Afternoon of a Faun (2006)
This is Tim Rushton's 2006 restaging of Nijinsky's 1912 Afternoon of a Faun, made for Johan Kobborg and set, as in the original, to Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune. It was created for Kings of the Dance, a touring gala format built around solo and small-scale showcases for leading male dancers, and premiered at New York City Center before moving to the Orange County Performing Arts Center.
What is danced
The article gives only a sketch of the movement itself: a faun/dancer 'capers and bathes' within three successive pools of light thrown by beam projectors, appearing stage center, then left, then right. This lighting device, rather than any described step vocabulary, is presented as the ballet's defining formal choice, and the article states explicitly that Rushton's version 'differs materially from Nijinsky's original' in this respect. The only continuity with Nijinsky's 1912 work that the article names is costuming, not choreography.
Context
Nijinsky's original 1912 Afternoon of a Faun, made for the Ballets Russes, is one of the founding works of modernist ballet, prized for its flattened, frieze-like profile poses and its break from academic vocabulary. Rushton's 2006 version was not made for a repertory ballet company's season but for Kings of the Dance, a gala franchise assembled around star male dancers performing solo showcase pieces, which shapes it toward a single performer and a striking design concept rather than an ensemble or narrative restaging.
Staging history
The work premiered in February 2006 at New York City Center as part of the Kings of the Dance gala, danced by Johan Kobborg, and was subsequently given at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, California. Kobborg performed it again in October 2007 as part of City Center's Fall for Dance festival; the article names no other performer or company associated with the piece.
How to watch it
Watch for the choreography's use of three sequential lit areas center, left and right rather than a single continuous stage picture, since the article frames this as the work's main structural device. Because a single named dancer (Kobborg) is the reference point for both stagings the article cites, the piece reads as a solo showcase vehicle rather than an ensemble ballet; compare its economy of means against the frieze-profile vocabulary of Nijinsky's 1912 original if you know that work.