Synopsis

The scene is an empty ballet studio, the long mirror in which all dancers watch themselves being the fourth wall of stage convention – the audience. The Nymph and Faun are dancers who meet there by chance, and were it not that they are more absorbed in their own images in the mirror than in the reality of their intimate physical contact as they dance together, a romance might have ensued. Robbins is saying something fundamental about the essential narcissism of dancers. 

Notes

Claude Debussy’s Prelude a l’aprés-midi d’un faune was composed between 1892 and 1894. It was inspired by a poem of Mallarmé’s which was begun in 1876. The poem describes the reveries of a faun and a real or imagined encounter with nymphs. In 1912 Vaslav Nijinsky presented his famous ballet, drawing his ideas from many sources including Greek sculpture and painting.

This pas de deux by Jerome Robbins is a variation on these themes and is dedicated to Tanaquil Le Clercq for whom the ballet was choreographed.