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"Classical ballet"
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Celestial bodies : how to look at ballet
\"As much as we may enjoy Swan Lake or The Nutcracker, for many of us ballet is a foreign language. It communicates through movement, not words, and its history lies almost entirely abroad--in Russia, Italy, and France. In [this book], dance critic Laura Jacobs makes the foreign familiar, providing [an] ... accessible introduction to the world of classical dance\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Swans of the Kremlin
Classical ballet was perhaps the most visible symbol of aristocratic culture and its isolation from the rest of Russian society under the tsars. In the wake of the October Revolution, ballet, like all of the arts, fell under the auspices of the Soviet authorities. In light of these events, many feared that the imperial ballet troupes would be disbanded. Instead, the Soviets attempted to mold the former imperial ballet to suit their revolutionary cultural agenda and employ it to reeducate the masses. As Christina Ezrahi's groundbreaking study reveals, they were far from successful in this ambitious effort to gain complete control over art.Swans of the Kremlinoffers a fascinating glimpse at the collision of art and politics during the volatile first fifty years of the Soviet period. Ezrahi shows how the producers and performers of Russia's two major troupes, the Mariinsky (later Kirov) and the Bolshoi, quietly but effectively resisted Soviet cultural hegemony during this period. Despite all controls put on them, they managed to maintain the classical forms and traditions of their rich artistic past and to further develop their art form. These aesthetic and professional standards proved to be the power behind the ballet's worldwide appeal. The troupes soon became the showpiece of Soviet cultural achievement, as they captivated Western audiences during the Cold War period.Based on her extensive research into official archives, and personal interviews with many of the artists and staff, Ezrahi presents the first-ever account of the inner workings of these famed ballet troupes during the Soviet era. She follows their struggles in the postrevolutionary period, their peak during the golden age of the 1950s and 1960s, and concludes with their monumental productions staged to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the revolution in 1968.
eBook
Dancing genius : the stardom of Vaslav Nijinsky
\"Dancing Genius is the first book-length critical study on Vaslav Nijinsky as a star dancer of the Ballets Russes company. Through looking into definitions of virtuosity, stardom and genius, Hanna Ja;rvinen contrasts contemporary materials from Russia, France, England and the United States with later, hegemonic interpretations. Nijinsky emerges as a celebrity figure whose dancing was attributed with genius in order to raise the prestige of the art form, but a figure also attributed with 'racial' characteristics in a thoroughly Orientalist manner. Tracing the historical figure in contemporary documents and later reminiscences, the book opens up questions about authorship in dance, about critical evaluation of performance practice, and the manner in which past events are turned into history\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Temporal relationship between dancer’s body movements and music beats in classical ballet
Musicality is one of the most essential aspects of dance performance: Dancers control their bodies to the music, and audiences appreciate dances beautifully harmonized with music. The present study explores the physical reality of the dance musicality from the perspective of synchronization between music beats and body movements. Specifically, we investigated the temporal relationship between dancer’s body movements and metronome beats when a dancer performed four basic classical ballet movements (i.e., changement, passé, jeté, and tendu) to the metronome. We measured body movements of 10 ballet dancers using an optical motion capture system and force plates, and analyzed what movement reference points of dancer’s body motion (e.g., movement endpoints and ground reaction force peaks) occurred on or close to the beat and offbeat. Specific reference points coincided with the beat timing common to most dancers, but the different reference points were synchronized with the beat depending on the movements. These reference points were consistent with those reported in previous studies of the temporal relationship between music and body movements. Therefore, the present result suggests that humans have a set of common movement features that can serve as reference points for music-motion synchronization, and dancers select appropriate ones according to the target movements.
Journal Article
Alla Osipenko : beauty and resistance in Soviet ballet
Examines the life and career of \"one of history's greatest ballerinas, a courageous rebel who paid the price for speaking truth to the Soviet state. A cast of characters drawn from all sectors of Soviet and post-Perestroika society makes this biography as encyclopedic and encompassing as a ... Russian novel\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The Dancing Body in Renaissance Choreography
Renaissance dance treatises claim that the dance is a language but do not explain how or what dancing communicates. Since the body is the instrument of this hypothetical language, The Dancing Body in Renaissance Choreography problematizes the absence of the dancing body in treatises in order to reconstruct it through a series of intertextual readings triggered by Thoinot Arbeau’s definition of dance as a mute rhetoric in Orchésographie . This book shows that the oratorical model for Arbeau’s definition of the dance is epideictic and that although one cannot equate dance and oratorical action, the ends of oratorical action are those of dance: persuasion through charm and emotion.
eBook
The art of movement
\"A collection of photographs by Ken Browar and Deborah Ory that capture the movement, flow, energy, and grace of many of the most accomplished dancers in the world. Featured are more than 70 dancers from companies including American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Martha Graham Dance Company, Boston Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, The Royal Ballet, and many more. Accompanying the photographs are intimate and inspiring words from the dancers, as well as from choreographers and artistic directors, on what dance means to them\"--From publisher description.
Book
Modern creative methods of ballet staging and their reflection in the Kazakh ballet Zhusan
The manuscript explores the evolution of ballet staging, focusing on the integration of modern dance and classical ballet. It traces this trend to the second half of the 20th century, highlighting the impact of modern dance’s flexibility on classical ballet’s rigidity, leading to a postmodern era in ballet theater. The study acknowledges significant Western European, American, and Russian researchers in ballet. It discusses how the fusion of classical ballet and modern dance has enriched choreography and led to innovative staging techniques. The manuscript examines the transformation in the definition of ballet, the rejection of strict genre boundaries, and the rise of individual authorial signatures in contemporary ballet productions. The work delves into the postmodernist quest for creative freedom, with choreographers like Merce Cunningham (1919–2009) seeking to break traditional dance constraints. It addresses contemporary ballet trends such as polystylism, eclecticism, collage, and complex performance structures. Focusing on Kazakhstan’s Zhusan ballet, the manuscript analyzes its choreography, music, and artistic interpretation. Zhusan exemplifies the fusion of classical, Kazakh, and contemporary dance, featuring a poetic libretto and a compilative score. In conclusions, the manuscript emphasizes the contemporary ballet’s shift towards the choreographer-director’s subjective vision, a departure from traditional approaches. This critical analysis offers a historical overview and examines the dynamic nature of ballet staging, showcasing a blend of tradition and innovation.
Journal Article
Like a bomb going off : Leonid Yakobson and ballet as resistance in Soviet Russia
\"Everyone has heard of George Balanchine. Few outside Russia know of Leonid Yakobson, Balanchine's contemporary, who remained in Lenin's Russia and survived censorship during the darkest days of Stalin. Like Shostakovich, Yakobson suffered for his art and yet managed to create a singular body of revolutionary dances that spoke to the Soviet condition. His work was often considered so culturally explosive that it was described as \"like a bomb going off.\" Based on untapped archival collections of photographs, films, and writings about Yakobson's work in Moscow and St. Petersburg for the Bolshoi and Kirov ballets, as well as interviews with former dancers, family, and audience members, this illuminating and beautifully written biography brings to life a hidden history of artistic resistance in the USSR through this brave artist, who struggled against officially sanctioned anti-Semitism while offering a vista of hope\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Black Dancers and White Ballet: Case of Cuba
Throughout the XX century, the hard-fought battle of blacks and dark-skinned dancers to perform the classical repertoire on professional stages (including “white ballets”) was a part of the struggle for citizens’ equality. Cuba is a clear example of creating a national ballet school in a country where the fight for social equality was closely connected with overcoming racial segregation. But some researchers have noted that the majority of dancers in the Ballet Nacional de Cuba belong to the Caucasoid phenotype, which means they do not represent the Cuban nation which includes a large variety of phenotypes. We pose the question in what way is the history of Cuban ballet and the artistic experience of its founders connected with the struggle of blacks to have professional dancing careers, and is there actually racial discrimination in Cuban ballet? We demonstrate that the Alonso triumvirate was a good indicator of the problem: Alicia and Fernando as performers, and Alberto Alonso as a choreographer, participated in a cultural movement directed at the rebirth of Cuban identity, they performed African American dances, and they worked together with George Balanchine, who adapted black dance and invited black dancers into his company. However, due to various reasons and circumstances, Alicia Alonso, first for herself and then for the Nacional ballet school and theatre, took a different path, that of entering, on equal footing, the domain of classical ballet, of European art in its essence, in which the white aesthetic is inherent. We would like to demonstrate that the main explanation of the paradox of Cuban ballet became the aesthetic dictatorship of the classics, the dictatorship within “white ballet” which is accepted voluntarily. Classical ballet is an art of subordination to rules and images that are thought of as absolute pinnacles.
Journal Article