Comments on: Mysterious Youtube Videos of Famous Dancer

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Are there a whole lot of active dancers over 30?

Nureyev performed into his 50s. Margot Fonteyn retired at 60.

By: Falcon_Seven

Falcon_Seven — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

“I work as an alchemist in animated cinema.”
The ‘Phiosopher’s Stone’, this is, surely, not.

By: Alessandro Cima

Alessandro Cima — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Yes, well… I have recently used this technique to animate a still photo of Marlon Brando that actually turns out to give a better performance in ‘On the Waterfront’ than Marlon Brando did. I simply extrapolated what would quite obviously follow a particular mouth position originated by the admittedly talented actor. After following the rigid logic of my calculations, the performance rendered by my Brando far exceeds in emotive brilliance the performance generated by the biologically-limited Brando.

I will be submitting this film of Mr. Brando’s true performance to the Motion Picture Academy for consideration in the upcoming Oscar competition. For sure it will win.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

In his seminal book “The Outsider,” Colin Wilson had a fascinating section on Nijinsky, arguing that his personal torment had much to do with “seeing too much and too deeply” into a human society which no longer held a proper place for mystical temperaments, placing Nijinsky in a category with such other “outsiders” as van Gogh and T.E. Lawrence. Wilson recounts an episode during World War 1 when Nijinsky told his family, “I will now dance you the war,” and proceeded to move in a savage manner which frightened them.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

A surrealist’s dream, like an artificial wonderland. This is a fantastic work of art. Form and fiction.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

this is like something out of a William Gibson novel. awesome.

By: lowrahk

lowrahk — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0295480/

The film “Diaries of Vaslav Ninjinski” is a little overdone, but has some beautiful dancing and some insights into Vaslav’s diary, which was mostly written after he was institutionalized. I think in the film they talk about the complex and unique system that Ninjinski had for writing down the choreography to his dances. Some of the dances are “recreated” in the film, while a narrator reads from his diary. I saw this on Australian Broadcasting Corporation one night, and it was really interesting and beautiful, although slow and a little over the top.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

@20: YOU JINXED IT

By: Chris Spurgeon

Chris Spurgeon — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Big similarities here with “the footage” in William Gibson’s novel “Pattern Recognition”.

By: jitrobug

jitrobug — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

See, I know this is all bunk because Vaslav Nijinsky isn’t either of the Nicholas brothers, and therefor can’t be considered the greatest dancer of the 20th century.

By: Steve Schnier

Steve Schnier — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

So they’re not really videos of Nijinsky dancing. They’re another artists interpretation of how he would have moved. While its probably close in terms of movement, its safe to say that the subtleties of Nijinsky’s timing would be off.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

uh, do the funky robot?

By: invisibelle

invisibelle — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The results are creepy, at least.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Umm . . . he died at 60, not 29.

By: Shelby Davis

Shelby Davis — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Kind of like the videos circulating of James Joyce and other deceased writers reading their works (actual audio recordings synced to alterations of still photos).

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

its safe to say that the subtleties of Nijinsky’s timing would be off.

Films of that era were hand cranked, so timing was up to the projectionist, anyway.

By: dculberson

dculberson — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Yeah, neat but not convincing in the least. The movements are so artificial looking that it doesn’t even enter into the uncanny valley.

I am glad someone’s giving him the attention, though.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Nijinsky was born around 1890 and die in London in 1950. He stopped performing around 28-29 and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He didn’t die.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Nizhinskiy ‘retired’ at 29 to spend the rest of his life in and out of insane asylums.

By: Cunning

Cunning — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

“alchemist in animated cinema”

“achieved thanks to a process that I invented”

My kid makes animated gifs of her Barbie flying. Gt vr yrslf Frnch.

By: usonia

usonia — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

What, he invented dancing like a late-80′s CGI figure? The flat stained glass knight from Young Sherlock Holmes moved better than that.

By: Daemon

Daemon — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

cunning: Does she animate them after the barbie has been destroyed, based on a few surviving photos, and recreate fairly believable video in between the photos? If not, get over yourself, non-frenchie.

By: Tdawwg

Tdawwg — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

“Fairly believable” for dwellers of a two-dimensional universe, perhaps. Get over yourselves, non-two-dimensional-space dwellers!

By: rrh

rrh — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

It’s so obvious to me that is computer animated, and not even very well. So it’s hard for me to understand the people who don’t see that.

By: ill lich

ill lich — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Vaslav Nijinsky. . . the original B-boy.

By: Dylan Thuras

Dylan Thuras — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Whoops, I knew/meant retired but wrote died without thinking. Kind of harsh on retirees… Sorry Grandpa, I do not consider you the walking dead, I promise!

By: teufelsdroch

teufelsdroch — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

@9 cunning, or anyone else:

Where has the ‘no vowels’ meme come from? Is it 4chan, or leet, or something else?

What is it supposed to signify?

Anyway, I kind of like it, b/c for me it signifies ‘this is unreadable, so don’t bother reading it’. It’s like a comment that deletes itself (while still wasting space).

Cunning, could you say what you intend with no vowels? Has this been discussed in some more appropriate place?

By: IWood

IWood — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I got over myself, and went back in time.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

“Fairly believable” it ain’t. First-year undergrad work with Poser, maybe.

It’s sort-of-convincing as an “I processed this clip so that it looks eighty years old” experiment, but as dance? Forget it. If Nijinsky had actually moved like that, he’d be unknown today.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

teufelsdroch,

Read the Moderation Policy.