Pointe: "There's always a sense that the virtuoso is bleeding over into a realm of inappropriateness," says Ariel Osterweis, a dance and performance studies scholar at the California Institute of the Arts. "Classical forms change due to virtuosos. Because they're not wholly rejecting a certain style or form, they're just pushing the boundaries."
3 comments:
Such an interesting article! Little things like this are fascinating to me, especially because the hight of leg extensions is one of those minuscule qualities that can have such a disproportionate effect on the feeling and perception of a performance without the audience ever being aware of it. If a ballerina performs an extreme leg extension, the audience might notice and applaud, but if she doesn’t, I would find it surprising if anyone (with the possible exception of the odd trained dancer in the audience) would notice its absence. Even performed side by side, most of us could probably point and say “she lifted her leg higher than she did,” but we wouldn’t be able to say who was better, or correct, or whether the difference was due to skill or choice, or really to describe the effect that the difference might have had on the performance as a whole. All that said, the ballerinas might have worked their whole lives to achieve the flexibility to perform such an extension.
I really enjoy reading articles about the aesthetics of dance and dancers because it is something that I remember being in a feverous pursuit of for a considerable portion of my childhood. The one of my teachers used to tell us that the coveted extension proved that you were “better than a split” because to truly reach 180 degrees, you must have a split that could go further. You had to give up some of your flexibility to engage the muscle required to maintain the pose, so you had to have flexibility to spare. It is fascinating to hear the history behind what it meant to move in such a way. There was a risqué nature to the movement, but it also held an aura of power and independence that showed strength in a way women were considered not to show. That strength and power married with the elegance and grace of ballet. That complexity allowed for incredible potential to push the boundaries of ballet.
This article is so damn cool! I’ve grown up around ballet because of the school I went to, so reading about the huge change is fascinating. My brother is a dancer at University of Cincinnati CCM, and whenever he sends me videos of him dancing, the change between male dancers then and male dancers now is extraordinary. Even with my friends that are female dancers, it is a lot more about your extensions and form than just making pretty lines. Which has made way for some really cool advancements in ballet. Probably my favorite is the Arabian dance from the Moscow Ballet’s Nutcracker. Her extensions flow to make these gorgeous lines and insane illusions with her partner. Even though I am thrilled to hear about how far ballet has come in this regard, dancers do get injured a lot more often these days. My brother also practices with dead pointe shoes, like a lot of ballet dancers, to increase ankle flexibility, and it’s a dangerous process. I just hope one day, ballet can create some safer approaches to these really cool skills.
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