Ballroom Frenzy and the Clodoche Quadrille

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 197-213
Author(s):  
Laurence Senelick

For all the lip-service French culture pays to reason and logic, it undergoes periodic eruptions of déraison or unreason. In the wake of Napoleon’s defeat, ballroom dancing began to be infiltrated by such unbridled popular dances as the cancan and the chahut. Exuberant, even bacchanalian physical display served as a safety-valve in a heavily censored society. In the Second Empire, four working-class amateurs introduced the high-kicking, parodic Clodoche quadrille at the Paris Opéra. A non-verbal equivalent of the Marx Brothers, they became bywords through the Western hemisphere of zany, comic demonstrations of the hysteric convulsions described by the medical establishment. Laurence Senelick is Fletcher Professor Emeritus of Drama and Oratory at Tufts University, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a contributor to the International Encyclopedia of Dance. His many books include British Music Hall: A Bibliography (1981), The Age and Stage of George L. Fox (1999), and Cabaret Performance 1890–1940 (2001–2005).

1987 ◽  
Vol 8 (x) ◽  
pp. 341-352
Author(s):  
Melissa Clegg

Since the founding of the Fifth Republic Paris has been rebuilt to an extent only the reconstructions of the Second Empire under Napoleon III could match. The story of its rebuilding—told by David Pinkney, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Washington—could serve as a fable with a moral about the whole of French cultural and political life for the last twenty-five years. De Gaulle began the transformation of Paris by deregulating the building industry. The threats of that policy to the historical character of the city eventually provoked, under Giscard d’Estaing and Mitterrand, a return to the centrist practices of a state accustomed to regulation.


1945 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-50
Author(s):  
Francis Borgia Steck

Another gifted writer whose name has almost passed into oblivion is Tirso Rafael Córdoba. Like Rafael Gómez, he from Michoacán, a circumstance that seems to explain why during the period we are considering these two men stood on such intimate terms of friendship and in their literary career had so many things in common. His biographer tells us that in 1853, at the early age of fifteen, Córdoba, then a student in the Seminario de Morelia, was admitted to membership in the Liceo Iturbide, a distinction conferred upon him in view of the exceptional progress he had made in the arts and sciences. Only for the disturbed times in which his youth and early manhood fell, Córdoba would have entered the priesthood, this being his intention when he studied philosophy in the Seminario Conciliar Palafoxiano in the city of Puebla. From this celebrated school he graduated with high honors and then proceeded to Mexico City where he studied canon and civil law in the Colegio de San Ildefonso and passed the bar examination in the University of Mexico. But again he became a victim of circumstances, unable to engage freely and fully in the legal and political circles for which he was so richly qualified. After the fall of the Second Empire, at which time he was Secretary General of the municipal government of Puebla, he retired from public life and thereafter took a prominent part, chiefly in Mexico City, in social and literary activities. He was one of the founders of the organization known as La Sociedad Católica and collaborated in the founding and editing of periodicals, popular as well as literary, such as La Voz de México, El Obrero Católico, El Hijo del Obrero, La Lira Poblana, La Aurora, and La Oliva.


2021 ◽  
pp. 166-171
Author(s):  
T. Pavliuk

The purpose of this paper to analyze the transformations in the French ballroom and choreographic practice, in the context of the development of culture of Western European countries of the XVI — early XXI centuries. The methodology is an organic set of basic principles of research: objectivity, historicism, multifactority, systemicity, complexity, development and pluralism, and to achieve the goal, the following methods of scientific knowledge are used: problem-chronological, concrete historical, statistical, descriptive, logical and analytical. The results. The analysis of trends in the development of ballroom dance in France and the influence of French culture on the formation of ballroom choreography in the XVI — early XXI centuries. The analysis of trends in the development of ballroom dance in France and the influence of French culture on the formation of ballroom choreography in the XVI — early XXI centuries took place. The processes of transformation and democratization of ballroom choreography in the XVIII century, which already in the XIX century turned from salon art into a leisure object for various social strata throughout Europe, were investigated. In the XX century it was France that discovered non-European types of ballroom dancing for Europe, which subsequently acquired standardization in the English professional environment. In the XX century France became the country where foreign art forms appeared and adapted to the conditions of European realities. France attracted artists from all over the world because of the special national culture formed in it. During the XX century the art of ballroom choreography in France developed rapidly. French performers and teachers continued long-standing national traditions. This factor had a positive effect on the training level of dancers in the field of professional and amateur ballroom dancing. Since 2010, France has been an active member of the World Dance Sports Federation (WDSF). The French Dance Federation (Fédération Française de Danse) is one of the largest organizations that develops ballroom choreography in the country. Over the past decades, dozens of open national and world ballroom dancing championships have been held in French cities (Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Nice, etc.). The scientific topicality is to identify the processes of the influence of French culture on the development of ballroom choreography in the XVI — early XXI centuries. The practical significance. The research may be used in developing lectures by specialists in choreography.


1995 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Mead

Charles Garnier's Paris Opéra (1861-75) and Baron Haussmann's contemporary replanning of Paris (1853-70) supposedly represent the Second Empire of Napoléon III. But this case study of the Opéra within the context of its quarter of Paris contradicts the usual assumptions that the monument and the city were either the inevitable products or the characteristic political expressions of the state. First, a chain of events dating back to the seventeenth century is reconstructed in order to demonstrate that the decision reached in 1860 to site the Opéra on the Grands Boulevards at the end of a projected new avenue was less the consequence of an imperial plan than the pragmatic result of the often contingent urban history of Paris. Second, the parallel and equally pragmatic evolution of the characteristic Parisian façade of a giant order on an arcuated base is traced from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries in order to explain why Garnier's Opéra and Haussmann's surrounding buildings came to have the same form of elevation. Interpreted in light of both the Opéra's own ambiguous status as a state institution and the ambiguous nature of nineteenth-century bourgeois civil society, this evidence suggests that neither urban nor architectural forms are fixed in their meaning, but tend rather to adjust their meaning to the changing circumstances of their use. This article concludes that a city and its monuments find their meaning in the continuous process by which a city's inhabitants shape and experience their surroundings, rather than in the episodic political programs of the state.


2021 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-208
Author(s):  
Sarah Gutsche-Miller

When Albert Carré became the director of the Paris Opéra-Comique in 1898, he did so with the goal of rejuvenating French lyric theater. He also took possession of a national institution in a state of flux. The Opéra-Comique had a new hall and a new mandate, and it had recently become the focus of debates in the press about what role the city’s second national lyric theater should play in French culture. Although debates initially revolved around opera, Carré’s plans for renewal included ballet, not seen at the Opéra-Comique for over a century. This article discusses the role ballet played in promoting Carré’s artistic objectives. At first glance the theater’s repertoire appears to be at odds with Carré’s progressive ideals. The Opéra-Comique staged only one innovative ballet, Le Cygne (1899)—a pop-culture-inflected mythological parody by Catulle Mendès, Charles Lecocq, and Madame Mariquita. Carré then turned to staging old-fashioned pantomime-ballets, confining innovative dances to divertissements in operas. The reasons for Carré’s repertoire decisions can, I argue, be found in the reception of Le Cygne. Carré’s initial ballet was highly contested, and critics’ arguments mirrored ongoing press debates about ballet’s value and place in French culture. I contend that Carré’s initial modernist ballet, and his shift to mixing conventional pantomime-ballets with modern opera divertissements in response to the contentious reception of Le Cygne, were part of a calculated attempt to establish the Opéra-Comique as an emblematic French national theater that was simultaneously a museum and a progressive space for modern innovation.


2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 253-268
Author(s):  
Olivier Levasseur ◽  
Darin Kinsey
Keyword(s):  

1945 ◽  
Vol 2 (01) ◽  
pp. 30-50
Author(s):  
Francis Borgia Steck

Another gifted writer whose name has almost passed into oblivion is Tirso Rafael Córdoba. Like Rafael Gómez, he from Michoacán, a circumstance that seems to explain why during the period we are considering these two men stood on such intimate terms of friendship and in their literary career had so many things in common. His biographer tells us that in 1853, at the early age of fifteen, Córdoba, then a student in the Seminario de Morelia, was admitted to membership in the Liceo Iturbide, a distinction conferred upon him in view of the exceptional progress he had made in the arts and sciences. Only for the disturbed times in which his youth and early manhood fell, Córdoba would have entered the priesthood, this being his intention when he studied philosophy in the Seminario Conciliar Palafoxiano in the city of Puebla. From this celebrated school he graduated with high honors and then proceeded to Mexico City where he studied canon and civil law in the Colegio de San Ildefonso and passed the bar examination in the University of Mexico. But again he became a victim of circumstances, unable to engage freely and fully in the legal and political circles for which he was so richly qualified. After the fall of the Second Empire, at which time he was Secretary General of the municipal government of Puebla, he retired from public life and thereafter took a prominent part, chiefly in Mexico City, in social and literary activities. He was one of the founders of the organization known as La Sociedad Católica and collaborated in the founding and editing of periodicals, popular as well as literary, such as La Voz de México, El Obrero Católico, El Hijo del Obrero, La Lira Poblana, La Aurora, and La Oliva.


Diplomatica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-301
Author(s):  
Mark Everist
Keyword(s):  

Abstract One of the first accomplishments of the Second Empire (1852–70) was to bring the Opéra under the control of a committee of the most highly placed politicians in the land. While this had far-reaching consequences for the development of repertory in the capital and beyond, it also opened up the possibility of using the Opéra as a locus of diplomatic activity, and major works and productions were made to work for diplomatic purposes. The Opéra emerged as a site of four types of diplomatic activities: the spectacle of state visits, the celebration and monumentalizing of military victories, the restoration and maintenance of good relations, and the promotion of Napoléon’s imperial project. Occasionally, as at the end of the “Crimean war,” the Opéra served as one of the sites for a series of prolonged negotiations that would lead to formal treaties.


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 416-419
Author(s):  
Hani A. Faris

Naseer H. Aruri (7 January 1934–10 February 2015) was an internationally recognized and renowned scholar, activist and expert on Middle East politics, US foreign policy in the Middle East and human rights. He was Chancellor Professor (Emeritus) of Political Science, having served on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts (UMASS) – Dartmouth from 1965 to 1998. In 1993, he received the College of Arts and Sciences ‘Distinguished Research Award'. His papers have been preserved and are on display at the Claire T. Carney Library Archives and Special Collections at UMASS-Dartmouth. This text is based on an earlier version of a speech delivered by the author at the Memorial for Naseer Aruri held on 12 April 2015 at UMASS-Dartmouth.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document