‘It was not Sinai’: Wayfaring with Nijinsky in and around St. Moritz. Some Reflections on Practising Dance History in the Field

Among the most enigmatic passages in the so-called ‘diary’ of Vaslav Nijinsky are the four descriptions of the walks Nijinsky presumably took around St. Moritz where he moved in 1917. This article concerns research on these walks conducted by the author in St. Moritz, by means of wayfaring as conceptualized by Tim Ingold. It presents the current state of the sites mentioned by the dancer and hypothesizes about his routes and the dramatic effects of walks through the Upper Engandine landscape. It also ponders the impossibility of accessing the ‘original’ sites, and hence the walks as they happened, as well as the advantages of this impossibility for a more open dance history.