Flavia Pappacena, The Language of Classical Ballet. Guide to the Interpretation of Iconographic Sources, Roma: Gremese, 2012, 238 pp., with copious illustrations (polychrome and monochrome), np. ISBN 9788873017561 (pbk).

2013 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-214
Author(s):  
Margaret M. McGowan
Keyword(s):  
Classical Ballet

Pointes, Politics and Meanings: Re-Reading Ballerinas as Embodied Translations of Modernity-Inspired Nationalisms

1969 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Mazurok
Keyword(s):  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Classical Ballet ◽  
Modes Of Interaction

Classical ballet makes meaning with its audience through an aesthetic that is produced through intersections of discourses of race, gender and sexuality. The particular modes of interaction of these discourses lie within modernity-inspired nationalisms. As such, the ballet bodies that produce, sustain and perpetuate such an aesthetic remain inscribed with these discourses. This article argues that ballet bodies are just this: embodied translations of modernity-inspired nationalisms. Using Lefevre’s idea of rewriting, I demonstrate how classical ballets manifest as rewritings of external discursive forces onto classical ballet bodies, and that the aesthetics within which these bodies are identified are made possible through discursive understandings of race, gender and sexuality inherent to modernity.

Intégration et transformation d’une figure de la danse classique par la danse coréenne – une analyse comparée de la Pirouette en dehors et du Hanbaldeuleodolgi basée sur la notation Laban

2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyung-Eun Shim ◽  
Blandine Bril
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
The West ◽  
Dance Movement ◽  
Classical Dance ◽  
Central Figure ◽  
Mechanical Constraints ◽  
Classical Ballet ◽  
Korean Dance

Due to cultural exchange between the West and Asia since the beginning of the 20th century, the Korean dance has integrated quite a few aspects of classical dance while transforming its figures. The transformation itself is what we are interested in. We focus on a central figure in classical ballet, la pirouette en dehors, which in the Korean dance is known as the Hanbaldeuleodolgi. Our research aims at understanding how is expressed in both cultures (France and Korea), a dance movement which comes under similar mechanical constraints (producing rotational forces) while displaying a unique aesthetic to each context. The detailed analysis of this figure is carried out based on the theory of Rudolf Laban.

Recovery-Stress States of Professional Ballet Dancers During Different Phases of a Ballet Season

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jana S. De Wet ◽  
Eileen Africa ◽  
Ranel Venter
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Model ◽  
High Stress ◽  
Recovery Stress ◽  
Total Recovery ◽  
Ballet Dancers ◽  
Training Adaptations ◽  
Stress States ◽  
Classical Ballet ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Negative Training

Ballet dancers are exposed to chronic high training and performance demands that are associated with overtraining syndrome and injury. Balancing high training loads with recovery to reduce the risk of negative training adaptations is critical. Moreover, the recovery-stress states of professional ballet dancers during training phases of a season are largely unknown. Professional dancers (n = 27) from one classical ballet company in South Africa were monitored for two 8-week phases of a ballet season. A recovery-stress questionnaire for Athletes (RESTQ-76 Sport) was completed weekly during the rehearsal phase (P1) and the performance phase (P2), which took place at the start and the end of the ballet season, respectively. Comparisons were calculated between phases, sexes, and levels of performance with a mixed-model ANOVA and between demographic variables with a one-way ANOVA. The performance phase was signified by lower total recovery (TR, p < 0.01) and higher total stress (TS, p < 0.01) for the group. Female dancers had significantly lower recovery scores than male dancers during P2 (p < 0.01). No differences between levels of performance were found. Subscales previously associated with overreaching and injury were identified in certain groups during P2. In conclusion, P2 was a critical period where dancers, especially females, experienced high stress and low recovery. This could increase the risk for injury and negative training adaptations.

Staging the Folk: Choreographic Issues of National Representation

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 222-246
Author(s):  
Anthony Shay
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Folk Dance ◽  
Ethnic Representation ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
Classical Ballet ◽  
Dance Companies

This article looks at the multiple ways that folk dance has been staged in both the nineteenth century when character or national (the two terms were used interchangeably) dance was widely used in classical ballet, and the twentieth in which Igor Moiseyev created a new genre of dance related to it. The ballet masters that created character dance for ballet often created ballroom dances based on folk origin, but that would be suitable for the urban population. This popularity of national dance was the result of the burgeoning of romantic nationalism that swept Europe after the French Revolution. Beginning in the 1930s with Igor Moiseyev founding the first professional ‘folk dance’ company for the Soviet Union, nation states across the world established large, state-supported folk dance companies for purposes of national and ethnic representation that dominated the stages of the world for the second half of the twentieth century. These staged versions of folk dance, were, I argue an extension of nineteenth century national/character dance because their founding directors, like Igor Moiseyev, came from the era when ballet dancers were trained in that genre.

Distributed corporeality: Anatomy, knowledge and the technological reconfiguration of bodies in ballet

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 869-890
Author(s):  
Sophie Merit Müller
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Analytical Approach ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Black Box ◽  
The Body ◽  
Technical Improvement ◽  
Anatomical Knowledge ◽  
Classical Ballet ◽  
Anatomy Knowledge

Various specialist cultures configure bodies as complex technological devices. We know little about how exactly this is done. I focus on one of these cultures, classical ballet, to praxeologically reconstruct the conceptual, situational and material configuration of bodies as particular instruments. The technologization of the body is closely intertwined with the scientification of the practice – its ladenness with scientific knowledge about the body and an elaborate apparatus for the production of bodies. When anatomical knowledge and didactics intertwine in ballet class, this facilitates an opening of the black box ‘body’ for technical improvement. ‘A body’ becomes a plurality of (in this case, anatomically distinguished) actants. This distributed corporeality suggests that ‘the body’ is an assemblage that becomes apparent as such in moments of its modification. The empirical case as well as the analytical approach here give reason to reconsider the distinction between humans and non-humans that still prevails in actor-network theory and elsewhere.

4 THE EFFECT OF EXERCISE ON TURNOUT IN CLASSICAL BALLET DANCERS

1999 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 215
Author(s):  
Cunningham ◽  
Laura ◽  
Kosmahl
Keyword(s):  
Ballet Dancers ◽  
Classical Ballet

DRAMATIC EXPRESSIVENESS OF THE LANGUAGE OF FOLK CHARACTER DANCE IN CLASSICAL HERITAGE BALLETS

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 150-158
Author(s):  
T. V. Pashkova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Figurative Language ◽  
Unique Feature ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Russian Art ◽  
Russian Music ◽  
Xxist Century ◽  
Dramatic Characters ◽  
Classical Ballet ◽  
New Generation ◽  
Significant Attention

The article focuses on the phenomenon of folk character dance, which is a unique feature of Russian art, traces the key stages in the development of folk character dance in Russian ballet and identifies the sources that served as the basis for its figurative language. It is noted that the language of folk character dance is the creative fruit of many choreographers, whose works in the XXIst century are perceived as vivid examples of heritage. The author reviews the specificity of imagery in folk character dance currently existing in classical ballet repertoire. Significant attention is paid to the subtleties of depicting national characters when creating dance images of various ethnic groups. The author also considers the characteristic visualization in folk character dance, highlighting and describing distinctive features of a number of national characters more frequently implemented by the language of folk character dance in classical ballet and opera choreography of Russian music theatres. The article substantiates the idea that underestimating the potential of the language of folk character dance as means of expressiveness in ballet theatre leads to limitations for the new generation of choreographers striving to create realistic and truthful dramatic characters, depriving them of national distinction. In her research, the author aims to actualize the question of preservation of national character on the Russian ballet stage in the XXIst century.

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