Ballet 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving the Ballet (Limelight) - Softcover

Greskovic, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0879103256 ISBN 13: 9780879103255

Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation, 2005

Synopsis

MUS002000

About this title

About the Author

Greskovic teaches Dance History at Hunter College, as well as a World Arts Dance course at CCNY.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Ballet 101

A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving the BalletBy Robert Greskovic

Limelight Editions

Copyright © 2005 Robert Greskovic
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780879103255

Chapter One

LET THE HISTORY BEGIN ...

    Before surveying the age and history of ballet, a look at danceactivity in general helps prepare the way. Dance partisans liketo challenge military men on the historical seniority frequently concededto another line of work as our "world's oldest profession." (Thestigma of this disreputable and sometimes unmentionable professionactually stayed with dancers of certain periods. Likewise, the sellingof the body's beauty can still be read by cynical onlookers as theselling of the body itself.) The logic from the champions of dancegoes something like, "Before the war, comes the war dance," or arelated argument, "We move in the womb, before we do anythingelse." Another take suggests that humankind communicated by gesture,a language of signs, before it spoke a language of sounds andwords. Historians of dance in all its manifestations, as opposed toballet specialists in particular, look to happenings in early peoplesand their rituals for our deepest dance roots.

    India's Hindu god Shiva has come to us depicted as a multi-armeddivinity deftly balanced on one leg and known as Nataraja, Lord of theDance. Actual Indian dance forms appear to have been in place around6000 B.C. From First Dynasty Egypt, circa 3000 B.C., come reliefs showinga kind of dance/body language. Acrobatic figures on later Egyptian wallpaintings and reliefs help illustrate dance methods to further degrees.Greek dances reveal links with civilizations on Crete, possibly transferredfrom Egypt, dating between 3000 and 1400 B.C. Greek theater, with itsdramas rendered by way ofinstrumental and vocal sound with preplanned movement, even further fillin our background.

    The Dithyramb, a theatrical entity made up of song and dance thatgrew out of celebrations of the Greek god Dionysus, gave rise to fullyformed classic Greek theater. Some key dance terms trace their roots towords the Greeks chose for participants in their dance dramas. Korugosand Koruphaios, variously transliterated from the Greek, identify thoseconcerned with training or leading the participants of the Greek chorus(koros). Similarly, the construction and design of theaters that todayhouse our ballet originate in this same world of Greek theater. Notable arethe orkestra, the round dancing floor of the chorus, and the skene, thecovered area behind the "orchestra" performing space. The raisedplatform place between these two sections was called the proskenion.This points to the later plan of the proscenium theater, which providedthe evolving art of ballet with its ideal frame.

    A renewed interest in things Greek, by way of Roman reworkings,surfaced at the end of the Middle Ages, with its chivalric codes and itsHoly Roman Empire. A focus on a "classic" past led to the era todayknown as the Renaissance and its philosophical bent called Humanism.Men and women themselves, rather than Mother Church and its HolyFather head, gained prominence" for ways of thinking about the world.Appropriately enough, male and female dancers would become ideals ofthe individuals making up the new philosophy. The main thrust of suchactivity centered in the citystates that then constituted what is nowadaysItaly. These small worlds periodically featured pageants or fetes toaggrandize local despots as they celebrated such occasions as empire-buildingmarriages or the birth of an heir. Their affairs included music,movement, and decoration, planned for indoor and outdoor venues. In thelatter instance, the events approximated our parades, specifically thosethat include floats and numerous marching units.

    There were many precedents for grandiose Italianate court spectacles,and one in 1393 became particularly memorable--infamous, in fact.To celebrate the marriage of one of his knights to a gentlewoman of hisqueen, King Charles VI of France participated in a masked entertainmentcalled, ironically enough, Bal des Ardents(Burners' Ball). Organized occasions for getting up in costume and maskoccurred with some regularity in this era. The theme of this masque ormorisco, as such events were called, was that of Wildmen of the Forest,after the folkloric figures also known as green men, foresters, or leafydevils. The king got actively involved in the affair, dressing as one of sixshaggy creatures sewn into costumes made of close-fitting linen coveredby clumps of hair made from flax and pitch. For some serendipitousreason, the king momentarily separated himself from his fellow beasts tospeak to a duchess just before a torch borne by a curious onlooker set theremaining quintet ablaze. When the king's flammable covering caught thefast-moving flames, the duchess smothered them with the train of herdress. Except for one other lucky soul, who threw himself in a water vesselkept by for butter making, all the other mummers died from their burns.

    The entry of this sextet of wildmen at the Bal des Ardents was meantto be significant and dramatic, though not literally so as things turnedout. But due to its notoriety, this ball gave dance history one of itsearliest examples of the entree, the entrance into a theatrical production ofa self-contained, particular group of performers, usually dressedidentically or at least thematically. These group dances and dancerswould become characteristic of the opera ballets that gave rise to ourballet.

    During the 1400s we find a few individuals who qualify as early balletmasters. (The term "ballet master" predates today's use of the term"choreographer," but is sometimes used synonymously. Some individualsin the history of ballet and choreography preferred the one over the other,and even now, when the Ballet Master title might appear on a balletcompany's roster, most people more readily understand theChoreographer title.) Our knowledge of early ballet masters comes mostlyfrom a paper trail. Those dance practitioners who left us written word oftheir art have secured themselves prominent places on the genealogy ofballet history makers. In this premature phase, the "dancing master," assuch men were then called, didn't act precisely the way we expect ourchoreographers to act today. Those maestros did it all; today'schoreographers have support from other specialists--teachers, coaches,and rehearsal assistants.

    The efforts of men such as Domenico da Piacenza (or Ferrara)or Guglielmo Ebreo (known also as William the Jew of Pesaro) wenttoward training courtiers in the prescribed graces of court dancing.Whatever we know of these particular dancing masters, as well as anotherof Domenico's followers, Antonio Cornazano, comes largely from thepages of dance manuals that survive to describe and diagram the ways oftheir dancing art. Maestro Domenico rises to the top of ballet'sgenealogical charts because he cared enough or was famous enough tohave his working ways written down. Literally so, in the case of histreatise, since he lived in Europe's pre-moveable type printing era.

    Domenico's De Arte Saltandi et Choreas Ducendi (On the Artof Dancing and Conducting Dances) bothered to choose ballo overdanza, both of which mean "dance" in Italian. Domenico used the formerbecause it referred to dancing of varied rhythm, as opposed to danza,which identified dancing to music of unvarying rhythm. The craft andcreations of Domenico and those following him led to results known asballetti, or balli, plurals for balletto. These Italian words, diminutiveforms of ballo, conveniently connote to the English-speaking reader thatour "ballet" has roots in court balls held in palatial ballrooms ofRenaissance Italy.

    At this juncture it needs to be stressed that the participants--thedancers performing their balli--were amateurs, members of court society.Their master teachers not only provided precise instruction in the detailsof such dancing--carriage of the torso, positions and moves of the feet andlegs, deferential courtesies of the man to his lady--but on particularoccasions they also invented new patterning, sometimes called "figures,"for the dance and dancers to follow. (The literal basis of today's morefamiliar figure skating, the tracing of prescribed figures onto clean ice,directly relates to the dance aims of this period. Diagrams defining correctballetto plans look like the patterns cut by ice skaters executing theirprescribed figures.)

    The costuming for these court dances, when not concerned withspecial masquerade events, remained that of contemporary court wear.These included fairly heavy long-skirted gowns for the women, and, forthe men, elaborately constructed jackets or doublets and bloomerlikeshorts, sometimes called trunk-hose, over fitted tights. Both wore leathershoes with soles and heels befitting the fashion ofcontemporary footwear. If ever an illustration from these centuries puzzlesyour eye about whether the dancer pictured is male or female, periodfashion offers a fairly consistent rule: If you can see the legs, it's a maledancer; if not, it's probably a woman.

    When France's Charles VIII, descendent of the nearly immolatedCharles VI, invaded the Kingdom of Naples in 1495 to claim its throne, hehad his cultural superiority singed by the remarkable sophistication andsplendor of Italian court dancing. Italian principalities of this time lavishedlarge expenditures of money and artistic talents on their entertainments.One fete could boast direction of its cast of hundreds by the father of theRenaissance's great painter Raphael (Sanzio); another, decor, costumes,and stage machinery by Leonardo da Vinci. One of today's more informedinterpretations of Sandro Botticelli's beauteous fresco, La Primavera,reads its parade of characters as a mythological ballet as performed inFlorence during the 1470s.

    In 1489, a fete reminiscent of contemporary dinner theater or floorshows made a mark qualifying as something of a first "ballet." Tocelebrate the marriage of the Duke of Milan, an Italian maestro ofentertainments, Bergonzio di Botta, coordinated an affair combining hisculinary and choreographic talents. Music, recitation, and self-containeddances--called entrees, as courses in meals are still called--wove throughthe event with appropriate dishes arriving in due course. A dance scenerepresenting Jason and his Argonauts, for example, preceded the roasted,gilded lamb in the guise of the Golden Fleece.

    As often as they took place in palazzo ballrooms and dining rooms,Italian spectacles were held outdoors, under the often clear skies. Thecast of players and complement of events could include scenes ofcombat, parades of festooned chariots or wagons, and geometricallyarranged equestrian contingents, sometimes referred to individually as"horse ballets."

    By the mid-1500s, grandiosely scaled variety shows, known asspectaculi, had become a prominent part of the cultural activity innorthern Italy. The variety of these mixed-bag affairs, for outdoor as wellas indoor spaces, found form in presentations that might includeequestrian formations, tournaments or mock combats, sometimesin aquatic settings, and even tennis games. (To this day, the term"spectacle" remains in use in France and French-speaking Canada toidentify evenings at the ballet.) By this era France had adopted the Italiantheatrical methods for courtly entertainments, and it is at this point inballet's history that the French begin making their own indelible mark inthe art of ballet that we have come to know.

    The figurative marriage of Italian dance practices with French culturallife came from a literal wedding between a well-known Florentine heiress,Catherine de Medici, to a French royal, Henri duc d'Orleans.Circumstance, mixed with sundry amounts of palace intrigue, putFlorence's Catherine in a position to run France alongside the three heirsto the throne she had mothered. The royal occasions that Catherinesupervised to display the splendors of her court--marriages, mostly--owedmuch to the spectaculi native to her homeland.

    Catherine's era give rise to the use of the term "ballet," which leadsdirectly to our usage and understanding of the same term. In 1573, theFrench Queen Mother put on a fete to celebrate the arrival ofambassadors from Poland to offer their country's throne to her sonHenri. Named Le Ballet des Polonais (The Polish Ballet), this indoorproduction helped establish the theatrical form known as ballet de cour,literally "court ballet." This Polish affair took a semitheatrical form. Theaudience viewed the central proceedings from three sides around a littlestage atop a set of stairs. Once the prepared dancing was done, theadmiring audience got its chance to join in the dancing, all based on whatwe'd call ballroom dancing.

    The individual responsible for preparing the dance elements of thiscourt festivity was an Italian in the service of Catherine. BornBaldassarino da Belgioso, and called Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx inCatherine's court, the Italian violinist and dancer turned French dancemaster gets credit for establishing the unified dance spectacle we wouldtoday call a ballet. The Beaujoyeulx work at the root of the family tree ofballets was another extravaganza of Catherine's. This one occurred in 1581under the name Balet Comique de la Royne, which sometimes getsmodernized into Ballet-Comique de la Reine [Louise] and is freelytranslated as Queen Louise's Ballet Spectacle. Ten thousand guests aresaid to have witnessed the spectacle, which lasted from 10 P.M. until 3A.M.

    What makes this not entirely unprecedented affair loom large inballet's history is essentially its eye toward dramatic cohesion. Its danced,musical, and spoken segments, which were intended by its creator toappeal to "the eye, the ear, and the intellect," focused on classicalmythology's Circe. Each individual scene of the six-hour spectacle relatedto this theme. Each qualified as a self-contained "entrance" or entree, suchas entries for Mercury, the Satyrs, the Dryad Wood, and of course that ofQueen Louise herself, who appeared in a fountain-of-gold vehiclespouting water and accompanied by mythological sea inhabitants. Thethrough-line or unifying character of the enchantress Circe and her powersto overwhelm the likes of Apollo climaxed with a bow to the Frenchmonarchs responsible for the entertainment.

    With the naming of the ballet-comique, it is important to understandthe use of the word comique. It comes from the French comedie andrefers to dramatic theater, not necessarily comedy as we use it today tonote a specific branch of theater based on humor or farce. Hence theballet-comique referred to danced spectacles with unifying dramaticthemes, rather than variety spectacles, where the elements followed oneanother with no particular concern for dramatic continuity. The entreeform, which was already in place before Beaujoyeulx, gained a notablesense of focus after his now famous Ballet-Comique. Related spectaclesand, some would argue, superior and more innovative presentationsoccurred alongside Beaujoyeulx's, but he had the foresight to promote hiswork by means of printed illustration and description.

    At the same time of Queen Louise's 1581 ballet in France came thepublication in Italy of Fabritio Caroso's Il Ballarino. This manual oftechnical information delineated the latest dance steps and focused on themale courtier, whose province was moves of virtuosity. So as France wastaking and maintaining its lead in the presentation and production ofballet spectacle, Italy held its place by continuing its development ofdance steps themselves.

    During this time, the execution of Italian dance "figures" extended tofour-legged high-stepping steeds. The horse-ballet was another of themultiple strings for Italy's spectaculi bow. Masterly French draughtsmanJacques Callot documented a 1616 Florentine festivalthat involved symmetrical, curling lines of caparisoned horses and richlyoutfitted riders elaborating a procession of floats and mummers in anarenalike space specially arranged for spectators.

    Simultaneously, Italy, England, and France all continued to producespectacles carrying forward the elements in favor during the 1500s. Italyfollowed the form known as Intermezzi; England, that of Court Masque, aspectacle often dominated by the visions of the country's poets. UnderLouis XIII, France's ballet de cour took a slight shift away from theextravagance favored by its late Queen Mother Catherine.

    The ballet-comique, with its aim of thematic coherence, gave way inLouis's reign to the ballet-mascarade. These events, with no particularinterest in a dramatically related theme, included segment after segment ofnumbers performed by artfully costumed and masked performers.Sometimes the grand event involved specific dance moments, sometimesnot, including instead pantomime scenes or acrobatic gymnastic displays.Eventually, ballet a entree came into being. These were spectacles ofdiscrete yet interdependent parts. Similar in format to the ballet-mascarade,this form called for a series of entrances of independentgroups all interconnected, however slightly, by some overarching, oftenmythological theme or dramatic situation.

    The character of the individual entrees varied, ranging from thegrotesque and burlesque to the noble and godly. Low-life characters wereperformed by hired "professionals," though on occasion, aristocrats,including Louis XIII himself, chose to dabble in the less than genteelroles. At the conclusion of these and other ballet de cour genres camethe grand ballet, a general dance climax. In these "ballets" all theassembled courtiers, those taking part in the prearranged ballet segments,and those who just watched, joined in the ballroom dancing. All, that is,except the hired commoner dancers, who were not included in theclimactic courtly throng. Sometime during the early 1600s the declamationor recitation that accompanied the appearance of the various dancedentrees changed to song. For a while the term ballet melodramatiquenamed these events; eventually they became what we call opera. By the1630s such courtly spectacles were being offered to paying customerswhether noble or common.

Continues...

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Edition details

• Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0879103256
• ISBN 13: 9780879103255
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 656