#5 - Ballet Russes & New Works
Still discussing ballet woo! This week we learned about and discussed the company Ballet Russes and the new works that were being produced in the first half of the twentieth century. Our conversations are based on the readings “Balletic Astonishments” from Ballet and Modern Dance by Jack Anderson and “Early Modern Ballet.”
Ballet Russes. This is a company that most dancers have heard of. The first reading filled in a lot of the details I was missing about this company. Sergei Diaghilev served as the company director during the company’s active years from 1909-1929. He was motivated by experimentation and commissioned decor from Picasso and others. Ballet Russes’ choreographers, which include Michel Fokine, Vaslav Nijinsky, Léonide Massine, Bronislava Nijinska, George Balanchine, and Anna Pavlova, created provoking work and each had their own characteristics. Something that stood out to me is how anticlassical much of this work was considered to be. Igor Stravinsky’s scores struck uncertainty in audiences; paired with movements and themes that people weren’t used to seeing on stage, many of them sexual, audiences became riotous (specifically in response to Nijinsky’s Rite of Spring. These artists were taking huge risks in putting new material on the stage that was previously occupied by fanciful, ethereal balletic works.
The works that these artists produced, specifically Les Noces by Bronislava Nijinska, heavily contrasted ballets during the Romantic and Classical eras of ballet. Romantic ballets presented theme and narrative through expressing human experiences in a fanciful, mythical manner, and Classical ballets portrayed idealism through narrative, story, and fairytale. Les Noces used darker themes with heavier content to reveal human struggle in a shocking, cacophonous, and sorrowful manner. Nijinska utilized this work to shed light on the grave struggle women in Russia were facing when new marriage laws were enforced and the reality of marriage filled with abuse. Movement in Romantic ballet featured women on pointe to create a light, floating quality of presentation. Nijinska put women in pointe shoes, but this movement was not focused on aesthetic and beauty. The movements in Les Noces were more raw with emotion and utilized unconventional ballet positions such as parallel feet. While Petipas’ ballets were highly structured with set roles of the principles, soloists, and corps de ballet, this work had a looser structure. There were two main men and two main women who represented a bride and groom, and the ensemble of each over ten men and women largely danced together. Les Noces moved away from the previous guidelines that ballets seemed to follow. Nijinska captured and exposed the hardship of reality that women in Russia were facing. This shift is making me see how ballet evolved into works by Martha Graham, which I’m sure we’ll get to soon.
Question. How did the use of the word “a ballet” come to describe a piece of work? Why do we think of a classical ballet work like Les Corsaires when nontraditional works like Les Noces are also considered to be a ballet? And Martha Graham’s works are considered ballets. How did the shift come about in calling works other than ones that feature classical ballet technique be considered “a ballet”?
