Stphane Mallarm - Tumblr Posts

“The dancer is not a woman dancing… but a metaphor summing up one of the elementary aspects of our form.. suggesting.. a kind of corporal writing… a poem independent of any scribal aparatus.”

— Stéphane Mallarmé, Divagations (from Poetics of Dance: Body, Image, and Space in the Historical Avant-Gardes, by Ingo Roland Stoehr)

The year is 1894. You are in Paris. In this december evening you are getting ready to go hear "Prélude à l'Après-midi d'un faune" for the first time. 18 years later you are sitting in Théâtre du Châtelet to see Ballets Russes premier this piece made into a short ballet. It's different. It rejects classical formality. It is also breathtakingly erotic and sensual. It ends with what appears to be the faun, Vaslav Nijinsky, masturbating. You know this will lead to controversy, for the audience is booing and the critics are obviously not content. But you are certain, that Nijinsky has just made history, and you're a part of it. You stand up to cheer.

“Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard…” (Mallarmé) [se lit aussi à rebours] Skill In Backgammon (2018) sophia D. S. wright Composition on iPadPro Made with Procreate Original 5050x5050px

Portrait of Stephane Mallarme - F. Vallotton