Saturday, January 4, 2025: 8:50 AM
Sugar Hill (Sheraton New York)
Jordan Lian, University of Cambridge
This paper examines the significance of Bronisława Niżyńska’s leadership of the Balet Polski Reprezentacyjny, with a particular focus on the company’s tour of thirty-three Nazi German cities in January-March of 1938. The Balet Polski Reprezentacyjny was a cultural ensemble instituted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1937 to represent the Second Polish Republic abroad. Integral to the company’s success was the presence of Bronisława Niżyńska, a celebrity dancer and choreographer of Polish heritage, who played a significant role in elevating the obscurity of the company for audiences at the 1937 International Exposition in Paris and Covent Garden in London. On the German tour, Polish officials expressed frustration towards the choreographer. The tension between Niżyńska and Polish officials invites exploration into the degree of overlap between her aims with those of the Polish government, as well as the complexity of her émigré status in officially representing the new nation-state abroad.
By focusing on Niżyńska’s account, this paper argues that her émigré narrative was integral to shaping the tour’s political outcomes, which were difficult to map against German-Polish relations in early 1938. The developing tensions surrounding Danzig and the Anti-Comintern Pact foreground the company’s tour, thus leading to the paper’s exploration of the indeterminate depiction of Poles in Nazi ideology at that time. Using German newspaper reviews and their portrayal of the company, the paper charts a path towards appraisal of the justifications for, and benefits of, official cultural exchanges that inherently favoured one of the counterparties. The Balet Polski Reprezentacyjny’s German tour provides new insight into the Second Polish Republic’s utilization of art and performance in its diplomatic strategy, and the role of émigrés in shaping Central-Eastern European cultural exchange and foreign perception.
