rubinstein's ballet company, directed by her aunt Bronia. She was next in a Max Reinhardt production of Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann, choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska. Backstage, she became a close friend of another dancer Vera Zorina, who later wrote about her, "Kyra came from an exotic, unhappy world."Baer (1986), pp. 62-63, 71 (ballet companies re Nijinska).Moore (2013), p.226, re Ida Rubinstein. According to another dancer, "Bronia treated Kyra badly... because she 'tries to act like she is somebody'."

In London she appeared in a Cochran review, Streamline. She studied with Nicolai Legat, a Russian ballet master. Later in Paris she would study with Lubov Egorova, a former ballerina in Diaghilev's company. Kyra and her mother Romola, also then in London, were apparently incompatible. They disagreed about the choice of living situations. It prompted Kyra to pack up and leave for Sweden where she danced at a cabaret.Koegler (1977), p.177: Egorova (1880-1972), herself a student of Legat; p.320: Legat (1869-1937).Ostwald (1991), p.285 (Sweden).Tamara Nijinska (1991), p.256: Later Romola about her daughter Kyra: "We are not on speaking terms." Yet Romola describes her as "very talented" in drawing, poetry, acting, and dance. "She had led a nomadic life."

Marie Rambert latter recruited Kyra for her London company Ballet Rambert. There Kyra performed a central role in choreographer Frederick Ashton's Mephisto Valse.Koegler (1977), p.358. In the 1934 London production of this Ashton creation, the role of Marguerite was initially taken by the celebrated Alicia Markova.Tamara Nijinsky (1991), p.259: In Budapest circa 1936, Kyra would choreograph Liszt's Mephisto Waltz. She also danced the part of the young girl in Le Spectre de la rose and of a nymph in L'Après-midi d'un faune, ballets in which her father Vaslav had either famously danced, or both choreographed and danced. Antony Tudor, for his new ballet The Planets, cast her as the Mortal, born under the sway of the mystic figure Neptune, so that she longed to unite herself with the Infinite. About Kyra critic Arnold Haskell wrote in 1935, "She is a dancer who understands, whether instinctively or otherwise, how to use dancing in order to express her emotions." She had a compelling presence.Koegler (1977), p.417: The Planets, music by Gustav Holst, Tudor's ballet in 1934 for Ballets Rambert."Kyra Nijinska" at Dutch website. Photograph of Kyra from Le Spectre de la rose.

On 20 April 1936, at the Coronation Church in Budapest, Kyra married Igor Markevitch, a Ukrainian composer and conductor who had been with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes during the late 1920s. He'd been compared to Igor Stravinsky to the latter's discomfort.Reynolds and McCormick (2003), p.70 (Markevitch, wedding).Joseph, "Diaghilev and Stravinsky" in Garafola and Baer (1999), pp.204-205 (Markevitch). Kyra discontinued dancing. She and Igor had one child, a son Vaslav (20 January 1937 – 12 January 2024), yet eventually they divorced. Igor, who remarried, raised the boy. Drawn to the arts, Vaslav Markevitch became a painter.Moore (2013), her son Vaslav: p.229, p.241 (painter).Tamara Nijinsky (1991), pp. 259-261 (Kyra's wedding); p.263 (birth of her son in Switzerland).

Until 1958, Kyra lived in Rome where she worked as an interpreter in a fashion shop on Via Condotti. Then she moved to San Francisco. She had entered as a lay member the Franciscan Order. In the 1981 drama documentary She Dances Alone, she played herself. The film, directed by Robert Dornhelm, offers a view of her life, her pursuit of a career in dance. She Dances Alone (1981). Max von Sydow is the voice of her father Vaslav Nijinsky. Patrick Dupond dances in scenes with an older Kyra. See Zelazowska article.Ostwald (1991), p.338 (Rome), p.126* (autobiographical film; spoke "many foreign languages").Moore (2013), p.240 (Franciscans).

We also met Nijinsky's daughter, Kyra, who is fascinating. Sturdily built and full of exuberance, she has the most engaging smile and what must be her father's eyes, of an unusual grey-green, or is it green-brown? She is an artist and uses bright colours. Her father is a frequent subject, but I noticed all her paintings show him in ballet roles, never as himself. When she was describing a Russian dance she made a momentary gesture of her right arm across her brow, and I could see Nijinsky exactly. There was something in her movement and her face that expressed all there is to say about dancing in that one instant, and I can never forget it.

• Nancy Van Norman Baer, Bronislava Nijinska. A dancer's legacy (Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco 1986).
• Margot Fonteyn, Autobiography (New York: Knopf 1976).
• Vicente García Márquez, The Ballets Russes (New York: Knopt 1990).
• Lucy Moore, Nijinsky (New York: Profile Books 2013, 2014).
• Bronislava Nijinska, Early Memoirs (New York: Holt Rinehart Winston 1981).
• Romola Nijinsky, Nijinsky (New York: Simon and Schuster 1934; reprint Pocket Books 1972).
• Tamara Nijinsky, Nijinsky and Romola (London: Bachman & Turner 1991).
• Peter Ostwald, Nijinsky. A leap into madness (Secaucus: Lyle Stuart 1991).
• Nancy Reynolds and Malcom McCormick, No Fixed Point. Dance in the twentieth century (Yale University 2003).
• Lynn Garafola and Nancy Van Norman Baer, editors, The Ballets Russes and its World (Yale University 1999).
• Horst Koegler, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Ballet (1972, Oxford University 1977).

Articles, videos

• Nadine Meisner, "Obituary: Kyra Nijinsky", in The Independent, Oct. 21, 1998. Accessed: 2016-09-10.
• Klaudia Zelazowska, "Oswald Birley, Portrait of Kyra Nijinsky, a dancer who understands" in Daily Art Magazine, Mar. 11, 2018. Accessed: 2018-04-15. Includes: painting and photographs of Kyra, video of film She dances alone.
• She Dances Alone (1981), at IMDb website, Feb. 18, 1982. Accessed: 2017-06-13. See Zelazowska above.
• "Kyra Nijinska" at Dutch website: mijnstambomen. Accessed 2018.4.15. Her last name in Polish style (or Russian) would have the feminine ending 'ska'; the masculine is 'ski'. Includes photographs of Kyra in ballet costumes.
• Margot Fonteyn, interviewer, "Kyra Nijinsky interviewed about her father", JRH Films at youtube.com. Accessed 2018-04-15.