A prodigy from his youth in Russia, Vaslav Nijinsky came to international fame as a principal dancer in Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. In December 1917, Nijinsky—by then the most famous male dancer in the Western world—moved into a Swiss villa with his wife and three-year-old daughter and began to go mad. When psychosis struck, he imagined himself as married to God. Although he lived another 30 years, he never regained his sanity. This diary, which he kept in four notebooks over six wee...

Tracing the historical figure of Vaslav Nijinsky in contemporary documents and later reminiscences, Dancing Genius opens up questions about authorship in dance, about critical evaluation of performance practice, and the manner in which past events are turned into history.

Au travers d'une nouvelle lecture minutieuse des Cahiers de Vaslav Nijinski, qu'on qualifia de « fou », et en les sortant de la réduction au diagnostic psychiatrique dont ils sont encore l'objet, Madeleine Abassade fait apparaître la révolte du danseur contre un ordre établi dont il fut l'instrument et dont il cherchera à s'émanciper en créant ses propres chorégraphies.Hiver 1919. Le célèbre danseur et chorégraphe russe Vaslav Nijinski écrit sans trêve jour et nuit, depuis...