Originally titled The Allegory of Nijinsky, the Taiwanese version translates as Ballet I and Nijinsky's Fables, and is a ballet comic serialized in the mid-to-late 1980s.
Compared with the deformed human proportions in Kyoko Yoshiko's earlier works such as "Ballet Heroes", Nijinsky's Fables have greatly improved in depicting dance movements and human anatomy, and are very much in line with the poetic dance atmosphere in the story.
△ "Nijinsky's Fable"
Stories deal with eternal themes in art: choreographer and dancer, body and spirit and soul, not love, but spiritual desire and fusion between each other. The character portrayal is slightly thin and a bit feminine (the general aesthetic style of the girly comics of the 70s and 80s), but the portrayal of the artistic atmosphere is absolutely romantic, especially in the expression of the lines, the poetry conveyed through the dance picture, and it feels that the cartoonists of the past have worked harder on the lines. Nijinsky, a dance god who also has a short artistic career, is innuendoed with the fate of the protagonist, but overemphasizes the conclusion of fate, which seems very sensational.
Although the protagonist's fate is to allude to Nijinsky, the dance in it has nothing to do with it. Its reading process can also be said to be a remembrance of the two deceased masters of ballet, Maurice Béjart (Maurice Bega, 1927-2007) and Jorge Donn (George Downe, 1947-1992).
Maurice Bega, an important modern ballet choreographer of the twentieth century, owns the "Bega Ballet", of which Argentine dancer Jorge Donn is his principal dancer.
The comic has just turned a few pages, and then I find the curly hair image and dance attire of the protagonist Lucifer and the supporting character Patrick - the upper body is naked and black pants (especially Patrick), like Jorge Donn, and the more you look at those dance moves, the more you look back, the more certain you are, the teacher must be a die-hard fan of Jorge and the Bega Dance Company.
So let's take a look at the contrast between the real dance scenes in those comics!
Let's look at some individual actions. The teacher drew a lot of details of Patrick's dance posture, and it was obvious that she must have loved Jorge Donn very much, because these movements abounded in his dances.
The Bolero Suite is well known to everyone, choreographed by Bega in 1961, and until now there are five versions of the dance: 1. In 1961, female solo + male group dance; in 1979, Jorge Donn as a leading dancer male solo + female group dancer; 3. In the same year, it was still Jorge Donn leading male solo + male group dance, 4. 1998, version of a female solo or male solo + male group dance; In 2004, female solo + male solo + male group dance.
Among them, I like Jorge's solo dance + male group dance.
The dance is best known for Jorge's performance in the 1981 film The Flames of War, directed by Claude Lelouch. Jorge on the red round table, accompanied by orchestral music, jumps steadily from static to moving, from weak to strong. The shades of red and black are interlaced with light and shadow, and the figure of Jorge on the round table is fused into the crescending music, and the climax is like a ceremony of overlapping, full of incitement.
Lucifer with choreographer Jayne.
Jorge Donn。 I'm not looking for all of them that correspond to comic strips, but the overall feel and atmosphere are consistent.
△ Lucifer in the third volume is dancing.
△ Jorge Donn
Lucifer and Patrick
△ Jayne and Lucifer are spiritually intertwined in the dance.
When the 1980s Bega Dance Company performed in Japan, it set off a frenzy that made Jorge Donn Japan's most popular foreign dance star. His performance with Kabuki master Yusaburo Sakato is impressive, and his curly hair image has become a model for many manga artists such as HagiMoto. However, in my opinion, it is Yoshi sensei who can paint the characters most vividly in appearance and dance, and her "Jorge Donns" have a flowing beauty and poetic vividness.
Teacher, how many Jorge shows have you seen?
Finally, as an off-topic, the Ballet Magazine quoted a quote from Bega: "My life's work is not to change the dance, but to change the audience, to change the relationship between ballet and the audience."
So what is the relationship between ballet and the audience?
He defines it this way: "My ballet is first and foremost an encounter, an encounter with music, with life, with death, with love, with people who have shared similar experiences with me."
Although he only knows the skin of Bega, and has not even watched the dance drama, there is a feeling that he prays and sacrifices through dance, and reflects the exploration of life and soul. In his dozens of dances, Jorge has repeatedly expressed the encounters of countless destinies.
Kyoko Yukiko, on the other hand, presented the highest tribute to the two of them with this poetic and colorful work of art.
To be able to meet you, no matter through which medium, truly feel the "dance" in life. This is another beautiful gift that life has given me and us!