Male Beauty

Abstract

To briefly reiterate the issues raised above, for the discourse of genius, Nijinsky’s biggest asset was being a man. To contrast the performativity of the virtuoso and the star, Nijinsky’s admirers placed much emphasis on how his dancing was creative, intellectual and asexual — all definitely male qualities (Battersby 1994, especially 4–5, 144–5). Although the profession of dancing was perceived as a feminine (collective, imitative) activity, in the discourse of genius (male, creative, individual) this femininity became the factor that separated the unique Nijinsky from other dancers, both male and female. It might seem paradoxical that this effect was achieved by making Nijinsky’s image more feminine, rather than less so. As I will discuss in this chapter, the feminine qualities of the dancing genius were necessary to downplay the physical demands of dancing and the excess of masculinity in the barbarian Other. Both of these qualities were inaesthetic, ugly and unseemly — and had been associated with other male dancers at least since Romanticism (Burt 1995, especially 22–8; also McCarren 1998, 84–92).