Portrait of Vaslav Nijinsky

Birthday profile

Vaslav Nijinsky

Polish-Russian ballet dancer and choreographer

Born
March 12, 1889
Died
April 8, 1950
Zodiac sign
Pisces
Birth year
1889

About Vaslav Nijinsky

Vaslav or Vatslav Nijinsky was a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer of Polish ancestry. He is regarded as the greatest male dancer of the early 20th century. He is often associated with the Ballets Russes and its impresario Sergei Diaghilev, for which he choreographed such influential ballets as L'après-midi d'un faune (1912), Le Sacre du Printemps (1913), Jeux (1913), and Till Eulenspiegel (1916). He was celebrated for his virtuosity and for the depth and intensity of his characterizations. He could dance en pointe, a rare skill among male dancers at the time, and was admired for his seemingly gravity-defying leaps. He appeared in supporting parts in classical ballets such as Faust, as a mouse in The Nutcracker, a page in Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake, and won the Didelot scholarship. Vaslav and Bronia, just two years apart, became very close as they grew.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Vaslav Nijinsky was born

Vaslav Nijinsky was born in 1889. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Headlines and milestones

  • Top headlineEiffel Tower opens for Paris World's Fair
  • Technology milestoneEiffel Tower — world's tallest structure
  • World population~1.49B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderBenjamin Harrison
  • U.S. population58.6M

1889 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Vaslav Nijinsky's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure18892026
Population58.6M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.