Not Stale! but Fail..

        I think that Nijinsky's choreography of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, was so bad that it should have caused riots! Nijinsky was a forward thinking choreographer, and only a year before had made a daring leap in the accepted types of modern dance with his Afternoon of the Faun. The Afternoon of the Faun was very critically received and was soon put out of circulation. However it seems that Nijinsky's hope for pushing the boundary's of dance was not dimmed.

         He found many ways to push the boundary's of classic ballet or dance. He incorporated the crazy wheeling, jarring, motions with a fairly large number of dancers usually centered around something. Through the undercurrents of darkness in the music and the almost possessed movements of the dancers, one can just picture a savage group of natives preparing for some terrible sacrifice in the preparation for spring.. Some renditions even include "sacrificial dance" in their public titles. Understandably, for the people of the time period who were perhaps going to the theater for an evening of enjoyment, this was an aberration. I happen to agree with them.

      In Nijinsky's defense his frenzied leaps, pawing, stamping, and jarring motions do seem to adapt well to the raw rhythmic complexity of Stravinsky's score. However at the public's shock of viewing this, even causing riots to break out, Stravinsky abandoned the sinking ship and confessed to being disturbed by Nijinsky's strange choreography
      In summation I think that the ballet of Rite of Spring was a failure at modern dance. I realize that it did have some very new and nonconforming style but I seriously think that there comes a time when even the "shock value" of something, is taken too far and hence becomes worthless and offensive.