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A photo from the U.S. Archives which demonstrates very clearly Isadora Duncan’s, and other modern dancers, influence on ballet. You can’t say “choreography” without saying “dancers” or “ballet” as they converge, effect each other, and dancers dance, to some extent, what they want to or what the can.
This is a pretty rare photo, but now, we can see that perhaps Anna Pavlova did not really hate Isadora Duncan after-all, but instead was influenced by her, tried to channel or feel what Isadora felt, what modern dance was, or her choreographer was interested in it for this piece. We see it finally because she danced it. She agreed to do it. That makes it important to ballet. What a dancer agrees to do (and does not agree to do) ultimately defines them to their audience, defines their art, and history, especially when you are discussing Anna Pavlova.
But in relation to any dancer, they will be seen to be a certain kind of dancer, expected to perform certain roles, become skilled at those and roles like them. Obviously Pavlova went back to classical roles and swore off modern dance. At least for her life, this was not what she was good at, excelled at. One needs to know oneself and one’s limitations, but that comes with experience. Expansion can mean growing into an acceptance of what your roles could and should be in dance, or it can come to mean limiting yourself to perfection of one type of dancing. Being an expert at one thing certainly raises the level of expertise required for that genre. It increases your ability to dance those roles.
Most importantly, if you are determined to dance certain roles, certain ballets, certain parts, then you need to learn those parts, become expert at them, so that no matter your deficiencies, people will say, “but she/he dances those parts better, even if she/he is not this or that. But if you do not specialize, then perhaps you will never be good enough at one thing to qualify even for that. If Pavlova had not been skilled in ballet, had that not been her passion, we would not have been fortunate to have come to understand her legacy a little better, and while she had the option to become more skilled, at a later age, in other forms of dance, she did not do a 180 and perform modern, or try to find herself in it.
Even with poorer choreography than Diaghilev could provide, she continued to astound audiences with her versatility and drama, as a ballet dancer. She truly was an ambassador of ballet. Something must also be said about modern dance here, the characteristics of it, the difference between it and ballet, are wide. Isadora Duncan could have suddenly said, I want to be a ballet dancer. But she did not. There was unquestionable an attitude and freedom in her approach to dancing, her naturalness, her languor and beauty (she was a very beautiful woman), her form and development in modern dance, which gave her an advantage in performing her roles, her choreography, and she danced to a different drummer, literally, different music.
She was right and Pavlova was right. Two experts, a long time ago, who felt that you had to make up your mind, pick a side, choose, two purists. I do not think choreographers today understand dance very well, for they are not able to separate or merge the two dance styles (usually). They are greedy, and dancers are too, so no one is perfect today in ballet, because they try to do too much. Be the star on every stage. And yet, even with the most sought after choreographers, some dancers just do not enjoy that success. Great ballet dancers fail at exploring new styles, new techniques, and they are simply not the best.
But, by taking on roles that minimize, instead of maximize, their abilities as ballet dancers, instead of having new ballet roles made for them, their performances are not what they could be. At thirty to forty years of age, these dancers should be reaching a point where they are true artists, and yet the barre for true artistry is lowered. There are some artists, such as Natalia Osipova, Darcy Bussell, Tamara Rojas, etc., who have remained dedicated to their art and may possibly reach a point, historically, where their body of work is respected and exceeds more publicized dancers, simply because they knew their limitations and they stayed within the parameters of their expertise longer, trying to reach a point where they were consummate in their art. It is not today that they will be judged, but tomorrow, and in the annals of history, where we are not yet and cannot say whom will leave what.
How will they all be credited? More is needed for women to make a mark, when before them is opportunity to travel, to reach out, to grow, to direct, choreograph, produce. What will their choices be? Will they stray from the path of their strength, give up, or will they take the torch, the flame and finally bring something monumental back to ballet, the genre that gave them their careers, their fame? Or will they dabble in other forms of dance, leaving mediocrity in their wake, when they could have developed classical ballet, and ballet, a big step further in order to safeguard it as Vaganova did.
So when you are in class, or studying ballet, pick a side, and win or lose, cling to that vision. For is you are true to your vision, you are working not only toward what you believe in, and love, but you are setting a precedence for what will be your strongest form of dance in the future. What do you want that to be? Don’t let rejection, or all of the opinions of others set your path. For the path you choose will probably be the one that survives with you, the one you will know best, and will propagate. If there is one you prefer, no matter what others say, follow the choice you will be able to live with and embrace.
I saw this perfectly horrible interview, supposedly with Vivien Leigh-she studied ballet, too! And she is grilled by London Observer and NYT‘s drama critic (young) Kenneth Tynan. I honestly could not watch more than a few minutes-just long enough to hear Mr. Tynan be given the floor in what was supposed to be her interview in which he makes the same (unfortunately) point that I did in my comments about The Red Shoes and Sylvie Guillem‘s recreation of ‘Bolero,’ and in the same post about Natalie Portman‘s portrayal of a dancer.
Before I thought about it, I responded to his position as one insulting Ms. Leigh, and considering the sleights to her acting ability that I had recently read about, I took offense. He insinuated that her parts could have been played better by real southerners in both Gone With the Wind and Streetcar Named Desire-namely her two greatest roles. He was a bit of a 3. Then I was embarrassed to realize this was a similar point to mine! Here was, undeniably, the most famous British actress of her time, if not one of the greatest, being questioned about her choice of roles, and defending her right as an actress to portray whatever characters she felt, and explaining that she had to look for challenges. He mumbled something about Japanese playing Chinese and so on. I really need to go back and force myself to watch the interview, if only as punishment for making a similar point.
To clarify. I do not think Natalie Portman’s portrayal of a dancer violated any rules about non-dancers playing dancers. i am only aggrieved for dancers that she did not give credit where credit was due-anymore than Vivien Leigh gave any credit to southerners for her portrayal. A lot of people think Gone With the Wind is not one of the greatest films in that it stereotypes blacks and makes them appear to be happy in their slavery. I think the film is one of my favorite films of all time, and I have read the book by Margaret Mitchell. Clearly, casting of Vivien Leigh was not a mistake and she probably deserved the Oscar she got. I questioned whether Ms. Portman deserved her Oscar, I am still out on that one. Ms. Leigh was doubled (even before she was hired) in many of the scenes-particularly from the fire scene in Atlanta, but others as well and no credit was given to the extras that I know of, but credit was given to the blacks in the film and they were not played by whites in ‘black face,’ which did advance some of their careers, although many of the players were considered fine actors already. If not for these films, how were blacks to be taken seriously, or taken at all, in films? How were they to make a living? I do not think The Black Swan did less for ballet actually. There is no such thing as bad publicity. Many of the dancers in The Black Swan may one day be noted for their dancing as a result of having very minor parts in the film, but I doubt it. I do not think the film itself was or will be considered as great one day as Gone With the Wind-but who can tell? The fact is, it is a film about dance.
Sylvie Guillem most definitely was challenging herself in the role of Bolero-again, how stupid of me! I should not have commented on her performance, copying, or lack of freedom in the role. Here is a woman at fifty-still dancing! She is an icon. We need icons in ballet, it’s just that we need more. Perhaps. But both of these performances have in common, to me, a greater place in copying the fine art of dance, in one form or another, than in bringing to life a role, whether acting or dancing is involved and I think that where art is concerned, i would rather see the latter than the former in almost any instance. But this ties together quite nicely my points, even if I do have to be categorized with the imbeciles!
Just a quick note to Shah Khan’s insightful Yale Graduation reading and his discussion to the graduating class about success. Is failure the key to success as he (and I) believe? Are people, who are learning from their mistakes, more likely to reap more success in the end? Are people who are generally more afraid of failure more likely to succeed? Is success sometimes accidental, or always? I quote, you always learn more from your failures than you do your successes and to truly appreciate success you have to experience failure-but I am not sure who said these things, so ingrained are they!
“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”
― Leonardo da Vinci
Great article on the make-up and elimination process of the Royal Ballet Academy. Considers homegrown versus international students, ratios of such in company and impact on British dance. Though thought provoking, what many of us imagined. Unknown to us was that other schools, besides the Bolshoi, are nearly fully comprised of students from their own countries, while the Royal Ballet calls ballet “poaching” good policy and ballet a “global marketplace.”
Well, if it isn’t one thing, it’s another. Injury, pain, something new very often, the more intensely you study or work in ballet. The question is, do you rest with every injury or pain that your child reports to you. For example, one month ago, while landing from a pirouette, and extending her foot in the back, the foot slipped, causing the weight to lean toward the outer side of the foot abruptly. This was a very minor sprain which hurt pretty badly and resulted in the rest of the week OFF. The next week, it was aching hips from stretching. The following week she tripped over her brothers suddenly extended leg and went down at a 90 degree ankle right on the kneecap-hard floor. Last night she said she must have tendonitis because her achilles tendon hurt on point. I was half asleep and dreamed about dancing, sudden and crippling injuries, with these thoughts pooling in my brain. I woke up two hours too early after having slept poorly. Think, think, think. Well, these are just the medium complaints a parent hears, aside from terrible colds, bleeding toes, painful hamstrings and other muscles, peeling feet, stinkfoot, bruised toe nails, falls, popping, back strains, not to mention the constant feeling by your child that perhaps one fall, one debilitating injury and they will not ever be able to dance again. Vitamins, diet, hair-down to which shampoos they cannot use because when they do their hair is too fluffy to put into a bun. It seems when everything is quiet, there is just no catastrophe.
We have had some of these before, and there are pains that last months and pains that last a few days. That is pretty much how you distinguish them. The antenna are meant to go up at the mention. How each dancer handles other pain is down to the dancer. Mine has thrown away her spacers, gel toe pads and other paraphernalia in order to develop calluses and keep a monitor on the changes. She discovered she could dance for certain time periods at one level of activity and another, shorter length of time with more strenuous point work, but pain is a thermometer in ballet. It is just a question of whether it is in the red zone or blue zone. The more experienced dancer knows-or thinks she does-the difference. Thankfully, they tell you just before you fall asleep that they have a possibly crippling condition. They are supposed to, right? Tell you, I mean….
All day, I had to think of a way to work up to say, “by the way, that achilles pain (tension you can cut with a knife emanating from her) you mentioned (casually), is that a sometimes pain, or a constant pain, of the first time (having forgotten about the one associated with point shoes)? “S-o-m-e-t-i-m-e-s…., well, yes.” (Trying not to be pregnant pause), “Well, when does it happen-during a particular exercise? When you go on point, or in other exercises?” “When I am on point-once….” and when I point.” Suddenly “When did it start? You mean you did not tell me the first time?!” “Mom, it just happened once, last night!!!!” (Phew). “How bad was it?” “I don’t know, it just hurt when I went on point.” “I think it is your shoes!” “Me, too.” Truth? I can only guess.
Background and some further research rearding
“You have to strengthen.” “That’s what makes it hurt.” “What?” “When I point and flex-that is what makes it hurt.” “You cannot dance anymore if you have tendonitis-that is serious. You have to rest the tendon, you do not want to make it worse or chronic.” How can I strengthen it if that is when it hurts????” “Do rotations and improve your releve.” “I do. I shouldn’t have told you.”
Information on different kinds of achilles tendon pain can be found here:
I tell you because I cannot tell my daughter. Today I think every year of her age a brick is placed in that wall between us. She would be mortified if she knew that I discussed this openly with anyone-even a stranger. But she “should not have told” me!!!! What can she be feeling or thinking that she would not tell her best friend. And me-not wanting to pry, leaving her be, let her alone to learn, to cry, because she wants to be a ballet dancer. Should we let them? Is it cruel? When is it time to let go? Now? So young. Dancing is supposed to be a happy thing. How sadistic are we that we let them dance, to be an icon of self-victimization? Is it really that rewarding and addictive????Yes.
Some more information, and some good exercises, can be found here:
mysylph 