CONVERSATIONS

ACROSS THE FIELD OF

DANCE STUDIES

Network of Pointes
Society of Dance History Scholars
Credits L-R: RJ Muna (photo), Robert Rosenwasser (costume); Rick Guest (photo) 2015 | VolumePXXXV
age 1
www.sdhs.org
 A Word from the Guest Editors |
Jill Nunes Jensen & Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel .............................3

Spirit of the New: William Forsythe and the

Disruption of Ballet’s Structural Organization |
Ann Nugent ..............................................................................5

Illuminations | Julia Gleich ................................................10

The Contemporary Ballet Menu: A Regional

Repertory Concert Practice in the 1970s |
Caroline Sutton Clark .............................................................13

Wry Subversion | Ann Murphy ..........................................17

Contemporary Ballet: Inhabiting the Past While

Engaging the Future | Gretchen Alterowitz .....................20

Sowing Curiosity | Meredith Webster ...............................24

In Conversation with Eric Underwood ......................25

Contemporary Ballet and the

Female Body Politic | Samantha Parsons.......................26

“To move is to stir”: Romeo and Juliet in

Contemporary Ballet | Maura Keefe ...............................29

Survivor: The Ballet Edition | Jennifer Fisher ..............34

Contributors .......................................................................38

News
SDHS Awards ...................................................................................40
SDHS Publications. ...........................................................................42

Forthcoming Conferences: ................................................................43

May 2016 SDHS Special Topics Conference, New York, USA
May 2016 Historical Dance Symposium, Rothenfels am Main, Germany
November 2016 with CORD, in Claremont, California, USA

Table of Contents
Page 2 2015 | Volume XXXV
 Dear Reader,

Contemporary ballet in 2015 is undoubtedly a recognizable genre for most

dancers: bare legs, leotards-as-costumes, hyperextensions, drags and
slides in place of overhead lifts and partnered pirouettes, parallel positions,
side attitudes, and a look that is assured but not in that enthusiastic way
that many of us grew up understanding to be de rigueur stage presence.
It is identiiable. It appears to be lourishing. It has a bit of an “it factor.” It
piques our students’ interest. But, what IS contemporary ballet? Does it
need classiication and deinition so that we can historicize this moment in
dance? Is it too much to suggest another label when there are variances
in looking at ballet worldwide? Expanding the scope of our own research
on Mauro Bigonzetti and Alonzo King—both choreographers who are
identiied (by critics) as working in this genre—we formulate questions
here about the shape of this developing discourse. Does redeining the
form require a new name? If so, how does contemporary ballet distinguish
itself? Do dancers who work in this genre view its differences, or, has
contemporary ballet simply become ballet? If the latter is so, at what point
did it happen and is the term used uniformly across the globe?

In the September 2014 issue Dance Magazine Editor-in-Chief Wendy

Perron asked ive dancemakers (one of whom, Helen Pickett, is proiled
herein by Gretchen Alterowitz) “what exactly is contemporary ballet?”
(34-36). Perron introduces the short responses with the explanation that
contemporary ballet is a “style that remains ambiguous” and is seemingly
more focused on possibility over perfection. Pickett understands the form
to be about the “fully investigated body” while Christopher Wheeldon
states “contemporary ballet means any ballet choreography made
today.” It is apparent that personal deinitions aside, Perron puts forth this
question in recognition of a perceived shift in ballet choreography and an
interest in the work of these artists and others like Benjamin Millepied,
Justin Peck, and Liam Scarlett who embrace a redirection of ballet. The
fact that this appeared as we were collecting submissions was anything
but serendipitous to us, rather it was conirmation that something is going
on, and that there is a desire for a clearer, more codiied understanding
of its emergence. At the same time, the lack of proposals in response to
our call for this volume of Conversations from countries beyond the U.S.
and the U.K. thwarted efforts to cultivate a global sense of contemporary
A word from the ballet, and left us to ask if (despite seeing such ballets around the world)
perhaps the need to converse about the genre could be less relevant

Guest Editors internationally?

www.sdhs.org Page 3
The essays and interviews included in these pages are intrigued by about differentiation in approach, understanding, and presence. With the
the rejuvenation of ballet. Taking its cue from classical principles, chance to perform a myriad of roles, Underwood found that his experience
contemporary ballet has a deined vocabulary and iconography; however working with contemporary choreographers like Wayne McGregor
dancers and choreographers explain that there is much greater liberty, a provided opportunities to “explore” the “structure” that is ballet vis-à-vis a
new understanding of space, and closer camaraderie than exists in other contemporary process.
eras. Perhaps as an homage to ballet’s past there is an overt respect for
the technique, still the genre is driven by an urge to disavow narrative, Alongside these questions about form, we wonder whether there is a story
to tweak form, and to shift representation. These changes in perspective, to contemporary ballet. Granted, choreographers have mostly strayed
design, musicality, and relationship among dancers have consequently from overt storylines and linear narratives, nevertheless, what might
transformed ballet’s core elements—so much so that many young dancers appear to be plotless usually is not, and the belief that contemporary
today do presume ballet is contemporary ballet. ballet is exclusively concerned with movement and technique forsakes
what stands to be a vital aspect of the genre. To this we ind that many
Pioneering choreographer William Forsythe’s viewpoint has served as a choreographers have sought to reinvent archetypal characters and ideas
guiding path for contemporary artists to follow. By placing Ann Nugent’s about ballet—believing the contemporary milieu can suggest reinvention
essay on Forsythe at the start of Conversations we recognize his role in all aspects, narrativity notwithstanding.
as a (if not “the”) progenitor of contemporary ballet and use Forsythe’s
work to set the foundation for the exchanges to follow. Moving between The juxtaposition of and correspondence between the images of Meredith
choreographers, practitioners, critics, and theorists, we found, ironically, Webster and Eric Underwood on our cover propose that there is a network
that most people understand contemporary ballet through ideas of of pointes uniting these dancers across the globe. After setting the cover,
difference. Whether it is on the part of the dancer who feels he or she is we learned that Webster and Underwood had actually danced together
moving contrary to the codiications present in classical technique, or the several years ago with Paciic Northwest Ballet in Seattle, Washington.
imagery highlighting askew balances over pristine arabesque lines, there is This coincidence solidiies for us the need for further exchange about
something people in the dance community are seeing that is not romantic, contemporary ballet’s connections, scope, range, and identity. As
classical, or neoclassical. The second essay by choreographer Julia Gleich we watch the proscenium to see ballet’s next move, we hope that this
narratively examines her own transitions within ballet at various stages of issue of Conversations will prompt further explorations of these ideas
her life while asking if labels like “contemporary ballet” might be detrimental internationally.
to the choreographers’ and the form’s identities.

Several of the included contributions bring forth further questions about

diversity—in terms of race, but also method, body image, and gender. For
instance Gretchen Alterowitz contends, in highlighting the work of Helen Jill Nunes Jensen & Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel
Pickett, “woman” choreographers are few and far between. Are Pickett and
others unrecognized because they are women? Does contemporary ballet
stop breaking rules when it comes to ballet’s male-controlled organizational
structure? Is it possible to reallocate gender roles within the form, and if so
what will it take?

It was especially imperative for us to include dancer testimonies in this

issue. Although we presumed to have cast a wide net, we once again
received few submissions from countries other than our home bases (the
U.S. and the U.K.). Commentaries by Alonzo King LINES Ballet Master
Meredith Webster and the Royal Ballet’s Eric Underwood are positioned
centrally, as they provide glimpses into the protected ballet space.
Webster writes of “curiosity” and “wonder”—showing us that her practice
has not been one of the traditional ballerina, while Underwood speaks

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Herman Schmerman performed by Nadja Saidakova and Federico Spallitta (Staatsballett Berlin) Photo Credits: Jack Devant, 2013

Spirit of the New:

William Forsythe and the Disruption of Ballet’s Structural Organization
Ann Nugent

Ballet is an artiicial construct, with precise structures, sequential laws times. As a consequence he has spent years questioning its structural
of movement, and a history and tradition that position it as a totalizing organization.Forsythe argues that to think of ballet as complete in
system.1 In the popular imagination it is usually thought of as classical itself is to turn away from its potential to function as part of a bigger
and beautiful. Yet if that were all, ballet would long since have gone into organizational system wherein opposition to its principles is permitted
terminal decline. For much of his working life the choreographer William and movement not lost to rigorous rules.2 “It is a body of knowledge, not
Forsythe has been concerned with ballet’s place in contemporary an ideology” says Forsythe (cited in Sulcas, 1995: 8), who believes that

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we cannot say precisely what ballet is because there is so much more about harmony and decorum so as to introduce a host of other ideas.
to know. It is “a treasure trove, waiting to be plundered,” he insists.3 His ballet was contemporary rather than classical, and it divided
If the metaphor of ‘plunder’ might seem like a hyperbole, what often audiences into supporters and detractors—between those who valued
shows up in his choreographic oeuvre is balletic movement wrested what was new and different and those who objected to changes
from its classical context and linked with other disciplines and ideas. wrought to the system.6
The resultant body of work is, of course, renowned, and of major
At my irst encounter with Forsythe and his Ballett Frankfurt (Théâtre
signiicance in today’s dance culture. In what follows here I am
du Châtelet in Paris, 1991) I immediately sensed the work was made
concerned with looking back over the twenty years that Forsythe ran
by a choreographer steeped in philosophical mores and intent on
the Ballett Frankfurt. During this time he developed a methodological
envisioning dance through a large-scale intelligence—or horizons
approach to movement that was inspired by the work of Rudolf Laban
that stretched beyond what was assumed about the discipline. The
(1879-1958) and intended to emphasis the conceptual exploration of
dancers, moreover, shared this intelligence even though what they
movement-as-theory.
communicated in a triple bill was often abstruse. In New Sleep (1987)
An American, born in 1949, Forsythe now works internationally after three mysterious igures appeared to have escaped from a surrealist
directing The Forsythe Company for the past decade. He has been nightmare to wander arbitrarily through a more “normal” kind of
based in central Europe for most of his career after emerging as a dancerly activity. Herman Schmerman (1992) revealed an anarchic
choreographer while dancing with the Stuttgart Ballet (1973-1981). collapse of ballet principles and gender challenges. As a Garden in
In Stuttgart his irst three works (Urlicht, 1976; Daphne and Flore this setting (1992) mixed elements of theatre and the everyday into
Subsimplici, both 1977) appeared to pay homage to Balanchine’s a nonsensical environment, with a strange blend of dancing styles,
linear and spatial organization. Then came a shift, and links not only cultural references and everyday objects. Although appearing to
with other art forms but also with a wider perspective that drew from suggest disorder all three “ballets” were intently focused, and the
social issues and cultural theory.4 He was a choreographer with an dancers took ownership of the works’ peculiarities, colluding with the
individual voice. After Stuttgart followed a brief period as a freelance bizarre, the oddball and the outré.
choreographer, before he took over the reins of the Ballett Frankfurt.
Herman Schmerman was one of several works that Forsythe
It was during his two decades with the Ballett Frankfurt (1984-2004)
categorizes as “the ballet ballets,” by which he means that the logic
that he rose to international fame, becoming one of the most sought-
of movement is suficiently recognizable for other (ballet) companies
after choreographers of his time and claiming the attention not only of
to be able to dance them.7 Herman Schmerman was rooted in ballet,
dance aicionados but also of the artistic world writ large.5
even when the cumulative force of rapid spins, darting jumps, and
In Frankfurt Forsythe embarked on detailed and complex research limbs yanked into space proclaimed spirit of the new. Arms and hands
processes that dislodged ballet from its narrow conines and were as signiicant as legs in establishing the movement’s shape and
repositioned it in a multi-cultural domain. His choreography made impetus. Thom Willems’s score of frenzied rhythms spurred on the
connections with ballet’s past, present, and future, forging new dancers’ dynamic and they responded with energy that ran up the body,
relationships with contemporary culture. Hence he was disrupting through precisely jabbing footwork into exaggeratedly airy wrists.8 This
ballet’s legacy by introducing a labyrinthine network of differences might be “a ballet ballet,” but it was one of broken rules.
and invading territories that were mathematical and geometric. The
It was Laban’s kinesphere, and its relationship with the icosahedron
contradiction between extreme virtuosity executed by performers
that caused Forsythe, early on in his career, to perceive ballet’s
who were so plastic and adroit that they seemed to be without
potential for radical change.9 The upright body in Laban’s model
bones, and phrases that needed no more than casual walks, proved
is held by the intersection of the axis through muscular tension and
revolutionary. High art met popular culture and ballet’s codiication
destined to return to a vertically opened and centralized physicality.
seemed to have been superseded by chaos—though in reality the
In this blueprint for “a kind of pure text in dance” (Forsythe cited in
choreographic structures were highly organized. Bodies skewed
Driver, 1990), Forsythe saw a departure point: if the body were no
out of their uprightness were held in a counterpointed organization
longer compelled to return to a centered organization, other movement
connecting stabbed feet to projected hips and folded torsos. Forsythe
values would emerge. Limitations on the body’s relationship in space
was driving a wedge through convention, disrupting assumptions

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could be altered if the concept of the kinesphere, as a binary system to Forsythe’s methodological approach. They are often required to
of organization, were to be taken apart. When verticality was no longer let go of all or part of their carefully acquired (historicized) muscular
a controlling power, and when any line or point in the body could lead, knowledge. If limbs are no longer constrained by turnout, residual
the look of the body was transformed. What Forsythe was doing was movement can discover what convention has kept hidden. The body
deconstructing the conventional organization of the dancing so that can ind physical and metaphorical alignments that lie beyond normal
release into multiple kinespheres became possible and “any point or balletic laws, and in doing so blur the demarcation between the inner
line in the body or in space [could] become the kinespheric centre of a and outer. Release of the body’s joints leads to a new kind of focus
particular movement” (Sulcas, 1995). When movement was no longer for where there is no longer adherence to the dictates of turnout and
directed by a required linear order it could be released into a myriad line then the activities of shoulder, elbow, wrist, knee or ankle can be
of “other” lines, curves, angles and points (Forsythe cited in Sulcas, unexpected. Sometimes limbs may turn inwards drawing attention to
1995: pp 6-9), and activities such as rotation, lexion, and folding could the underside of the arm or leg, of the part that is usually hidden behind
postpone the return to a centrally organized unity in order to move in what could be thought of as the ‘edge’ produced by turnout.
unexpected spatial directions. Hence, Forsythe opened up a ‘dialogue’
Eyes are important to any performer, yet the Forsythe gaze undergoes
with gravity and space, recognizing the altering of the sequential time
a strategic shift so that the dancer seems to be looking inwards, and
it took for the body to carry out actions, actions that might seem alien
the movement emerges in apparent response to feelings. It is as if
to conservative viewers.
the dancers are concentrating on the dance itself rather than drawing
If uprightness and turnout were no longer fundamental in his eyes, attention to themselves or their performance.11 They do not look out
the potential of joint movement became pivotal and a new freedom in into the auditorium, instead their eyes become, to use Forsythe’s own
movement emerged. Folding at the hip brings a radical alteration to the image, “disfocused”.12 The focus is on proprioceptive awareness, in
body’s uprightness and increasingly Forsythe and his dancers (who counterpoint to or harmony with, their fellow performers.
were often his choreographic collaborators) saw, as he put it,
Proprioception involves recognition by the nervous system of the
how to fold and unfold again, at various rates and moving dimensional body and the low of energy through the entire organism—
through different body parts. So we create what I call a “many- and neurological cognizance is itself communicative. Forsythe’s
timed body” folding and unfurling towards and against itself. dancers must develop acute awareness of their spatial orientation,
(Forsythe cited in Kaiser. 1999:66) so as to sense how every part of the body reacts in performance.13
While proprioception is a part of ballet (where awareness of what
The evolving geometry with its changing orientations and co-ordinations,
is happening in the organized body is held in a relationship with an
and its different attitude to peripheral movement, was too powerful for a
external geometry), a deeper understanding is needed, often involving
hierarchy of order in which every point and every line, and indeed every
improvisation and split-second decision-making by Forsythe’s dancers.
activity, contributed to the form. Nothing was transitional, intermediary,
or extraneous. To help guide dancers into the new way of working when they joined
the Ballett Frankfurt Forsythe developed his methodology into a lecture
Laban referred to secondary movements as “muscular tensions” that
demonstration/introductory tool and recorded it as a CD-ROM (1999).14
contribute to dynamic and direction, or to intentionally oppositional
The resultant Improvisation Technologies: A Tool for the Analytical
movements.10 This can be contrasted with Forsythe’s ‘residual’
Dance Eye illustrates the means of choreographic inquiry, rather than
movement, in which the body parts organize themselves with, and not
how to choreograph in the manner of Forsythe. On the recording
against, the low, enabling the body to move in its own logic manner
he demonstrates some of his strategies for changing the look of the
through which the low is determined by the movement’s execution.
moving body. As approaches to lines through ideas about writing (the
The results may be seen as organic, but are an extension of Laban’s
body) are shown, reorganizational systems and movement to which
kinespheric reach to show that the moving body no longer needs to be
Forsythe has given strange-sounding names (point, point line; bridging;
dependent on a regrouping of its central organization. It can function
room writing; spatial reorientation, isometries, room writing, iterative
with an awareness of multiple kinespheres. Crucial, of course, to the
thinking, and so on) are devised.15 His manner is that of a teacher who
conceptual delivery is the dancers’ dexterous mental/physical response
is thinking about the ideas as he shares them with viewers.

www.sdhs.org Page 7
Forsythe evolves movements from the body such as ‘extrude’, ‘extend’, looking at movement that is so plastic and still so focused that there is
and ‘slide’, which when linked to different joints cause us to notice what no longer any sense of an outer, presentational mode. The body has
points in the body ‘do,’ how they function and how relationships occur— let go of its borders and become seemingly ‘edgeless’, permitting no
as can be seen, for example, when thinking about the space between divisions between the inner and the outer, or between dance and dancer.
the tip of the elbow and the top of the hip bone. The emphasis on points Here we may feel the emotional pull of Forsythe’s dance, recognizing
and lines makes an obvious connection with Laban’s movement scales through the underlying methodology that a metaphorical opening has
through the icosahedron. Yet Forsythe works through shapes made been channeled into the dancer’s inner being. It is an aesthetic of body
by the body showing their amalgamation into different forms. On the and mind into which form and content merge as one, and in which the
recording these are enhanced by a laser beam that is superimposed to zeitgeist reveals the extraordinariness of the human being.
complete the shape. A laser line is left loating in space and as Forsythe
moves around it, avoidance is introduced as a strategy. This is further
illustrated by the way he folds around the line: with each dart and dip
the body is forced into a rapid reorganization so as not to hit the space
Notes
occupied by the line. The complexity of this shows up as each joint
reacts to gravity in relation to the movement’s direction and impetus. 1. Postmodern theory examines the falsity of systems that promote notions of
a totalizing practice as an end in themselves. See, for example, Foucault’s
Sometimes imaginary extensions are beamed from, for instance, knee
The Archaeology of Knowledge (1972) and Lyotard’s The Postmodern
level to the ground, and Forsythe approaches virtual lines in different
Condition (1984: 12).
ways—advancing, retreating and nudging the bent body round the line
in a spiral, but never touching the lines. What becomes important is the 2. Some of Forsythe’s ideas included here come from personal communication
degree of precision required, not just from the angle of approach, but with him, in Frankfurt and on tour with his company between 1997 and
also from the surface of the body. The change in dynamic and shape 2006.
will be evident for, as Forsythe explains, “the ways of approaching 3. Personal communication, c1997.
these lines are as rich as your imagination” (Forsythe, speaking on his 4. I have written about the achievement of Forsythe’s time in Stuttgart in
DVD; for reference see Sulcas, 1995). Nugent 2006. See bibliography for details.
The laser beam shapes help to rationalize shape, or to link it to a 5. While serving as artistic advisor for The Forsythe Company, William
recognizable object, and the pictorial logic is further illustrated by Forsythe continued to widen the scope of his work by taking on new projects,
Ballett Frankfurt dancers. Noah Gelber, for instance, dances the including a professorship at the University of Southern California’s Glorya
physical dimensions of tables and a chair as a laser beam completes Kaufman School of Dance and a position as Associate Choreographer of
the skeletal shape of the object. Rather than any recognizable usage the Paris Opera Ballet. In the summer of 2015 Jacopo Godani will succeed
him as artistic director.
of the object, what signiies is a physical arrangement that depends
on volume, dimension, and weight. Gelber must relate to the exact 6. By the time the Ballett Frankfurt closed in 2004, Forsythe had created
proportions of the chair, and the viewer cannot anticipate how his dance about 100 works. While the dancers in his company attended a daily ballet
will proceed because the movement does not send out recognizable class, increasingly his choreography moved away from links with ballet to
signals about the directions that will be taken. Instead, the body is explore other cultural and theoretical questions.
thrown into unexpected systems of control and balance. Unlike ballet, 7. Among works that Forsythe refers to as his “ballet ballets” are: In the
which extends across the globe in a general sense, Forsythe’s method Middle, Somewhat Elevated (1987, created for the Paris Opera Ballet); the
is speciic to his team, for it is highly complex and dependent on skilled second detail (1991, created for the National Ballet of Canada); Herman
dancers with a rich imagination and an ability to improvise at speed. Schmerman (1992, created for New York City Ballet); Firstext (1995: created
collaboratively by Forsythe with Dana Caspersen and Antony Rizzi for
Dancers need to have understood the philosophy of his thinking and
Britain’s Royal Ballet); The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude (1996: created
his conceptual openness.
for the National Ballet of Canada). All these works were subsequently
Forsythe’s plundering of ballet, or his act of stealing and stripping to taken into the repertoire of the Ballett Frankfurt, and nowadays continue to
engage in processes of deconstruction, reveals qualities that make his be performed by various ballet companies carefully selected by Forsythe.
dance seem, at times, almost transparent; it is a feeling that comes from

Page 8 2015 | Volume XXXV

8. Forsythe observes in a question and answer session with Senta Driver: Lyotard, Jean-Francois. (1986) The Postmodern Condition: a Report on
WF: We talk about all kinds of dancing. We think about dancing. Knowledge. (Geoff Bennington & Brian Massumi, trs.) Manchester: Manchester
There’s a lot of theoretical discussion. And we’re very arm conscious. University Press. (Original French edition: La Condition postmoderne: rapport
I think that’s, for us, the key to our style. One tendu is perhaps sur le savoir: Les Editions de Minuit, 1979.)
someone else’s tendu, but our port de bras is really indicative of what
Mattingley, Kate. Deconstructivists Frank Gehry and William Forsythe: De-
we do.
Signs of the Times in Dance Research Journal. Vol 31, no 1, Spring 1999:20-28.
SD: And the hands, more than just the arms?
WF: Often it emanates from the hands …. We’re using the Laban Nugent, Ann. (2006. No 29, pp17-48) William Forsythe and the Lost Stuttgart
model – space harmony. It’s a model for a kind of pure text in dance. Ballets in Dance Chronicle.
Quoted in Driver & the editors. (Spring 1990, 18:1, p91.) __________. (2010, No 141, pp i1 – i11) “The Dancing Texts of William
9. Laban’s kinesphere (the space surrounding the body) and the icosahedron Forsythe” in Degrés: The Sense of Dance. Dance Research and Transmedia
(a polyhedron with 20 faces) see his Choreutics, (1966). Practices.

10. See Choreutics, 1966: 92. Sulcas, Roslyn. (Summer 1995: 6-9) “Kinetic Isometries” in Dance International.

11. Richard Glasstone has written about the eye in ballet in “Thoughts: Uses __________. (1995, vol lxix, no 9: 52-59, September). “Channels for the desire
of Eye Focus” in the Dancing Times (January 2000:351, Vol 90, no 1072). to dance” in Dance Magazine.

12. See exploration of “disfocus” in Roslyn Sulcas (1995, vol lxix, no 9: __________. (1999) Forsythe, William. Improvisation Technologies: A Tool for
September 1995: 52-59) “Channels for the Desire to Dance” in Dance the Analytical Eye. Karlsruhe: zkm digital arts edition: special issue. (CD-ROM
Magazine. and booklet.)
13. Neurological awareness by the dancer as a signiicant communicator has
long been important to Forsythe because of its enhancing of “life energy”
that can then low through “the whole organism”. See Linda Hartley (1995:
26) Wisdom of the Body Moving: An Introduction to Body-Mind Centering.
Berkeley, California: North Atlantic Books.
14. William Forsythe. (1999) Improvisation Technologies: CD-ROM. Frankfurt:
Ballett Frankfurt, text by Roslyn Sulcas.
15. The viewer can click different icons to explore the movement and theory,
and the CD-ROM includes demonstrations from four of Forsythe’s dancers
as well as a complete performance of Forsythe dancing his 1995 Solo.

Bibliography
Driver, Senta & the editors. (Spring 1990. Vol 18, no 1, p91.) “A Conversation
with William Forsythe” in Ballet Review.
Driver, Senta (ed). (2000, Vol 5, part 3) “William Forsythe” in Choreography
and Dance. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers (Contributors: Dana
Caspersen, Senta Driver, Anne Midgette, Stephen Spier and Roslyn Sulcas.)
Foucault, Michel. (1972) The Archaeology of Knowledge. London: Routledge.
Hartley, Linda. (1995) Wisdom of the Body Moving: An Introduction to Body-
Mind Centering. Berkeley, California: North Atlantic Books.
Kaiser, Paul. (1999: pp64-71) “Dance Geometry: William Forsythe in dialogue
with Paul Kaiser” in Performance Research. Vol 4, no 2.
Laban, Rudolf. (1966) Choreutics. Annotated & edited by Lisa Ulman. London:
Macdonald & Evans.

www.sdhs.org Page 9
Illuminations 1

Julia Gleich

I trained in NYC in the heyday of ballet, in the 1970s, when New York
was a dance world capital. A student of Melissa Hayden, I studied with
David Howard, Robert Denvers, Willie Berman, and many others. In
briely attending the School of American Ballet, I was in class with
dancers from NYCB and ABT, defectors from Russia, and the energy
was inspiring and thrilling. For me, ballet was just ballet. It was Bal-
anchine and Petipa, Robbins and Joffrey, Tharp and De Mille. Those
were also the days of the Joffrey company in NYC and they had a
strong inluence on my attitude toward ballet with a somewhat inclusive
company model—dancers of different shapes, sizes, and colors, and a
varied repertory that included ballet to rock music. In hindsight, I was
embracing a contemporary aesthetic, but was in class all the time with
“ballet” dancers. Rarely do I remember being mired in a singular style
or sticking to narrow, rigid, classical ideals. But I never would have
called our dancing contemporary, nor would I have called it classical.
It was simply ballet.

Photo Credits: David Shliecker, Burklyn

Page 10 2015 | Volume XXXV

Two decades later, while teaching and choreographing in New York chial with a pink pointe shoe on the end of it. Can dancing on pointe,
City in the 1990s, I participated in a ballet choreography master class. ever be anything but old fashioned?
At the time I identiied with ballet as my medium, but upon showing
When I moved to London from New York I discovered, to my chagrin,
my irst study it was suggested that what I had made was “not ballet”
that the title used for most ballet classes was “classical ballet”. What
but “something more modern like Graham or Cunningham.” Naturally I
does this classical ballet refer to? Is it the danse d’école of Beau-
responded with great pleasure and said, “yes, it’s like ‘me’!” The mas-
champs and Blasis? My training was a glorious mix of Bournonville,
ter teacher was not impressed by my response and left me to ponder
Balanchine, Vaganova, Cecchetti; diversity was the strength of my
why I was taking the workshop in the irst place. I thought I knew why: I
technique and led to my enjoyment of the form. What’s more it was this
came from ballet and used pointe work. My dancers were usually ballet
diversity that allowed room to experiment as I wasn’t concerned about
trained and I felt I had not immersed myself in modern approaches to
labels; I felt, as a young artist, that all dance forms were available to me
creativity. But what I produced seemed not ballet enough.
if I was open to them. I guess you could say that I’m a good old New
This furthered questions about my identity as a choreographer, teach- York City mutt. Would I be able to deliver the kind of ballet training that
er, and dancer. For my next project in 1999 I hired dancers from a pro- British students expect when what I value in ballet is: the opportunity
gram that was focused on modern dance. The piece was on pointe and to discover and then expand beyond a common vocabulary in order to
I quickly realized there were unique differences in these dancers. They create dancers who can dance anything.
were less vertical, but also less daring en pointe and philosophically
Perhaps the very impetus to re-invent and develop ballet may be lim-
burdened by a need to solidify a modern identity within the piece. This
ited in part because companies move through choreographers without
experience inluenced my approach to teach ballet, especially at the
fully engaging with their philosophies about the form. We consider the
higher education level. What I wanted for my students was relected in
training of dancers extensively. Which schools are choreographer-
a technique that was neither of the ballet or the modern/contemporary
driven in ballet? Do the dancers of most companies take class with
extremes, but based in movement invention utilizing a ballet vocabu-
the choreographers who come to create or set works? Even American
lary. Choreographically, I want what is valued in both the modern and
Ballet Theatre has invented its own National Training Curriculum and
ballet worlds (or contemporary and classical?). Today I choose to work
is working to create a kind of uniformity of attitude to the technique and
with ballet dancers who are strong on pointe and open to new methods.
this was a company originally known as a melting pot for ballet, draw-
And I teach dancers to be hireable. We don’t know what new idea is
ing dancers from everywhere with a wide variety of types and training.
going to capture the imagination of dance audiences next.
Many felt this was the very strength of the company, yet I ask what
When it came to identifying my own artistic output I was conlicted. I such universalizing efforts will bring to ballet?
thought audiences needed handholding to know there might not be
Relatedly, dance reviewers will often refer to a classical vocabulary in a
tutus, but there might be pointe shoes. So I originally identiied with
contemporary work—consider William Forsythe’s Artifact. Though his
“contemporary ballet.” I thought that contemporary meant “now.” I was
choreographic tools more heavily impact the teaching of choreography
making ballet as I envision it today. Classicism wasn’t even on my radar
today, Forsythe is probably the most recent choreographer to alter our
of aesthetic concerns. I was uncomfortable choosing a label and won-
ideas about ballet. Who are the others since Balanchine and Ashton
dered if the choreographers of the past were made to do this.
whose inluences have trickled into training? These issues emerge
As my career progressed I was invited to present my work in mixed quite profoundly at the nexus of higher education and the profession.
bill evenings with others companies. The Hasting Creative Arts Council Teachers are asked to create a syllabus, and in it they deine their
presented my work alongside that of Heidi Latsky, Pascal Rioult, Zvi teaching practice within a fairly limited choice of extremes. Do I teach
Gotheiner and Robert Battle (now Artistic Director of Alvin Ailey Dance Vaganova or Cecchetti, RAD or Russian, Bournonville or Balanchine?
Company). In this company of talented new choreographers I thought I And if I teach only one of these “techniques” does that mean my danc-
had made it—that I had created a new approach to ballet and therefore ers are prepared for only a limited approach to ballet? I suppose not,
was part of this group. But I still felt insecure as a choreographer in their but what I advocate for is a more artistic approach to ballet training. I
world and the insecurities grew as I watched their work. The distance redeine ballet as a series of directed energies, vectors that turn ballet
from contemporary to ballet seemed much further than I thought. My into a collection of directions of movement, rather than shapes. This
interest in progressive pathways and percussive sound seemed paro- seems a rather obvious idea, but when executed it leads to students

www.sdhs.org Page 11
discovering how to teach themselves, and dancers playing with new I have been Head of Choreography and technique faculty in ballet and
ideas, moving through and beyond the technique. Students should en- Limón at two conservatoires that offer the BA (Hons) in London since
gage with different technical and aesthetic approaches to ballet just as 2003, and I know less now about what contemporary ballet is. I have
they do in modern (or contemporary). This might help to broaden our lectured and taught in Asia, Europe, and the United States. From what
deinitions of ballet and to recognize that ballet training is more than I see, students remain preoccupied with labeling dance; they want to
creating perfect alignment and high extensions, but that it is a tool for name it (i.e. they want to name the “style” by which they will choreo-
creative interpretation, and no singular technical approach can sufice. graph), and to name each dance they see as though it emerges whole
from a codiied technique class. I strive to eliminate these labels and
Additionally, technique is not an end in itself. I have to remind my
to open their minds and bodies to any choreographic experiences of-
conservatoire students that taking technique class does not a dancer
fered. I want them to be complete artists. The terms limit our experi-
make; if you perfect your tendu, you still might not be dancing. It’s a
ence of dance and drive us towards cliché. Movement is our medium.
chicken and egg cliché. Louis XIV was dancing before he founded the
Would a painter today use the label Renaissance artist, because s/he
Académie. In other words, we developed the technique to support the
embraces the distinctive style that originated in the 15th century? Like-
dancing and we can change it. And the technique ought to change
wise when is a ballet dancer a classical ballet dancer? Who decides
over time, as choreography changes along with culture and physicality.
what is and isn’t ballet? Other forms are still often deined against bal-
Too often ballet technique is rooted in old-fashioned ideas about purity
let—and I thought post-modernism freed us of all these concerns! Are
and grace, proper behaviour and elitism—a clash with a 21st century
we falling into a new trap using the term “contemporary”? Does the
sensibility—and these have little to do with the actual dancing. My stu-
phrase serve to distance us from classical ballet, often considered the
dents routinely describe ballet in very negative terms, as though it is
higher art form? Are we locked into a hierarchy of labels that stiles
replication of perfected movements created in 1661, and either you’ve
creativity? Who are these labels for anyway? They haunt my practice
drunk the Kool-Aid or you haven’t. I often ask them to pretend they are
and make me question my creativity. And I still wonder what I should
in a contemporary class in order to embrace a wider range of attitudes
call my work…
to the form. I think as a teacher and choreographer, I have failed my
students if they inish their training with this same limited view of what
ballet could be.
Notes
Vaganova wrote about bringing into the class material that prepares 1. “Ashton, in his 1950 ballet Illuminations, set to Benjamin Britten’s cantata
her dancers for what they are performing on stage. She considered on Arthur Rimbaud’s poetry, featured [Melissa Hayden] in a notably erotic
the teaching and the performing to feed into each other. This is a pro- role as Profane Love, with one foot in a pointe shoe and the other bare.
cess that I use in my own practice and I wish more choreographers His sudden request that she remove a ballet shoe late on in rehearsal
were also studio teachers. A teacher for whom I have great respect told alarmed her, until he pointed out that all the choreography she had
me once that class was not choreography (but rather exercises). I dis- learned so far was fashioned for this unprecedented idea.” The Telegraph,
agreed, arguing that it is through class that students develop the skills Melissa Hayden obituary, 12 Aug 2006. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/
obituaries/1526131/Melissa-Hayden.html accessed November 20, 2014.
to pursue new ways of engaging with the art form. Marie Rambert felt
a rigid approach to technique spurred creative (rebellious?) ideas. My 2. Armitage, Karole. 2013. Speaking at CounterPointe: Women Making Work
approach is to offer my considered knowledge as an educator in dance, on Pointe. Transcription by Norte Maar. http://nortemaar.org/2013/12/
combined with my aesthetic of ballet and art. I keep my hand in the karole-armitage-talks-pointe-shoe-with-6-rising-choreographers accessed
profession very actively as a choreographer, collaborator and producer, November 25, 2014.
regularly auditioning dancers both for my own company and for Brook-
lyn Ballet. Annually I produce Counterpointe, a performance series for
Bibliography
women. Through curating this evening I have discovered interesting
works by women that play with pointe in a most unballetic way. Karole Gleich, Julia K. “Generating, analyzing, and organizing movement using the
mathematical concepts of vectors”, The Dynamic Body in Space. Valerie Preston-
Armitage was my guest speaker in 2013 and she “remember[s] one of
Dunlop, and Lesley-Anne Sayers, eds. Alton, Hampshire, UK: Dancebooks, Ltd.
my irst ideas in these early punk pointe pieces was to think of pointe
2010.
shoes as weapons.”2

Page 12 2015 | Volume XXXV

The Contemporary Ballet Menu:
A Regional Repertory Concert Practice in the 1970s
(Washed Down with Beer)
Caroline Sutton Clark

In this conversation I consider ideas about, and practices of, “contem- in a variety of styles. This was based on his wide-ranging breadth of
porary ballet” by way of an unusual historical and cultural phenom- experience from Sadler’s Wells to Hollywood and Broadway. The lam-
enon—that of the Austin Ballet Theatre’s sixty-plus monthly perfor- boyant Englishman had an illustrious career as a performer. He began
mances at the Armadillo World Headquarters from 1972-1980. This dancing at the age of sixteen with the Vic-Wells in London, toured
case study investigating cultural trends in the 1970s may prove useful with Roland Petit, danced in over thirty Hollywood musicals such as
to understand desires towards and practices of contemporizing ballet Oklahoma!, worked with Jack Cole and Bella Lewitzky, appeared on
today. television, danced on Broadway, and toured in shows with Liberace
and Betty Grable. In 1967, when Hall came to the small college town of
Journalism student Stephanie Chernikowski, writing for a counter-
Austin as a favor to a friend, ballerina Nora White Shattuck, he sought
culture newspaper in 1974, describes the scene:
an opportunity to transition his career more toward teaching and cho-
The irst time I went to [the] Armadillo to see the Austin Ballet reography. Once Austin Ballet Theatre began performing at the Arma-
Theatre perform I drove up a little late to ind about half a doz- dillo World Headquarters in 1972, Hall developed a popular series of
en police cars parked at the entrance. This wasn’t some rock regular repertory concerts through the use of an effective, time-tested
and roll show with an audience of dope smoking freaks, it programmatic formula that I think of as “menu” or “sandwich” program-
was a ballet…Turns out the regular cop on the beat had been ming: a template for determining the program order of several ballets
making rounds and was so taken with the idea of a ballet in in one concert by placing his most experimental ballet in the middle.
Armadillo World Headquarters, Austin’s funky rock parlor, that Sandwiching worked very well in this particular time and place. Analy-
he called a bunch of the boys to come have a look. There they sis of Hall’s “middle” ballets and their context at the Armadillo World
stood fascinated, just inside the door stunned. (17) Headquarters brings to light several working elements towards how
contemporized ballet manifested in a ield of practice and the functions
Rather than appearing regularly in Austin, Texas’ civic auditorium or
that it served this community.
Paramount Theatre, local ballet company ABT (and they were very
aware of the fun in sharing that acronym with the prestigious Ameri- I irst studied the concept of menu, or sandwich, programming in an
can Ballet Theatre) performed in the Armadillo World Headquarters, undergraduate dance production course: a structure of presentation in
an eclectic music venue variously described as “a rambling, barn-like a dance concert consisting of several independent dances that place
structure” (Bustin A13), “an old, dirty beer hall” (Bergquist), and “a a pleasant opener irst, an experimental, serious, or guest-choreo-
country western-rock and roll asylum” (Schweitzer 22). While on oth- graphed dance second, and a crowd-pleasing closer last. This creates
er nights the Armadillo hosted “cosmic cowboy,” hippie-oriented, and a low for audiences that welcomes and eases them into the concert
“outlaw country” music artists such as Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, experience via the irst dance (appetizer), provides the most challeng-
and Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen (Mellard), on sec- ing or featured work(s) afterwards once the audience is “warmed-up,”
ond Sundays diverse audiences of 800-1200 people paid $1.50-$2.50 or attuned to the experience but not exhausted (main dish or “meat”),
a ticket and rushed the bar to get beer and nachos before the irst bal- and then ends the concert with something upbeat to leave the audi-
let began (Shelton, “Armadillos” 2).1 ence feeling positive about the event as a whole (dessert).2 Monthly
Armadillo performances almost always consisted of a mixed repertory
This time and place afforded favorable conditions for the founder and
program with three to ive separate dances in menu formation (some
Artistic Director of Austin Ballet Theatre, Stanley Hall, to create ballets
of the dances were repeated and added onto from month to month).

www.sdhs.org Page 13
The irst would be a “light” classical, semi-abstract ballet (Chernikowski culinity and propriety, a itness boom for men and women, and social
18); examples of this type of ballet include Hall’s restaging of Fred- dance practices from do-your-own-thing music concerts to Saturday
erick Ashton’s Les Patineurs and Hall’s original Birthday Waltz set to Night Fever-inspired disco, all contributed to new interests in move-
music by Tchaikovsky, which one reviewer described as “a harmless ment. Sam Binkley provides a helpful resource concerning changing
bit of pleasantry” (Shelton, “Austin” n.p.). In contrast, the middle of- U.S. attitudes toward the body during the 1970s in his text Getting
fering would be a serious-themed, “strictly contemporary” ballet such Loose: Lifestyle Consumption in the 1970s. In the chapter titled “Let-
as The Rites of Joseph Byrd to music by rock-jazz musician Joe Byrd ting It All Hang Out,” in particular, Binkley analyzes literary discourse
(van Hulsteyn 16). Occasionally, another short contemporary ballet to identify themes of relaxation, getting back to nature, and releasing
and/or classical pas de deux such as Le Corsaire followed featuring socio-cultural ideas about physicality towards inding more “authentic”
principal dancers of company. Finishing the evening, the closer was experiences. Binkley writes:
often a sprawling, “zany” inale featuring parodies of Hollywood (Flick-
The “squaring” of the body as both a functional instrument of
ers I and II), dance (Parody of Isms), or cultural narratives (Centennial
the military-industrial complex and an other-directed symbol of
Rags) (Hogner, “Sadness” 11). Hall explains the strategy of the closer
a status-driven afluence was countered by the forcible and very
from the perspective of his own background: “[Both Sadler’s Wells and
mediated “grooving” of the body as an organ erupting with feel-
Ballets de Paris] made a practice of inishing their performances with
ing, endlessly seeking opportunities to experience itself and the
a ‘light-hearted ballet—something that would send the audience home
world afresh by overlowing the strictures imposed by the old or-
smiling’” (Smith 11).
der. (207-208)
According to dance and community studies scholar Judith Hamera,
Ballet in the context of the United States in the 1970s, then, negotiated
dance practices, such as program order, have tactical utility operating
the strict discipline of classical technique with the desires of a youth-
with the needs and desires of people in community. Hamera asserts in
driven culture seeking subjectively-motivated experiences of the body.
Dancing Communities that iterations of dance are “inherently social” in
their aesthetic processes, producing meaning in social time and social Hall’s middle ballets featured attributes that “overlowed the strictures”
space (3). Therefore, ballet, as an example, is always “local” in individ- that some Armadillo audience members, many attending ballet for the
ual communities of practice through generative matrices of technique irst time, may have assumed about ballet (Binkley 208). These emerged
and aesthetics (4). Ballet in this view functions as a process by which as the aesthetic matrices that contemporized ballet largely through in-
people develop understandings of community relationships and iden- corporating contemporaneous elements. A salient factor for even the
tity—re-framing the question of what contemporary ballet is to what the novice ballet-goer was the departure from traditional-sounding, classi-
practice of contemporizing ballet does. In the case of Austin Ballet The- cal ballet music; the middle ballets were choreographed to 20th century
atre, what was the context in which these middle, contemporized bal- classical, blues, or jazz. In these selections, Hall intentionally “catered
lets operated? How might aesthetic processes have been reconciled to” the Armadillo’s usual clientele of diverse music lovers (Shelton,
or related to their time and place? And what purpose(s) did this serve? “Armadillos” 2). Also, Hall incorporated movement from outside the
classical ballet canon including modern dance, jazz, “pop-disco,” and,
In her text Apollo’s Angels, Jennifer Homans describes the 1970s as a
in the case of a ballet about youth-culture interests in Eastern spiritual-
dynamic time for ballet in the United States, a period of excitement that
ity, “Hindu postures” (Brock 9). In devising movement, Hall could draw
has not been seen since (467-469, 540). There was a sense during
upon his own performing background as well as his exposure to dance
this era known as the “dance boom” that ballet was exciting, youthful,
in London, New York City, Paris, and Los Angeles; according to numer-
and popular (Homans 468). Although Homans focuses more on the
ous oral history accounts, he often took inspiration from dances he
inluence of New York City Ballet’s George Balanchine as the catalyst
had seen. Hippie audiences who might have had preconceived ideas
for a dynamic American ballet, the 1970s saw a conluence of cultural
that ballet was “square” had new experiences with the overt sexual
phenomena that charged the ballet world on a national level; the high-
drama and violence of Hall’s Tregonelle or the tantric physicality of The
proile defections of Mikhail Baryshnikov, Natalia Makarova, and other
Rites of Joseph Byrd in which form-itting unitards or, in the case of
Soviets to the United States, the movie Turning Point featuring Barysh-
the men, dance trunks, emphasized a sensually-available, unrestricted
nikov, the rise of regional ballet companies along with increased fund-
body. Such “loosening” of the dancing ballet body, in Binkley’s terminol-
ing for them, the gay rights movement, more open ideas about mas-
ogy, its into a 1970s context that would have appealed to youth-culture

Page 14 2015 | Volume XXXV

interests amongst many of the dancers and their Armadillo audience the Armadillo, continuing: “Now ‘ballet’ dancers are required to do all
members.3 And they responded enthusiastically: in a 1972 review by things,” such as blending ballet training with “modern and jazz styles”
local newspaper journalist Carol Nuckols, she reports that of the three (22). In examples such as these, writers supported a contemporizing
dances in the repertory concert she saw, people reacted most notice- of ballet in Austin and reinforced community acceptance along with a
ably to the middle dance, the dramatic Dante: “Beatrice danced to ee- sense of local value.
rie music through Hell and Purgatory to Earthly Paradise, to the audi-
On the other hand, Hall learned quickly that he could not present a pro-
ence’s shouts of delight” (n.p.).
gram consisting solely of his contemporized ballets. His irst Armadillo
Analysis of newspaper and magazine articles reveals an interesting concert was just such a program in an attempt to appeal to hippie audi-
trend amongst reviewers during this time period—that of explaining, ences, and it was, in Hall’s words, “too top-heavy,” meaning that the
and often championing, the weird, middle ballet of the program to the works as an aggregate were too serious in theme and/or challenging
community, even if they did not agree on what to call it: “contemporary for the viewer (Shelton, “Armadillos” 2). Dancer Eve Larson, in an oral
ballet” (van Hulsteyn 16), “modern ballet” (Hogner 11), a “presentation” history interview, recalls that some of the audience missed “ballet,” or
(Chernikowski 18), or an “experimentation” (Schweitzer 22). Further- what they thought of as ballet, in that irst show:
more, Hall’s own vision as a choreographer, and how others saw him
Eve Larson: It was certainly a noble attempt. I think Stan-
as an artist, seems to be discursively situated in these ballets—the
ley’s irst performance there, he, um, geared
main course of the menu—rather than his openers or closers. For ex-
to a more modern idea of dance because he
ample, in multiple reviews for the daily newspaper, author Steve Hog-
thought it would appeal to the young people at
ner disseminates the message that Hall’s “modern ballet of the ‘70s, a
Armadillo. So he didn’t choreograph anything
rarity indeed,” demonstrates his “growth as an artist” (“Sadness” 11):
in classical ballet.
Rarely has an Austin audience (theater, ilm, or dance) been as
Caroline Sutton Clark: Mm-hmm.
visibly stunned by a performance as they were during “Snow-
lakes Are Dancing.” Many sat there awed, audibly wondering Eve Larson: …he did a ballet called Dante, and he did a
what Hall could do to top each movement and how far Austin couple of other, you know, pseudo-modern
dance has come to foster such a work. (“ABT” 18) type things. But, um, he found that there
wasn’t really much [of an] audience [for it],
Dance critic and scholar Suzanne Shelton, writing for the student
for most people anyway, and most of the au-
newspaper, also advocates for Hall’s middle ballets through subjec-
dience actually came up and said, “Stanley,
tive, narrative description:
we miss your ballets. We-we want ballet.”
[The Rites of Joseph Byrd] has been added to the program (Larson 37)
at audience request. The lights dim, and that weird electronic
Clearly, in the development of this community there was also a desire
music wells through the darkened Armadillo. Onstage, a trans-
for something known as “ballet”: aesthetic matrices that aligned with
parent sac, an embryo, rises to reveal a clump of bodies. They
cultural imaginaries of ballet practices. Insightful reminiscence along
begin to move in the imperceptibly changing patterns (like one of
these lines comes from interviewing Armadillo bartender Leea Mech-
those toy kaleidoscopes with colored rocks) that mark the best
ling, a hippie immersed in the youth culture of the times with an enthu-
of Stanley Hall’s choreography. The program notes, ‘The chil-
siasm for progressive ideas. Yet she remembers particularly enjoying
dren that represent the new generation believe they will change
classical ballets such the snowlake scene from The Nutcracker, inding
the world’…And from this tension, this unbearable concentra-
in them a serenity that was a welcome change from the riotous live
tion of bodies, escapes one dancer, like a butterly, looping free,
music events she usually worked (Mechling 6-7).
and you’re thinking, my god this is brilliant—and it’s over.
(“Armadillos” 3) Perhaps, through providing contrast, presenting classical and contex-
tually-contemporary ballets on the same program functioned discur-
In the context of the mid-1970s, student journalist Carrie Schweitzer
sively to distinguish and possibly deepen appreciation for the fanta-
asserts that being “dedicated to experimentation” is “important if you
sies-made-manifest by both classicism and invention.4 The inclusion
dance for an audience of newcomers,” like Austin Ballet Theatre did at

www.sdhs.org Page 15
of what I term “contemporized” ballet served at least two purposes in
this context: attracting new audiences towards the regeneration of a Bibliography
local ballet community and the relationships within, and establishing
Bergquist, Kate. Telephone interview. 27 Jan. 2014.
a sense of identity, pride, and relevance to larger cultural narratives
valuing artistic innovation. Binkley, Sam. Getting Loose: Lifestyle Consumption in the 1970s. Durham:
Duke University Press, 2007. Print.
Brock, Marvadene. “Holiday performance too ’60-ish.” The Austin Citizen. 9
Notes Dec. 1977. 9. Print.

1. Austin Ballet Theatre folded in 1986, six years after the Armadillo Bustin, John. “Show World.” The Austin American-Statesman. 11 Apr. 1973.
World Headquarters was razed to make way for a parking lot. Historical A13. Print.
information about the company is largely generated through oral histories. Chernikowski, Stephanie. “Austin Ballet Theatre: Grace and Innovation.”
The majority of written documentation comes from dancers’ scrapbooks Austin Sun. 14 Nov. 1974. 17-18. Print.
with a few clippings and company documents turning up in archival iles at
the Austin History Center. Every attempt has been made to ind the original Hamera, Judith. Dancing Communities: Performance, Difference, and
sources of these clippings, but in a few cases the text was clipped out of Connection in the Global City. Basingstoke [England]: Palgrave Macmillian,
a newspaper without any contextual information such as publication, date, 2007. Print.
and/or page number. In such cases the Works Cited listing notes where Hogner, Steve. “Sadness among smiles in ABT performance.” The Austin-
the clipping is archived. American Statesman. 17 Feb. 1976. 11. Print.
2. The dancers also experience an affective low. In the case of Austin Ballet __________. “ABT’s ‘Snowlakes’ tops strong program.” The Austin-American
Theatre, many of the same dancers would perform in the opener, be Statesman. 16 Dec. 1975. 18. Print.
featured in the middle dance, and develop a character in the closer. While
Homans, Jennifer. Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet. Westminster, MD:
they may have been perfectly warmed-up and engaged in a light, classical
Random House, 2010. Print.
opener, they would be even more warmed-up and attuned to each other and
the audience (but not exhausted) for a middle work, whether that was the Larson, Eve. Transcript from personal interview. 12 Feb. 2014. Print.
“contemporary” ballet or a virtuosic classical pas de deux. Stanley Hall then Mechling, Leea. Transcript from personal interview. 30 Jul. 2014. Print.
thought of the closer as a lark for the dancers, even if it was high-energy:
Mellard, Jason. Progressive Country: How the 1970s Transformed the Texan
Hall wants to ensure that the dancers enjoy themselves at the in Popular Culture. Austin: The University of Texas Press, 2013. Print.
end of a long night’s work. “You’ve got to give something to the
dancers occasionally,” he says. “They’re tired after the end of a long Nuckols, Carol. “Beans and Rice and Ballet Go Together at Armadillo.” The
performance. And what audiences don’t understand is that dancers are Austin American-Statesman. 13 Nov. 1972. n.p. Austin History Center archive
their own worst critics. At the end, they need to do something they ile AR.1999.008 Box 3. Print.
won’t worry about too much; something they can enjoy and have fun Schweitzer, Carrie. “A Ballad for Ballet.” Pearl. Nov. 1971: 22. Print.
with.” (Smith 11)
Shelton, Suzanne. “Armadillos in Toe Shoes.” Texas Monthly. 1973: 1-4. Web.
3. Future inquiry into visual culture and ballet may draw interesting 28 Feb. 2011.
resonances between experimentation in ballet during the late-1960s and
__________. “Austin Ballet Theatre Celebrates Second Season.” The Daily
1970s and interest in moving patterns linked with psychedelia.
Texan. 11 Feb. 1974. n.p. Austin History Center archive ile AR.1999.08 Box
4. Hall’s background in the Vic-Wells company may have provided a 1. Print.
signiicant model for him in this strategy of programming. Homans
__________. “Theatre to Stage ‘Façade’: A Ballet for Laughter.” The Daily
discusses how during the 1930s, Frederick Ashton’s new, England-centric
Texan. n.d. n.p. Austin History Center archive ile AR.1999.008 Box 4. Print.
ballets provided for English audiences a welcome contrast to the imported
Russian classics such as excerpts from Swan Lake (419). Smith, Marian. “Hall makes ballet fun for dancers, crowd alike.” The Austin
Citizen. 5 Nov. 1979. 11. Print.
Van Hulsteyn, Peggy. “The Bouncing Ballet in River City.” Austin People Today.
Dec. 1971: 16-18. Print.

Page 16 2015 | Volume XXXV

Wry Subversion Ballet (SFB) has commissioned eight ballets from Morris. His latest,
Beaux (2012) is one of his most radical and sweetest responses to
Ann Murphy gender to date.

The Seattle-born, Balkan dance-trained Morris has been considering

the limitations set on love and expressive freedom in the ballet idiom
For decades Mark Morris has challenged assumptions about the at least since his 1991 The Hard Nut,2 a musically ingenious pastiche
heterosexual body, the homosexual body, the large body, the strong of modern, vernacular, and classical dance set to Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s
and effortful body, and the hyper-trained body. His dances are known “Nutcracker Suite”. The Hard Nut liberated the old holiday warhorse
to lout codes of gender, conventions of decorum, organizational rules, Nutcracker, and in place of a 19th century Christmas tale Morris created
and relations to power. This is made visible when sturdy dancers move a wildly popular, broad, modern burlesque that fused camp and lyricism
alongside willowy ones, bearded men run past the clean-shaven, older with a commitment to individual transformation inside a inely delineated
dancers crawl beside the young, men dance with men, women move in and ixed social order. Morris’ order, unlike the one posited by 19th
tandem with other women, and when the rules of hierarchy are ignored century ballet, happened to be wayward and hallucinatory. In fact, it
and lowly dancers pulled out of the shadows. Many contemporary ballet was closer to the world inside E.T.A. Hoffmann’s story Nutcracker and
choreographers also try to undo the ixity of convention, but Morris the Mouse King than any traditional rendering of the tale. It was also
goes further than most, shifting ballet’s paradigmatic relationship of the populated by robust modern dancers who had varying degrees of ballet
dancing body to its parts, the body to its movements, bodies to bodies, inesse.
and bodies to stage and theater space. He has a tactic few have: he
deies social and dance norms with wily, and wry, subversion. As inventive and, at times, moving as this reworking of the Nutcracker
was, at bottom it was revisionist. Morris’ most radical act was assigning
While the choreographer treats social regulations, in general, as fair the pas de deux, usually performed by the Queen and King of the
game, Morris has a particular fascination with the limits of gendered Snow, to Herr Drosselmeier and his nephew, the Nutcracker Prince,
action in modern dance and ballet, as well as with the normative with Drosselmeier assuming the normative male role, and the Prince
behavior expected of men and women both in love and out. In his New taking on the traditional female part. The male-male duo starts with a
Love Song Waltzes irst performed by the Mark Morris Dance Group promenade to allow them to survey the realm, as the iconic Nutcracker
in 1982, Morris disrupts some of these norms by having his dancers couple traditionally does. Then the uncle sinks into tombé in 4th
polymorphously partner up like children who care little about how love position, wraps his arm around the Prince’s waist as the Prince stands
is meant to be performed—they simply love, profusely, awkwardly, and in tendu en arrière, reaches his right palm up toward the young man’s
freely. Or in L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (1988), the men heart, and sweeps his left hand through space, pointing out invisible
saucily spank then kiss each other with an insouciance that is both vistas beyond.
innocent and fey. In this danced world, longing is luid, surprising, easily
frustrated, joyous, and as varied as the beings from which it springs. It As the pas de deux unfolds, the clock maker tenderly supports the
is what binds and makes us human. Prince while the younger man performs the kinds of actions the Snow
Queen would––lifting his leg in battement, extending in arabesque,
Morris as a humanist holds ideals about gender, love, and expression rising in attitude, and leaping in grand and tour jeté. Also like the Snow
that thrive in modern dance, because modern dance is a large and Queen, the nephew becomes the object of the dance and the primary
supple container that not only weathers ideological upheaval but also focus of our attention, moving outward with Drosselmeier’s assistance,
welcomes it. Large ballet institutions, on the other hand, with origins then returning inward toward the older man. As daring as this may
in now-defunct royal court systems, continue to relect a complex, have been for a family entertainment in the 1990s, and as much as it
highly regulated social order tied to power, wealth, caste, and privilege, challenges the basic heteronormative structures of ballet, it still upholds
and are consequently less amenable to social change. But because the normative by dividing the men’s work based on levels of status and
Morris shares ballet’s profound dedication to music, and he “is willing power, mirroring the traditional masculine/feminine divide. Regardless
to obey rules, to raise up his art on the art of others…,” 1 he has been of the meaning of the pair’s relationship, their expressive freedom is
able to cross the divide from modern dance to ballet as not many circumscribed by such stratiication.
choreographers outside the idiom have. Since 1994 San Francisco

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A similarly restricted freedom emerged from the wonderful drag Morris also moved the work in sweeping patterns and jettisoned the
turns by several of the cast members in the work’s early West Coast idiom’s traditional use of linear perspective and 3-point focus.4 First he
performances. In the “Waltz of the Flowers,” Peter Wing Healey created a level ield of horizontal relations and low that allowed the
doubled as the luxuriant Queen of the Flowers and as Mrs. Stahlbaum, dancers to perform as a group from which individuals unexpectedly
dancing alone with almost rhapsodic melancholy below an enormous emerged and receded. At times, hands and feet assumed a life of their
veiny purple lily that was provocatively sexual but not especially fertile own. A dancer suddenly appeared, raised her arm in a grand gesture,
looking. As the Maid for both the Stahlbaums and Princess Pirlipat’s then disappeared. Feet abruptly lexed, bodies collapsed without
parents, Kraig Patterson loftily oversaw all goings on from the elevation warning, and upstage shadows swallowed performers. Morris also
of his pointes, taking up little space although projecting a large and emphasized space’s breadth by accentuating the wings, suggesting
benevolent persona. June Omura ransacked the space in her travesty continued terrain and air not above in the ether but beyond on the
role as the combative Fritz, while Morris himself took a star turn as a physical plane itself, drawing the viewer’s imagination out onto the
hairy-bottomed harem dancer, staging masculinity as deiantly slinky, street or allowing us to visualize the ballet as continuing offstage.
silly, and naughty. This shattered the domination of the black box and allowed Morris to
highlight a sense of lux both in the music and in the dance.
These roles were touching, even hilarious, but though they complicated
gender, they nevertheless were unable to transcend the limits of drag. Ten years later, Morris premiered the evening-length Sylvia and more
As Mark Franko writes, a man in drag “expresses the afirmation of aggressively overrode the ballet’s ranking system when he pulled
his unique and dificult subject position by parodying a secondary (or corps member Frances Chung out of the crowd and made her one
primary) other: woman.”3 Thus drag makes it dificult to “suggest radical of the leads. (He also gave this coltish young woman a big break that
newness”3 in expression because it relies on intact heteronormative led to her rising quickly up the company ladder.) On Morris’ end he not
gender codes to parody those very codes, and therefore remains only enlarged his pool of talent by ignoring organizational codes, he
trapped inside the normative binary. Even though The Hard Nut implicitly posed a set of questions that asked: What other dancers are
gleefully dismantled ballet’s hierarchies, replaced the ethereality of hiding in the shadows? How are promotions made? What does it mean
classical dance with leshy weightiness, and imagined a society as that the Ballet can allow its procedures to be overturned? Morris once
varied and odd as a world in a John Waters ilm, it never achieved that again took us beyond the conines of the stage design to query the
more dificult goal of breaking out of the binary to the “newness” that structures that made that design possible.
could enlarge our conception of gender.
Beaux (2012) is a dance for nine physically varied men that also ignores
With The Hard Nut an annual event at UC Berkeley’s Cal Performances the ranking system, uses the horizontal expanse of the stage, plays
and the Mark Morris Dance Group in regular residence, Berkeley with the space beyond the wings, and then goes further by overturning
became a second home for the company. That made it only slightly the bedrock that supports all the others––gender norms, particularly
surprising when San Francisco Ballet’s Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson conceptions of masculinity upon which the gender status quo rests.
invited Morris to cross the bay and create a work for the troupe. The
The moment the curtain rose viewers were thrust into a comic, cognitive
outcome was Maelstrom (1994), a dark, complex and often wry work
trap. Nine men were silently arrayed across the stage in a phalanx
set to Beethoven’s Ghost Trio Op. 70, No.1. While the work stayed true
of “X” shaped Vitruvian igures with their backs to the audience (save
to the moody classicism of the Ghost, Morris mischievously swirled
one), in pink and yellow camoulage unitards while a somewhat darker
together corps members with soloists and principals in egalitarian
but corresponding pink and yellow drop with hints of wine and leaf
fashion. Audiences also got to see the company in a new light when he
green hung behind them. On opening night, confused by the tableau
highlighted individual dancers in refreshing and sometimes unexpected
that appeared on stage, the audience irst rustled uneasily, then
ways, allowing their humanness to show. He brought out comedic
rippled with surprised laughter. Morris and designer Isaac Mizrahi had
qualities in Sarah Van Patten, for instance, a dancer most known for
locked viewers into a visual and cognitive conundrum: the masculine
her regalness, and he allowed the ever-courtly Gennadi Nedvigin to
(camoulage) was spliced together with the feminine (pastels of pink and
become mysteriously expressive, as though ironically commenting on
yellow), and the homonyms beaux (French for boyfriends) and bow(s)
his place in the company as the danseur noble.
(the hair ties, the hunting tools) intertwined subversively. However, this
led to no hint of parody anywhere. The reason for this was that the

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ballet never let the viewers escape from the constant tension of the If in Beaux Morris is seeking Franko’s “radical newness” in the
surface pun and its play with drag on the one hand, and the utterly “luidity of identities that suggests an openness to resigniication
non-parodic dance that followed. Acts of drag are built from “two self- and recontextualization….”,6 and I believe he is, Morris is able to
consistent but habitually incompatible frames of reference,” 5 and by recontextualize maleness here because he begins with the dance
foisting this cognitive tension on the work and using it to repeatedly inheritance: the language of traditional ballet and balletic modern
rupture audience expectations, Morris set out to prove the ballet’s dance. Viewers are already cognizant of society’s gender conventions
premise that gender is a set of unstable surface codes, and that dance and most are aware of how masculinity is performed in ballet. As a result
is a brilliant means by which to address, refute, and strive to transcend they are able to experience Beaux, happily or not, as a reconstitution
those codes. of gender codes.
To make his case, the choreographer immediately began to mix and Although Alastair Macaulay colorfully writes that Morris’ men in Beaux
interchange traditional “masculine” and “feminine” action. One man are “hunks, angels, Pucks, darlings, colleagues, cavaliers, chums,”7
lifted another by the waist and, rather than becoming “feminine” as such the choreographer has done much more than create a compendium
an action by Drosselmeier to the Prince did, it signaled to viewers as of ballet’s men or even of agreed-upon masculinities. Beaux’s men are
supportive and tender. Men waved, faintly echoing the gesture in Swan communal, strong, soft, supportive, silly, collaborative, solitary, tender,
Lake or other ballets with hunting scene pantomime, but abstracted from despairing, and loving. They edge out past ballet’s gender norms and
any speciic context, the action cascaded with multiple implications––of in their luidity usher in a humanity––a radical newness––far greater
hello and goodbye, of hope and loss, of past and future, linked to the than men in ballet have been allowed to bring to the stage before.
men but referencing a range of human expression and action shared
by all. The men gathered in a half circle, oblivious to the audience,
the object of our gaze, as women so gathered on stage traditionally Notes
are, but the men were impervious to it. Instead, they established a 1. Joan Acocella, Mark Morris (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, New York, 1993), 181.
remarkable intimacy among themselves that briely transformed the
2. The ballet premiered in Brussels and in 1996 became a holiday mainstay
audience into voyeurs spying on a group of strangers. We saw men
at Cal Performances at UC Berkeley.
in poignant duets dancing with passion as lovers or friends, just as
we saw them as modern bodies of equal value and interest enacting a 3. Mark Franko, Dancing Modernism/Performing Politics (Bloomington: Uni-
performance of abstracted human drama. versity of Indiana Press, 1995) 94, 95.
4. With its roots in Renaissance science, religion, philosophy and politics,
this spatial perspective reinforces centralized male-dominated power that
descends from the Judeo-Christian God (represented by a central vanish-
ing point) to king to nobles to subjects to animals, and does so through a
series of pyramidal formations on stage.
5. Arthur Koestler, The Act of Creation (The MacMillan Company, New York,
1964), 27, 35, 64-68.
6. Koestler, 35. Koestler deines this process as the foundation of creativity
itself. In the collision between different systems something new is
created.
7. Alastair Macauley, “Pushing, Prodding, and Exploring the Potential
for Men,” The New York Times, March 3, 2013. http://www.nytimes.
com/2013/03/04/arts/dance/san-francisco-ballets-works-by-mark-morris-
and-ashley-page.html (accessed September 10, 2014).

Mark Morris’ Beau performed by San Francisco Ballet

Photo Credit: Erik Tomasson

www.sdhs.org Page 19
Prayer of Touch (2012) by Helen Pickett for Atlanta Ballet Photo Credit: Charlie McCullers, 2012.

Contemporary Ballet:
Inhabiting the Past While Engaging the Future
Gretchen Alterowitz
In a 2014 review of Greek choreographer Adonis Foniadakis’s work contemporary ballet—can often look stuck in its relentlessly heterosexual
Glory performed by the Ballet du Grand Théatre de Genève, The New dynamics…and in its expressive, or dependent, relationship to music;”3
York Times dance critic Gia Kourlas comments, “while it’s true that while Alastair Macaulay inds, “the major issues for ballet today lie in
dance companies can’t exist as museums, another question persists, its presentation of sex, gender and race,”4 and questions “how well
as it often does in contemporary ballet: What is the point of ‘Glory’?”1 equipped [ballet is] to speak to, or of, the world we know.”5 These
As I have previously observed,2 Kourlas is not alone among The Times comments raise questions about ballet’s cultural relevance in a world
reviewers in criticizing “contemporary ballet” for its inability to address that is further aware of diversity and more willing to advocate for new
“contemporary” concerns. Critic Roslyn Sulcas claims, “ballet—even interpretations of traditional value systems and practices.

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Contemporary ballet appears caught in a stymied relationship—it needs ballet audiences to further examine why it has been uncommon for
ballet of the past and yet that strong linkage makes evolution seem ballet to have diverse choreographers. By promoting more diversity in
largely impossible. Ballet must show a clear foundation in movement choreographic leadership, mainstream and top-tier ballet companies
vocabulary to be recognized as such, though many presume it should might then study the current perpetuation of elitist philosophies. It is
advance today’s beliefs and sensibilities through racially diverse casting, worth querying whether the art form we know as ballet would still be
choreography that portrays varied genders and sexualities, up-to-date considered ballet if these systems were to change—perhaps they are
narratives, and uses of technology. Ballet’s history as a patriarchal form so fundamental to the form that it is impossible both to alter them and
and its tradition of distinguishing men and women in terms of movement maintain ballet’s integrity? That question is now crucial to investigate.
vocabularies, relationship roles, and leadership capacities impacts the
I have begun to address contemporary ballet’s relationship with gender
ways new ballet choreography is made and received, and the ways
and sexuality in my writing on choreographers Katy Pyle and Deborah
ballet dancers, choreographers, and audiences interact with the larger
Lohse who incorporate queer and lesbian perspectives into their work
world of ballet.6 Ballet’s interests and aesthetics are demonstrated on
through narrative details, diverse casting, and partnering roles.8 Here, I
stage, but they are taught and learned much earlier, and they affect
turn my attention to another, Helen Pickett, who, though not as radical
which dancers are most likely to seek out the challenge of, and receive
in her interventions on traditional ballet’s practices as Pyle and Lohse,
support for, developing choreographic skill. Although outside the
is important to contemporary ballet’s evolution because she operates in
area the reviewers address, I propose that for contemporary ballet to
ballet’s highest tiers (as resident choreographer for Atlanta Ballet and
become a form able to speak to present day concerns, it needs to do so
a proliic freelance choreographer she works with established ballet
in ways beyond choreography and performance, such as through the
companies that provide her with the support of classically trained and
inclusion of more women choreographers.
technically virtuosic dancers, space and time to work, and designers
As the 2012 Special Issue of Dance Chronicle, “’Ballet is Woman:’ But and venues for the pieces she produces).9 Pickett does not tear down
Where Are All the Women Choreographers?” points out, the majority of ballet’s traditional foundations, but instead uses them to advance her
choreographers in ballet, are, and have historically been, men.7 Only in work. As one of a small group of women choreographers whose work
this century have women begun to be recognized with choreographic is commissioned by elite ballet companies, Pickett hovers between
commissions from high-level ballet companies, and while the list in the satisfying staunch ballet partisans and urging ballet’s traditions to
United States is growing, these commissions are far from common evolve.10
and the choreographers still a minority. I deliberately use “women”
Pickett is deeply invested in maintaining connections to conventional
throughout this essay instead of “female” to put forward an engagement
markers of classical ballet, even as she thinks of it as a mutable form
with ideas of gender and its various constructions, rather than a
that can move in new directions. Ballet choreographers like her, who
predetermined association of feminine qualities with the female sex. I
introduce women’s perspectives all the while making work that satisies
understand that this wording may create speed bumps for readers, and
expectations of what ballet is, might be seen as following the tenets
I am hopeful that any slowing down that occurs will allow readers to
of liberal feminism. As articulated by feminist performance critic Jill
take time to think about how gender functions in contemporary ballet,
Dolan, liberal feminism’s work is to “insert women into the mainstream
and to contemplate the possibility of multiple or varied genders having
of political and social life by changing the cultural perception of them
a place in the ballet world.
as second-class citizens.”11 The fact that women choreographers are
Kourlas, in the review quoted above, articulates a sense of making inroads into an elite and hierarchical world suggests that ballet
disconnection between contemporary ballet choreography and its is evolving. Choreography by Pickett, and other women like her, is
ability to make meaning. Throughout the review, she implies that ballet signiicant even when it does not drastically alter ballet’s traditions
choreography should alter its attitude or approach. To add to the list of because it helps ballet address the needs of today’s world.
potential shifts these critics have started, and as a way of imagining
Although I am not convinced that an attempt to deine contemporary
how contemporary ballet might become more relevant, I suggest
ballet is ultimately useful or necessary, there are two elements that
contemporary ballet must change its relationship to and presentation
appear often enough in the genre that I state them as a starting point
of sex, gender, and race by engaging more women choreographers.
in this discussion. First, mainstream contemporary ballet is performed
There is no guarantee that women will create work that challenges
by dancers who are classically trained and who use that training and
patriarchal or discriminatory practices and beliefs, but encouraging
the resulting particular ways of moving to inluence the choreographic
women in choreographic leadership positions may force ballet and
material. Second, mainstream contemporary ballet maintains many of

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the aesthetic and relational rules created in other periods of ballet’s her choreography incorporates “manipulation” between and among
history, such as centralizing partnering between men and women, women, but only some weight bearing.14 Ballet technique itself does
frontal presentation in a proscenium setting, virtuosic display of dancers’ not allow for more radical alterations because the training ballet
physical abilities, and very often, pointe shoes for women dancers. dancers receive distinguishes them based on traditional, gendered
assumptions. As a result of training that does not prepare dancers to
Pickett’s choreography shows clear evidence of ballet’s DNA—
work in new ways, ballet choreographers are limited in how far they can
recognizable steps, positions, body orientations, and partnering
push the technique. All the dancers move powerfully in Pickett’s work,
roles—even as it twists and contorts lines, integrates curving spines,
and often enact the same movement vocabularies at the same time
and moves the dancers into and off of the loor. An example is her
however the main partnering relationships are between women and
dynamic, witty, and human Prayer of Touch, created in 2012 for the
men. In further association with traditional ballet, Pickett often centers
Atlanta Ballet to musical compositions by Felix Mendelssohn.12 The
a pas de deux in the work. For example, the middle section of Prayer
movement material for this work unmistakably stems from traditional
of Touch is a romantic duet for a man and woman in which they enact
ballet’s balanced and proportional vocabulary while simultaneously
traditional gender roles.
separating body parts from each other with pelvis, rib, and shoulder
articulations and emphasizing off-center, and often lopsided positions It would be remiss to describe Pickett’s choreography without tying it
and movement initiations. to choreographer William Forsythe’s interventions in the 1980s and
90s. Pickett, having danced in Forsythe’s company, acknowledges
Pickett uses pointe shoes regularly for women dancers, but speaks
his inluence on her work when she describes ballet as a space of
of being interested in exploring differing gender roles in her work. Her
“investigation, discovery, possibility, in-depth questioning, curiosity,
women strut the stage heel irst in a way that draws attention to the
change, [and] openness.”15 Although Forsythe has lately moved in
pointe shoes as tools, and this image is augmented when the shoes
different directions, his early work is often performed by ballet companies
change shape and the women rise gracefully, making their pointes
around the world and continues to inluence choreographers and deine
spear-like extensions of powerful legs. Pickett incorporates some
the look of contemporary ballet. For example, in 1999 his celebrated In
partnering for men with lifts and weight bearing, and describes her
the Middle, Somewhat Elevated, originally choreographed for the Paris
approach to duet work between women as “same gender partnering
Opera Ballet in 1987, “show[ed] no sign of wearing out its welcome,”
with women around each other, in very close proximity.”13 She notes
and it is still performed regularly by companies today.16 Pickett credits
that since women in ballet are not trained to partner each other,
Forsythe with shaping her belief that ballet is a site of exploration and a
“catalyst to so much possibility,” rather than a closed, unmoving system
entrenched in past practices.17
The language Pickett uses to describe ballet sets a different tone than
that of the dance reviewers quoted at the onset of this conversation.
While they do not see ballet representing and conversing with today’s
world, Pickett believes ballet is a place of, and for, change. At the
same time that the reviews indicate a desire for ballet to contemporize,
dance critics expect today’s ballet choreography to visibly demonstrate
its roots in the classical vocabulary and choreographic structures.
Sulcus protests speciic incorporations of movements outside the
traditional vocabulary and states that contemporary ballet “too often…
means overlaying academic steps with lexed feet, parallel legs and
the occasional backbend that aren’t part of the ballet lexicon.”18 And
Kourlas, in a more general evaluation of contemporary ballets that
combine classical ballet with modern dance movement vocabularies,
grumbles that the dances are “often mind-numbingly generic work[s] in
which ballet is watered down and modern dance is watered down.”19
Helen Pickett’s Prayer of Touch performed by Atlanta Ballet The efforts and effects of contemporary ballet will become more apparent
Photo Credit: Charlie McCullers, 2012.
when viewers acknowledge the inherent tension between having to break

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ground while being evaluated for fulilling the aesthetics of the past. One 7. “‘Ballet is Woman’: But Where Are All the Women Choreographers?”
clear outcome of contemporary ballet’s work is that the ballet establishment Dance Chronicle, vol. 35, no. 1, (2012).
is beginning to encourage and produce more women choreographers in 8. Alterowitz, “Embodying a Queer Worldview.”
the ield, undoubtedly changing ballet for choreographers, dancers, and 9. Pickett has received commissions from a variety of ballet companies
audiences. Whether it is choreographers such as Pyle and Lohse, who around the world, including Boston Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem,
queer traditional structures and narratives to intervene on ballet’s elitist Aspen/Santa Fe Ballet, and Scottish Ballet, among others. She trained at
associations, or choreographers such as Pickett, who expand movement the San Francisco Ballet School and danced for William Forsythe at the
possibilities and understand the form itself as a site of inquiry and change, Frankfurt Ballet for over a decade.
the institution of ballet must directly address diversity and representation 10. Other women choreographers who have begun to gain recognition from
in leadership roles. These contemporary ballet choreographers are at elite ballet companies include Amy Seiwert, choreographer-in-residence
the forefront of a movement that could reorient ballet from a form that of the Smuin Ballet, who has her own company (Imagery) and has been
is deined by its conversations with the past, to one that envisages and commissioned by such companies as the Atlanta Ballet, Colorado Ballet,
and Sacramento Ballet, among others; Jessica Lang, who has her own
enacts new directions for the future.
company (Jessica Lang Dance) and has choreographed for the Birming-
ham Royal Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Kansas City Ballet, and Pennsylvania
Ballet, among others; and Emery LeCrone who has choreographed for
Notes
North Carolina Dance Theatre (now Charlotte Ballet), Minnesota Dance
1. Gia Kourlas, “One Free Spirit Amid the Fog and the Frenzy,” The New Theatre, Oregon Ballet Theatre, and Colorado Ballet, among others.
York Times, March 27, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/27/arts/ Companies that have recently produced evenings of all-women chore-
dance/geneva-ballet-and-melodrama-at-the-joyce.html?r=0 (accessed ographers include North Carolina Dance Theatre (now Charlotte Ballet),
April 17, 2014). Colorado Ballet, and Houston Ballet.
2. Gretchen Alterowitz, “Embodying a Queer Worldview: The Contemporary 11. Jill Dolan, The Feminist Spectator as Critic, (1991; reprint, Ann Arbor:
Ballets of Katy Pyle and Deborah Lohse,” Dance Chronicle, vol. 37, no. 3, University of Michigan Press, 2012), 4.
(2014), 335-366. 12. I witnessed a performance of Prayer of Touch on May 18, 2012 at the
3. Roslyn Sulcas, “Taking Ballet to New Heights” The New York Times, Alliance Theatre in Atlanta Georgia, and observed the work in rehearsal
March 27, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/arts/artsspecial/6- at the Atlanta Ballet, April 4-5, 2012.
ballet-directors-discuss-current-evolution-of-form.html?pagewanted=all 13. Helen Pickett, interview with the author, Durham, NC, June 11, 2011.
(accessed April 17, 2014).
14. Ibid.
4. Alastair Macaulay, “Duets of Disconnection,” The New York Times, May
31, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/arts/dance/christopher- 15. Ibid.
wheeldons-pas-de-deux.html?pagewanted=all (accessed April 17, 2014). 16. David Stevens, “A Strong Choreographic Inluence : Forsythe in Paris,”
5. Macaulay, “Story Ballets, Still Romantically Inclined” The New York The New York Times, April 14, 1999, http://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/14/
Times, August 8, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/arts/ style/14iht-ballet.2.t.html (accessed April 17, 2014). Ballet companies that
dance/08storyballet.html?pagewanted=all (accessed April 17, 2014). continue to perform In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated include: Paciic
Northwest Ballet, North Carolina Dance Theatre (now Charlotte Ballet),
6. Many scholars have addressed ballet’s patriarchal and elitist past, as well Pennsylvania Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Mariinsky Ballet, and many others.
as the ways it has constructed femininity and masculinity in opposition to
each other. For example: Christy Adair, Women and Dance: Sylphs and 17. Pickett, Interview with the author. Forsythe’s company is distinct for hav-
Sirens (New York: New York University Press, 1992); Emilyn Claid, Yes? ing encouraged dancers’ choreographic explorations, and many women
No! Maybe . . . : Seductive Ambiguity in Dance (New York: Routledge, who danced in his company have established their own choreographic
2006); Cynthia J. Cohen Bull, “Sense, Meaning, and Perception in Three careers, including Regina van Berkel, Emily Molnar, and Crystal Pite.
Dance Cultures,” in Meaning in Motion: New Cultural Studies of Dance, 18. Sulcas, “Six New Works in a Program with Three Guest Appearances,”
ed. Jane C. Desmond (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1997), The New York Times, April 11, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/
269–87; Ann Daly, “The Balanchine Woman: Of Hummingbirds and Chan- arts/dance/12columbia.html (accessed October 7, 2013).
nel Swimmers,” The Drama Review, vol. 31, no. 1 (1987), 8–21; Ann Daly, 19. Kourlas, “Is it Fusion or Just a Mishmash of 2 Forms?” The New
“Classical Ballet: A Discourse of Difference,” Women and Performance, York Times, July 12, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/12/arts/
vol. 3, no. 2 (1987), 57–66; and Susan Leigh Foster, “The Ballerina’s dance/12ball.html?pagewanted=print&module=Search&mabReward=relb
Phallic Pointe,” in Corporealities: Dancing, Knowledge, Culture and Pow- ias%3Ar (accessed September 8, 2014).
er, ed. Susan Leigh Foster (New York: Routledge, 1996), 1–24.

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Sowing Curiosity
Meredith Webster

“Then comes the cultivation of the being from which whatever you
have to say comes. It doesn’t just come out of nowhere, it comes out
of a great curiosity. The main thing, of course, always is the fact that
there is only one of you in the world, just one, and if that is not ful-
illed then something has been lost.” Martha Graham, Blood Memory:
An Autobiography (1991).
I remember when I irst met Alonzo King feeling that he could see things
that I couldn’t. His eye was keener, his awareness more thorough than
anything I thought myself capable of. Immediately, he insisted that I
form my own opinions, take responsibilities, and experiment in terri-
tories that were unfamiliar to me. In the years and years of “training” I
had done before that, these were areas that had been neglected and
allowed to lie fallow. I barely remembered that I knew how to contribute
my own voice to the work.
In a way, I had to de-educate myself. I had to come to the studio naive
every day and persistently mine my physicality for more articulation
and fresh synaptic connections. I had to trust all the training and knowl-
edge I had built but work to clear excess debris and habits that mufled
the voice of my intuition. I had to make room for discovery and invite
wonder.
Nine years later, I feel newer than ever, having re-educated myself in
the practice of curiosity. If Alonzo hadn’t asked this of me, I don’t know
if I would have asked it of myself. I can see more now, and I’ve realized
that I’ll never see exactly what he sees, but that’s the miracle, that’s the
“art,” that’s the overwhelming, seething divinity of being a human in the
world: that what I am capable of seeing is singularly broad and beauti-
ful, and that ininite potential lies in the practice of synthesizing curiosity
and awe into expression.
I agree with what Alonzo says about dance being a medium of trans-
parency—you can see and feel what kind of a person someone is when
he or she moves. Putting someone on the stage reveals character. I
feel supremely grateful and lucky that I have had the opportunity to
commit such a huge portion of my waking life to the development of my
character via dance. I now feel conident that I have the tools and the
ability to continue this effort for the rest of my life in any context, and
that devotion to curiosity can keep me eternally new, constantly grow-
ing. In the next chapter of my time at LINES, I get to use my current
and past experience to help other artists speak more clearly in their
own brilliant voices. By sharing what I see and inciting exploration, I Meredith Webster in Sheherazade (2010) by Alonzo King
hope to help them realize how little they actually need me. Photo Credit: RJ Muna

Page 24 2015 | Volume XXXV

In Conversation with Eric Underwood
This conversation between Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel and Eric Underwood took place on Tuesday, July 8, 2014 at Royal Opera House in London.

What drew you to a career in ballet? “pushed”. We surrender to Wayne’s directions to explore something
new – shifting the limits of ballet. And that happened as early as the
I always danced as a child. I grew up in Washington D.C. and I guess I
second rehearsal for the duet in Infra. It was a good moment for us.
was most inspired by the summer dance programmes. I trained at the
There are some days when I need the viscerality and physicality of
School of American Ballet in New York, learning George Balanchine’s
Chroma or Infra. These newer forms of ballet bring a new vitality, a
Valse Fantasie and Stravinsky Violin Concerto. That was my back-
limitless sense of creativity to rejuvenate the art of ballet.
ground in ballet.

What attracts you to work with choreographers who are reshaping

ballet in recent times? Through your experience, how would you
describe “contemporary ballet”?

Contemporary ballet is hard to deine. I experience new as well as

older forms of ballet as dancer with the Royal Ballet. We can talk about
that. For the last seven years I have been part of the Royal Ballet in
London, dancing the staple gems of the company (such as Kenneth
MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet, Manon…) as well as being part of the
creation of new works by Wayne McGregor, Resident Choreographer
at the Royal Opera House. A diversity of this kind of ballet brings me
different perspectives – a new “eye” to explore ballet. Wayne’s work
offers me great opportunities to explore new movements, new forms
of ballet.

What are the shifts and tensions in your role or position as a male
dancer as you create these new ballets?

With a lot of the new works (especially those by Wayne), the real en-
ergy and the real chemistry is driven by who I am. There are days,
particularly when I perform in Romeo and Juliet or Manon, when I
become Tibalt or the Jailer. In Chroma and Infra, I’m Eric. I walk on to
the stage as Eric; I’m not playing a role. And I guess that’s what makes
these newer choreographies intuitive to the human nature – to our en-
ergy, our chemistry. The experience of working with Wayne offers a
collaborative space. As dancers, we become the subject. I am the in-
strument - the subject to be moulded. Of course, there’s a technique to
ballet. It’s a place of structure with codes that we learn and put to use
in various works. But that structure is there to be explored. Wayne’s
creative space is a collaborative one; there’s always something new to
experience. We push the boundaries of those movements. Let me go
back to Infra; there’s a duet for Melissa (Hamilton) and myself in which
the movements are extreme. You know which part? It’s where we ex-
plore some extreme moments in the pas de deux. Yes. We surrender Infra performed by the Royal Ballet’s Melissa Hamilton and
to the space. The space is limitless for us, for our bodies. It never feels Eric Underwood. Photo Credit: Bill Cooper, 2010 © Royal Opera House

www.sdhs.org Page 25
Contemporary Ballet and the Female Body Politic
Samantha Parsons

This article examines a single pas de deux in Wayne McGregor’s until the development of the pointe shoe the female dancer was not
Infra (2008), with attention to ways in which choreographies, through celebrated. Pointework offered the female dancer an opportunity to
pointework and partnering, shape the body politic of the female dancer. showcase her skill, IF she pretended to be ideal. In terms of historical
I seek to question whether there is still a place for the pointe shoe contextualization the pointe shoe liberated and elevated the ballerina,
in contemporary ballet if it continues to hold the ballerina to an ideal economically as well as socially.4 Still balletic narratives positioned
notion of female? Consider how the ballerina en pointe illuminates the the ballerina according to social milieu as literally and physically
social expression of the female body, wrapped up in the essence of subordinate. She was incomplete and vulnerable, and according to
ballet are gendered constructs surrounding body, space, power, sex, Ann Daly “needy and ‘deserving’ of male assistance [and] chivalry.”5
and politics. I have read how pointework is “exhilarating and liberating”
Ballet in the 21st century appears to digress from the rigidity of classical
for the ballerina,1 nevertheless I wonder if the enjoyment of pointework
ballet by blurring its boundaries. New or contemporary approaches, such
is learned through practices that construct it as a symbol of status
as an evolving movement vocabulary, strive to weave global dialogue
in dance class? Can the pleasure of performing en pointe perhaps
with the aesthetics of classical ballet. Interestingly, contemporary ballet
be found in a memory of watching ballet as a young girl and being
inds it dificult to renegotiate the female body politic. The ballerina
awestruck by the exquisite costumes and the role of ballerina? Does
remains under socio-cultural discourses as the embodiment of female
this differ from the impact social media has on women’s self-esteem
ideal. En pointe and in pas de deux, the female dancer continues to
through images of beautiful princesses, skinny models, and wealthy
manifest an ideological dream created for/of women by men.
housewives? All are carefully constructed social notions of the ideal
woman that ultimately suggest a web of oppression that is considered In Infra, Wayne McGregor’s contemporary dance and technological
‘normal’ and is further embedded through performativity.2 inluences sculpt dancers’ visceral and twisting bodies through brief
and fragile relationships beneath British visual artist Julian Opie’s
My recent writings focus on questions surrounding representation of
recognizable luid electronic igures and Max Richter’s haunting music.6
the female body, speciically whether the pointe shoe is relevant to
Of particular interest to me is the aforementioned pas de deux in the
ballet in the 21st century. As I understand from the pas de deux between
second scene between Underwood and Hamilton. It is strangely bound
Eric Underwood and Melissa Hamilton in Infra, the pointe shoe serves
to old ideologies. In this scene the ballerina is constructed as passive
to frame the ballerina as sexual, restrained, and protesting.3 I see
partaker of sadomasochistic practices, an automaton, deft, sensual,
Hamilton carefully press her extended leg towards the loor, precariously
female technician. Underwood is framed as strong and muscular.
balancing on pointe while curving her luid-like spine from side to side
Together they engage in a precarious dance of manipulation, control,
to look over her partner’s shoulder. She appears caged. Tightly closing
and eroticism. Violent and erotic undertones emerge through the
her legs in sous-sous, she rolls her pelvis up against his—once, twice. I
visceral contortion of the classical vocabulary. The ballerina’s lexibility
sense a clash of ideologies between this very classical position and the
is juxtaposed with tense, sharp, poking, groping, and slashing of limbs
overt sexual innuendo.
as she moves within the conined space of the danseur’s irm grip.
The moments from this pas de deux are particularly revealing In the beginning sequence she pulls away from him, only to be met
examples of the narrative choreographies that continue to develop with his hand around her neck. This severe interaction is followed by
using prescribed gendered codes. I am searching for alternative rippling, pelvic thrusts that embed the plié. He lifts her off the loor,
possibilities for the ballerina. Depicting her as sexually subordinated folding her legs underneath her body. She slowly stretches one leg to
is no different from other social representations of female in society. the loor, placing it between her partner’s legs. He drags her en pointe
For in this ballet performance, as in so many others, the ballerina’s until she sinks to the ground. The pointe shoe appears to facilitate his
power is constructed through the pointe shoe and the pas de deux. Her manipulation as he slides her across the stage. It becomes her physical
strength and technical prowess are not shown through a presumed restraint. The danseur pulls the ballerina up. She leans stifly against
physical ability, as is the case with her male counterpart. Certainly, up him. He arranges and rearranges her body. He pushes and pulls,

Page 26 2015 | Volume XXXV

moving her off center. Once she is destabilized he once again becomes McGregor’s pas de deux focuses on the exploitation of the ballerina
her support system to prevent her from falling. At times the ballerina as object, and perpetuates a socially endorsed view of female through
appears to resist his control. She stiffens her body and binds her themes of dependence, subordination, and sexuality. Themes of
movement, pulling away from him. In other moments she surrenders to coercion surface as the female body is pushed and pulled in the duet.
his control and manipulation into surprising and sometimes precarious Through these opposing forces and the spatial tensions they create,
poses. She seductively wraps her arms around his neck and runs her the ballerina experiences her body as aflicted and limited. In this case,
hand over his arm and down his back. Near the end of the pas de deux she not only encounters her body’s physical threshold, but also in
the ballerina appears more object-like. The danseur carries her stifly performance produces an image of a docile, objectiied body. Given
like a mannequin across the stage, with one arm wrapped around her the ability to perhaps redeine discursive practices on the female body
torso. She protests with sharp, tense, scissoring legs; the pattern of in this era of contemporary ballet, why does the ballerina continue to
resistance and submission repeats until she inally surrenders into a be fabricated within the form’s traditional choreographic practices? Is
cambré. As the lights dim he slides her underneath his open legs. Her it because the modes of gender representation and gender constructs
arms lail wide and press against the loor in protest with a loud SLAP. within ballet practices are so muted? Or is this a part of the technique

Infra performed by the Royal Ballet’s Melissa Hamilton and Eric Underwood.
Photo Credit: Bill Cooper, 2010 © Royal Opera House

www.sdhs.org Page 27
itself that the ballerina learns to perform, just as she learns tendu or
arabesque. Can the ballerina exist any other way?

Notes
1. Carla Escada, “Sexual Politics and the Sugar Plum Fairy” in Ballet to the
People: What We Are Saying. November 21, 2011. http://ballettothepeo-
ple.com/2011/11/21/sexual-politics-and-the-sugar-plum-fairy/
2. Relatedly, is the idea that the female body is empowered by the male
gaze and ‘owning’ less physical space, see Sandra Lee Bartky, Feminin-
ity and Domination: Studies in Phenomenology of Oppression (Thinking
Gender). London and New York: Routledge, 1990.
3. The Royal Ballet World Premier. Pres. Martha Kearney. BBC Two, Lon-
don, 22 Nov. 2008. Television.
4. See Judith Lynne Hanna, “Gender and the Evaluation of Dance”, in
Dance, Sex and Gender: Signs of Identity, Dominance, Deiance and
Desire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988, 122-131.
5. See Ann Daly, “The Balanchine Woman: Of Hummingbirds and Chan-
nel Swimmers”, in (TDR) The Drama Review 31:1 (Spring1987) : 9.
Daly deems ballet to be “one of our culture’s most powerful models of
patriarchal ceremony”. She argues that by “positioning women as needy
and ‘deserving’ of male assistance” ballet perpetuates discursive gender
constructs.
6. Program Notes from Mixed Bill for Royal Ballet. Royal Opera House.
p.13-26 November 2008.

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“To move is to stir”:
Romeo and Juliet in Contemporary Ballet
Maura Keefe

Juliet, the dice were loaded from the start… choreographers who stage Romeo and Juliet are steeped in the tradi-
When you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong, Juliet? tions of European-American theatrical dance. Harris’s version comes
― Mark Knopler 1 from an entirely other tradition; theatrical dance based in street forms
of African American hip hop styles, including stepping, popping, ani-
In a twist on the traditional telling of the familiar scene, ilm director Baz mation, locking, electric boogie, breaking, hip hop, and house. When
Luhrmann staged Romeo’s death at the moment of Juliet’s awakening. Harris began working on Rome and Jewels, his original concept was
Rather than Juliet coming to an understanding of what occurred in the to update West Side Story. While the piece was in process, they used
discovery of his death, in his wildly popular 1996 movie, Luhrmann Leonard Bernstein’s music. As it developed they moved farther away
instead displays a horrifying moment of recognition between them as from West Side Story and closer to the original text by Shakespeare.
Romeo dies and Juliet is reborn. That scene, however it is staged, Harris came to realize how much the play itself connected with his
and however often, stings. Hurtling toward the inevitable conclusion own experience. As he explained: “How brilliant is it to write plays that
of their deaths, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet makes one ache. covers every possible scenario, experience, and situation that pres-
If only. Luhrmann, like other artists, ilmmakers and choreographers, ents itself in life?”4 He goes on to point out that to his contemporaries,
plays with convention in the telling of the story. For contemporary Shakespeare was a man of the people, not accepted by the elite. It is
ballet choreographer Edward Clug, that narrative instance became only over the centuries that his position has been elevated.
the seed for exploration in his telling of the familiar tale.2 Starting with
While the movement vocabulary is strikingly different from the balletic
Juliet inding Romeo dead beside her, the ballet unfurls as a memory.
sensibility that threads through Clug’s and Bouvier’s work, it, too, brings
How Juliet arrives to the unavoidable ending shifts from the conclusion
a contemporary choreographic sensibility to the staging of Rome and
to the beginning of the story. In an interview, Clug commented, “I
Jewels, shown in the characterizations and the overall structuring of
developed the ballet as a prolongation of that moment. What would
the piece. Most pertinent to this discussion is that rather than an actual,
have happened if Juliet didn’t take her own life?”3
corporeal Juliet, the character of Jewels is an apparition. There is no
In this essay, I explore two contemporary ballet productions of Romeo performer who dances the role. The audience creates a version of
and Juliet, Clug’s Radio and Juliet (2005) and Joëlle Bouvier’s Romeo Jewels based on their own experiences and the perception of women
and Juliet (2009). I argue that contemporary ballet versions of Romeo as seen through the eyes of the male characters. As a feminist and
and Juliet both allude to and elude the conventions of classical ballet: dance scholar, I was stunned by Harris’s choice to not have a dancer
narratively, choreographically, and in the dancing itself. Certainly, perform Jewels. The character exists, a story about a star-crossed
part of the success of contemporary dance versions lies in the sheer lovers is told, she’s just not there. Harris’s choice is a dramatic contrast
number of traditionally danced Romeo and Juliets, as well as the to every other dance production of Romeo and Juliet.
audience’s familiarity with the Shakespearean play. An analysis of the
The part of Juliet is a treasured role for ballerinas; she is a great
dances themselves demonstrates the mediation of textual elements
dramatic and dynamic character. Over the course of the story, when
by the dancing bodies and addresses the ways in which meaning
told in a traditional manner, Juliet transforms from child to woman,
can be made through choreographed action. In these two ballets, the
displaying great passion and great sorrow. Margot Fonteyn, Carla
character of and choreography for Juliet exempliies a balance between
Fracci, Galina Ulanova, and Gelsey Kirkland have all danced the role
innovation and tradition.
to great critical and audience acclaim. For the ballerina to perform
I began thinking about Juliet and her narrative function after seeing hip hop the emotional content of the very young Juliet paradoxically takes
choreographer Rennie Harris’s evening length work Rome and Jewels years of experience on stage. Of particular interest here is the way
(2000), performed by his company Rennie Harris/Puremovement. Most the character of Juliet, as well as the role for the ballerina/dancer,

www.sdhs.org Page 29
redeines the two works, the aforementioned Radio and Juliet (2005) I have also conducted numerous interviews with choreographers,
danced by the Slovenian company Ballet Maribor and Joelle Bouvier’s dancers, and artistic directors about Romeo and Juliet in my role as
Romeo and Juliet (2009), commissioned Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Scholar in Residence at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival.6 With the insight
Genève, or Ballet Genève. of those kinds of experts, I have considered pivotal and driving points of
action, such as the masked ball, the balcony scene, and the ight in the
marketplace. And, further, what styles of movement evoke what kinds
of feelings, what music is best, what characters are critical, and what is
the importance of the story itself.7

Theatre scholar Alan Hagar contends that Romeo and Juliet is virtually
commonplace:

By 1990, general knowledge of Shakespeare’s Romeo and

Juliet had become almost universal. Popular culture indicated
that it was one of the world’s favorite stories. In the age of
international English, a ‘romeo’ had become a common term
meaning ‘serial lover.’ Rock and roll songs…proclaimed [their]
love, newspaper headlines and editorials referred to the
vendetta (and love in the play) as common knowledge. Romeo
and Juliet became the symbols for the letters R and J in the
new international alphabetic code…8
Edward Clug’s Radio and Juliet performed by Ballet Maribor
Photo Credit: Cadel, 2009 Alpha, Bravo, Romeo, Juliet.

The vast number of Romeo and Juliet productions on the concert dance
My consideration of Juliet is part of a larger project that examines
stage certainly supports Hagar’s point. In fact, there are so many dance
the ways in which Shakespearean plays serve as inspiration for
versions of Romeo and Juliet that Lewis Segal, longtime dance critic
choreographers working in a variety of concert dance forms from
for the Los Angeles Times, called it “the warm-weather Nutcracker.”9
modern dance and ballet, to hip hop and Broadway. The resulting
Among the well known and highly regarded are ballets by Frederick
dances have varying degrees of correspondence to the original source
Ashton, John Cranko, Kenneth Macmillan, Anthony Tudor, Maurice
material, some portraying full and speciic narratives, such as David
Béjart, Mark Morris. Jerome Robbins, who went on to create his Romeo
Gordon’s Dancing Henry Five (2004), other dances distill the stories to
and Juliet in West Side Story, danced the role of Benvolio in the Tudor
evoke characters and conlict, like José Limón’s Moor’s Pavane (1949)
ballet. For the 1938 ilm The Goldwyn Follies George Balanchine staged
and Doug Elkins’s Mo(or)town Redux (2012)—both inspired by Othello.
a production with tap-dancing Capulets and toe-dancing Montagues,
A variety of methodologies have led me to this point. I mention them with an unusual twist of a happy ending.10
here to provide a sense of the shifting approaches that this subject
Why have there been so many versions? Dance historian Rita
deserves. First and foremost, I have watched multiple versions of the
Felciano argues that since the ballet is based on a “well-known literary
same story in person as well as recorded performances. Romeo and
masterpiece, choreographers can go back to a renewable source
Juliet can be told and danced in a multitude of ways. Dance scholar
artistic inspiration.”11 In other words, rather than simply considering
Vida L. Midgelow’s book Reworking the Ballet: Counter-Narratives and
other versions of danced Romeo and Juliets, choreographers can read
Alternative Bodies has been a critical source for considering what would
the play or look at any of the dozens of movies that have been inspired
appear to be the same dance. As Midgelow deines it, “Choreographers
by the story.
of reworkings have contradicted, criticized, dislocated, fragmented,
updated, celebrated, refocused and otherwise reimagined the ballet on In The Shakespeare Bulletin, humanities scholar Robin Wharton
stage.”5 Hence, while we may think there is only one Romeo and Juliet, argues that the audience’s knowledge going in to the theatre assists in
each dance can actually be quite different from others. the choreographic innovation. She states: “Turning to Shakespeare, of

Page 30 2015 | Volume XXXV

course, permits a choreographer to take advantage of an audience’s and Juliet inds inspiration in the story and Prokoiev’s music. However,
presumed familiarity with the plot to introduce a previously unavailable she was not interested in the speciicity of place and time, or the
level of narrative complexity.”12 Wharton goes on to assert, following weight of the full Prokoiev score. She chose instead to choreograph to
dance critic Clive Barnes and others, that the narrative is only one excerpts of three of his “Suites for Orchestra” and, as she put it, focus
element that choreographers contend with; they also contend with the her research on the crux of the drama. The narrative is present, but it’s
element of the ballet—its history, the movement vocabulary, and the evoked and suggested, rather than made explicit.
dancing itself.13
Danced by twenty-two dancers, the work opens with Romeo and Juliet
Vincenzo Galeotti staged the earliest known ballet about Romeo and dressed in light colors manipulated by the rest of the dancers in black,
Juliet in 1811 in Copenhagen.14 What we know about it is from August bringing to mind two different things. The irst is bunraku, a Japanese
Bournonville’s My Life in Theatre in which he describes Galeotti’s form of puppetry, in which three puppeteers manipulate each puppet.
strategies to make sure the audience could follow the plot. Bournonville One controls the right arm and the upper part of the body, another the
reported: “The pantomime, according to Italian form, consisted of a left arm, and the third makes the puppet walk. However, the puppeteers
complete dictionary of accepted gestures (that had been gathered from go virtually unnoticed by the audience, since their role is to animate the
Roman and Neapolitan folkways) and also, to lend greater clarity to the puppets, not draw attention to themselves. Second, the dark-clothed
whole, of written placards, tablets, banners, and transparencies which dancers can be seen the Fates or the gods who deal action dealt on
(like the Ninevite lame-writing of old) announced fateful occurrences.”15 humans.
I mention Galeotti’s version not simply for the historical record, but
In the scene at the ball, Bouvier uses visual counterpoint to indicate who
because of Bournonville’s description. To make the story clear to the
belongs with whom, rather than specify who is a Capulet or Montague.
early 19th century audience, Galeotti employed to repeat “a dictionary
Simple strategies of staging to keep the warring groups separate from
of accepted gestures” and “placards” announcing events.16 While many
each other. She employs great sweeping movements to wash across
choreographers have striven to maintain that speciicity of plot and
the stage when the company dances in unison or in canon. The corps
character, Bouvier and Clug have more open approaches to the story.17
de ballet is not only women but men and women dancing a shared
movement vocabulary together.

In building the dance, Bouvier toyed with the idea of naming the work
Juliet and Romeo to call attention to the perspective she was taking
in character development. Ultimately, she decided not to. As she
explained it, she was inspired by the timelessness of the plot, explaining
the continual relevance of Romeo and Juliet in this way:

How many wars in the world today relect the tragedy of

Shakespeare? This is why I chose not to situate my story in
a precise time. For the scenery and costumes, we will remain
timeless, because this story takes place, has taken place and
has yet to take place everywhere.19

In this observation, Bouvier shares choreographer Rennie Harris’s

sense of the present nature of Shakespeare’s works.

In Radio and Juliet, choreographer Clug foregrounded Juliet’s character

Joëlle Bouvier’s Romeo and Juliet performed by Ballet Genève.
and her action in the narrative. The title changes relects Clug’s shift
Photo Credit: Tsushima, 2011.
from the Prokoiev score to selections of music by Radiohead, the
French choreographer Joëlle Bouvier was commissioned speciically by British rock band led by Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood. Juliet is
Ballet Genève to make Romeo and Juliet. The artistic director selected the sole woman on stage, joined by six men. There is no one man
Bouvier to choreograph based on her Joan of Arc.18 Bouvier’s Romeo who is Romeo, or Tybalt, or Friar Lawrence. They move in and out of

www.sdhs.org Page 31
the characters, with only Juliet fully realized. Not only does this make As Juliet and the next Romeo gently touch, with actions that cause
her character pivotal to the action of the story, it also contends with small, inescapable reactions, their lirtation unfolds. Details of the black-
the tradition of the corps de ballet, with its often anonymous group of suited man and white-corseted woman sharpen as they slice through
women. The production is spare, without the lavish sets and costumes the air—his hand on the small of her back, at the nape of her neck. It
of many productions of Romeo and Juliet. The courtship is there, the is tender without sentiment, raw without roughness. But no matter how
masked ball is there, this time in surgical masks, as is the ferocity of intimate and personal their duet is, they will not be left alone. Within the
battle. But all of it is more abstracted than speciic. Gone, too, are the new conventions Clug establishes, it makes perfect sense that multiple
crowds, and characters that offer comic relief and secondary storylines. male bodies portray the same characters.

Once the full-bodied dancing begins, there is no doubt of the What is it that is so captivating about the characters of Romeo and
assuredness of both the training of the dancers and the understanding Juliet? Why do we all return to the story of the star-crossed lovers more
they have for the story their dancing bodies tell. Clug winnowed than 400 years after they irst appeared on the stage of the Globe with
down the familiar tale to essential elements. Juliet’s opening solo is Shakespeare’s company of actors?20 And what can we surmise about
contained, fraught with tension and inwardly coiled energy. The stage what Shakespeare might have thought about Clug and Bouvier and
is hers alone. And she is perhaps alone in the world. The irst Romeo so many others tinkering with his timeless play? He probably would
swallows space with loose-limbed ease. When joined by other men, have delighted in their versions. As noted Shakespeare scholar Frank
camaraderie and restless energy unite them with a uniform sense of Kermode explains, the characters of Romeo and Juliet were well known
speed and attack, assertive and powerful. What will it take to turn them when Shakespeare wrote his play in 1595.
from friendly competition to combative rivals?
Shakespeare’s direct source, according to Kermode, was a poem by
Arthur Brooke, who in turn based his poem on a French prose novella
by Boiastuau. Kermode dismisses Brooke’s 3,000 lines of poetry as
a “very dull work.”21 Kermode’s analysis of the two texts side by side
leads him to marvel at Shakespeare’s ability to “transform the tale into
a dramatic action, altering and compressing to make a sharp theatrical
point, telescoping events, expanding such characters as the Nurse and
Mercutio, cutting material, and inventing new episodes.”22 It may well
be argued that his sense of action contributes to the choreographic
draw of Shakespeare’s story.23 Indeed, English studies scholar Rodney
Stenning Edgecombe argues that not only is Romeo and Juliet is best
suited of all the tragedies to ballet, “not least because of its unstoppable
momentum.”24

In their respective ballets, Edward Clug and his elimination of

secondary plotlines and abstraction of male characters and Joelle
Bouvier and her distillation of the plot, echo Shakespeare’s curiosity
about discovering new ways to tell the story. Like other contemporary
ballet choreographers, they rely on the history of ballet in general and
the strength of the movement tradition, without being conined by it. In
creating a new Romeo and Juliet, choreographers can simultaneously
hint at and resist the familiar, trusting in centuries of understanding. Clug
and Bouvier’s works, and even Rennie Harris’s disembodied version,
demonstrate the pull of Juliet herself. As Balanchine notoriously said,
“Ballet is woman.” Again and again, that woman is Juliet.
Joëlle Bouvier’s Romeo and Juliet performed by Ballet Genève.
Photo Credit: Tsushima, 2011.

Page 32 2015 | Volume XXXV

 12. Robin Wharton, ““There are No Mothers-in-Law in Ballet.”: Doing Shake-
speare in Dance. Shakespeare Bulletin 23: 3 (2005) 7.
Notes
13. This interaction between multiple makers of meaning—the narrative and
Thanks to Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, especially Executive Director Ella the dancing and the choreography—can be understood as a kind of
Baff and Director of Preservation Norton Owen. Thanks to Julia Zdrojewski intertextuality. See, for example, Janet Lansdale, “Intertextual Narratives
and Janet Schroeder for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this essay. in Dance Analysis.” Decentering Dancing Texts: The Challenge of
Interpreting Dances. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

1. Mark Knopler, Romeo and Juliet, The Dire Straits © 1980 14. Rodney Stenning Edgecombe, “Trans-formal Translation: Plays into
Ballets.” The Yearbook of English Studies Vol. 36, No. 1 (2006): 70.
2. Edward Clug, Romanian-born dancer and choreographer, is the Artistic
Director of Ballet Maribor, the Slovenian ballet company. 15. Bournonville, My Theatre Life as quoted in Edgecombe, “Trans-formal
Translation: Plays into Ballets” (70).
3. Interview with the author, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Becket, Massa-
chusetts, 2 July 2009. 16. Ibid.

4. Harris’s point echoes what noted Shakespeare and dance have argued 17. In her work, Midgelow similarly selected dances, “that might broadly be
which I discuss later. Rennie Harris, Program essay for Rome and Jewels, perceived to depart from a source text (or texts) in order to give rise to a
Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Becket, Massachusetts, August 2000. new dance that has a signiicantly different resonance, while evoking a
purposeful extended and intertextual relationship with that source” (3).
5. Vida L. Midgelow. Reworking the Ballet: Counternarratives and
Alternative Bodies, (New York: Routledge, 2007) 1. 18. Joëlle Bouvier, Jeanne d’Arc (2003) with the Centre Chorégraphique
National (CCN) Ballet de Lorraine.
6. For example, I moderated a panel discussion called “Romeo and Juliet
and Ballet” at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. The panelists were Ashley 19. Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival Press Release, Ballet du Grand Théâtre de
Wheater, Artistic Director of Joffrey Ballet and former principal with San Genève, June 2011.
Francisco Ballet among other companies; master teacher and former 20. Romeo and Juliet was irst performed in 1595.
principal ballerina Anna Marie Holmes, the irst North American invited
to perform with the Kirov Ballet in Russia, and Philippe Cohen, the Artis- 21. Frank Kermode, “Introduction to Romeo and Juliet.” The Riverside
tic Director of Ballet Genève. “Romeo and Juliet and Ballet” PillowTalk Shakespeare (Boston, 1974): 1055.
series. Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Becket, Massachusetts, 23 June 22. Ibid, (1056).
2011.
23. Edgecombe (75).
7. Ultimately, I, like Juliet ask, as dance writer Julia Zdrojewski commented,
24. Ibid.
when reading a draft of this essay, what meant by the name of Romeo
and Juliet? (“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose/By any other
name would smell as sweet” Act II, Scene 2).
8. Alan Hagar, Understanding Romeo and Juliet. (Greenwood Press, 1999)
183.
9. Segal made this comment at Crossed Stars: Artistic Sources and Social
Conlict in the Ballet Romeo and Juliet. co-presented by the Dance Critics
Association and the San Francisco Performing Arts Library. See Renee
Renouf, Crossed Stars. (Dance Research Journal 26/2 Fall 1994: 57).
10. While this happy ending version seems ludicrous, in fact, in 1662,
Shakespeare’s text was re-written by Sir James Howard to have a happy
ending—in production, the happy ending nights alternated with the tragic
ending.
11. Rita Felciano, “Romeo and Juliet.” The International Encyclopedia of
Dance. ed. Selma Jean Cohen. vol. 5 (Oxford University Press, 1999:
392).

www.sdhs.org Page 33
Survivor:
The Ballet Edition
Jennifer Fisher

“Ballet is like a hooker,” I have found myself saying to explain aspects usage. Labels provide chapter titles, tell people what you do, and, in
of its history in various university classes and public lectures. “It will go dance listings, help sell tickets. All the labels for ballet have a history,
home with anyone who has the money.” but the word ballet remains popularly recognized, a particularly strong
brand. It’s not the world’s oldest profession—the hooker reference is
This tends to get a laugh for its irreverence, but as usual when I
too literal—but that’s an interesting comparison to consider. There
make jokes about dance, I have something serious in mind. Ballet is
are the historical associations—as with many dance forms all over
expensive, always needing more money—the extensive training, the
the world—because making a living with your body and the economic
shoes, the orchestra—and it’s usually not too fussy about who pays.
exigencies that dancers have often faced have produced a slight
But comparing it to prostitution? Not fair, really, because ballet is an
overlap of these two professions. Of course, if ballet were like a hooker,
elite, revered art form, perhaps outmoded at times, deinitely resented,
it would have to be a high-class version, like, say, the never-existed
but full of “class.” Still, ballet has a wily kind of longevity that has
Julia Roberts role in Pretty Woman. Improbably innocent and hard-up,
something in common with the world’s oldest profession. In its 300-
she deserved expensive things to get respect, and we all knew she
plus years, ballet has morphed into different identities in order to it in,
had a heart of gold, so—well, going back to the ballet comparison,
with different values to order—from the age when dancers, dressed as
patrons such as the handsome, super-rich Richard Gere character
courtiers, held lowers, to when revolutionaries held riles, to today’s
have always been welcome. Power and privilege gave birth to and
stripped-down beings who look like they might have been conjured by
nurtured ballet, but shifting landscapes have nudged it into different
a Silicon Valley game designer. In other words, ballet seems to survive
territory, from a centralizing and “civilizing” strategy of kings and courts,
by adapting.
to popular entertainment for the masses; from plaything of the tsars to
Ballet is opportunistic, the way we imagine hustlers to be, following the propaganda tool of the Communists; from suspicious European import,
sources of power and money. But, to be fair, so are governments and to Stars and Stripes in America. Fitting into new landscapes when
religions. And maybe you and your family. We are all opportunistic at times change is one secret of longevity.
times, trying to take advantage of different situations, or just changing
Ballet is also like a cockroach (bear with me here, ballet gets better
to keep up with the times. After all, history is written about those who
labels as we go along), in that it seems to survive so many threats
have taken the “main chance.” To be even more fair to ballet, it has
to its existence. In 17th century France, the king stopped dancing, so
adapted not only to survive, but to be creative and relevant. And what
courtiers did, too, and ballet might have become less important. But,
is this thing I’m referring to as ballet? Almost everyone knows that—
no, professionals took over and learned to appear to be aristocrats,
“recognizability” is the main advantage of being a familiar brand. Ballet
and who isn’t fascinated with people who look like they rule everyone
is the form that’s lifted, elegant, turned out, pointed, lexed, and turned
and know it all? Precision, striving, harmony, ideal forms—these are all
out again. It uses ive basic foot positions, lycra and tulle, and exacting
popular notions for upwardly mobile societies. For a while in the 19th
port de bras, although today this princess and prince vocabulary is
century, ballet might have been overshadowed by opera in Paris, so
mixed in with many other embellishments and attitudes. Ballet does
it needed to step up its game. It adapted by becoming both sexy and
whatever it takes to keep rolling along.
poetic for the Romantic era. Then when ballet started to fade in Paris,
In this essay, I do more freestyle associating than analysis, more in the it might have sunk into obscurity, but Bournonville was already going
style of conversation about the ways people use terms, how they think strong making ballet proper and intricate for Denmark’s discerning
of ballet and other labels for surrounding dance genres or styles. It’s audiences, while Petipa took it to Russia and perfected the story ballet
another way of considering how our terms and associations change extravaganza for the elite of St. Petersburg. In the new world, jazz
over time and eventually become enshrined, or not, in the annals of should have been enough for a lively, democratic nation—it was mad

Page 34 2015 | Volume XXXV

fun, and ballet was suspect, so what happened? Balanchine joyfully modern refers the older style (Graham, Wigman, Humphrey, Limon)
absorbed jazzy energies and invented “American ballet,” another label. that prevailed before various “release-style techniques” produced a
looser, free-lowing-ness. Post-Graham dance? Lately, I’ve become
For a while, it seemed ballet might be challenged by the fresh
aware that fewer and fewer people teach Graham and the shape-
democratic impulse of modern dance, which claimed all the sleek new
preserving techniques of Dunham or Horton, though they survive
deals of modernism and seemed tailor-made for intellectual content;
strongly in some locations. A new convert to Pilates, I start to worry
then postmodern dance showed us what real revolution looked like,
about dancers who have no “powerhouse”—how will they hold the
so surely ballet was on its way out. But, even as a conservative form,
shapes of historical modern dances still being staged? Ballet dancers
ballet started to absorb a lot of rule-breaking in terms of subject matter,
have caught on to Pilates and weight lifting, with a vengeance, an
sets, and gesture. Somewhere along the line, Martha Graham started
inevitable adjustment to the explosion of ballet choreographic styles.
calling her pieces “ballets,” and postmodern experiments remained
Formerly known as graceful and light, ballet now needs a powerhouse.
marginalized, while ballet incorporated many of the new reforming
Ballet has toughened up to meet the times.
impulses. Ballet started to break many rules, while modern dancers got
thinner and sleeker, like ballet dancers. Who is winning, I sometimes Not that we all agree on the history I’m highlighting here—generalizations
wonder, and is it a game? Of course not, but our minds tend to think like I have made up to this point have already riled some readers who would
that when we label different genres and start to deine and defend them tell the story differently, guaranteed. But this is the kind of conversation
as uniied entities. “Is this modern ballet?” I would sometimes wonder we all have, which doesn’t often get recorded: questioning, categorizing,
when I had to review a dance concert and label it something, “or is it reporting, searching for labels, and arguing about them. After all, you
modern with some ballet?” Let’s see, classical means careful, rounded cannot teach history—you can’t have history—without naming and
and upright, neoclassical means hip thrust and tilt, modern means chronicling things in a particular way. One of the labels I have been
contractions, weight, and loor, and postmodern means anything goes. most challenged by lately is “contemporary dance” as it’s been coopted
Contemporary? Well, contemporary comes after all of that, along with by the commercial competition dance industrial complex. After many
all that. Everything has become “post-this” and “post-that,” meaning years of hearing about so-called “lyrical” dance, which provided the
that you choose to be “post-anything” that you acknowledge having roots for a competition version of “contemporary,” I decided to write
been inluenced by. Choosing a label is, as usual, all about deciding about it. Elsewhere, I recap the brief history of so-called lyrical and its
which way the wind is blowing and how you want to weather it. questionable aesthetics (Dance Chronicle 37/3 2014). Here, I toss out
a warning: what anyone under 25 thinks is “contemporary” is probably
For a while, when I was writing about dance for the Los Angeles Times
competition dance.
in the 90s, a critic tried to name the West Coast version of ultra-athletic
modern dance “hyperdance.” Wouldn’t it be nice to have a label, he might Teaching in a university dance department, I became aware of the
have thought, instead of having to say, “You know, it’s like Elizabeth “lyrical” category over the last ten years, not being familiar before
Streb, pow, smack, only here in L.A.” I preferred the title “slam dancing,” with the competition dance world. I wanted to know more about it, in
because I also like naming things, and “slam” seemed appropriately that our dance majors nearly all had grown up in competition studios,
onomatopoetic. I understood the power of naming—usually, only dance and it wasn’t enough to know that attention spans are shorter these
critics back East get to do that. The West Coast seemed marginalized, days. I could see that younger choreographers loved acting out pop
both in the ballet and the modern realms. Wouldn’t it be nice if a Los ballads and seemed to value only extreme movement and emotion.
Angeles style of hyper-athletic modern dance became known by its I saw the same odd steps and phrases repeated over and over again
own label? But the geography of L.A. seems to let dance impulses (Gee, that collapse looks familiar, and when did lashing your hoo-ha to
disperse. Maybe labels only catch when there are denser population the audience like that get popular?) I got the creeping feeling that the
centers and more dance writers. concert dance world might soon be negatively affected by competition
dance’s shallow training methods and shortcut aesthetic (make faces
Now, there seems to be a category called “historical modern” or
and shapes to get judges’ attention). Then, as I researched, something
“traditional modern” dance—these are terms I’ve heard people throw
else caught my eye—the fact that the word “contemporary” has started
around recently--I toss them in myself--in an attempt to adjust “the
to replace the “lyrical” category in dance competitions.
grand narrative” of dance history to match what’s going on. Historical

www.sdhs.org Page 35
Now, here is an evolution of the term “contemporary” we all need to “post-Balanchine” and even “post-Forsythe,” as well as the ubiquitous
be aware of and follow the consequences of. Younger dancers do not “contemporary ballet,” depending on who you’re talking to. Along the
know that “contemporary” already has a history, as it evolved in Europe, way, ballet subtly absorbed the playfulness of boleros and salsa, the
North America, and elsewhere in different ways. But the word is also gesture vocabulary of vogueing, the thrash and despair of punk, and
generic, in that it could mean “whatever is happening now.” “Modern” is the hitting and thrusting of hip hop. Balanchine was most prominent in
also such a word, but when it became associated with barefoot dancers weaving together classical ballet and new world inluences, from the
in the 20th century, the specialist label “modern dance” also became African diaspora, as scholars have pointed out. Happily hip, ballet still
known. The word still circulates outside the dance world, but dance garners visibility, grants, and respect, even as it has changed.
insiders all learn what modern dance means. “What do you think about
To acknowledge some basic shifts in ballet, I have started to change
modern dance,” Bill T Jones was asked at a UCLA forum around the
the “overview” term I use, from calling it a “Euro-American” or “Euro-
turn of the new century—“You know, the kind the kids do nowadays, hip
Russian-American” form, to, as Joan Acocella once suggested, a “Euro-
hop and krumping?” We all recognized this as a confusion that occurs
African-American” form. Ballet arose in Europe, developed signiicantly
when you don’t know the dance world. Now, however, a more general
in Russia, and came to America, so labels might reasonably adjust now
confusion is occurring, mostly due to the producers of So You Think
to acknowledge the huge inluence Africanist aesthetics have had on
You Can Dance replacing the “lyrical” category with “contemporary,”
it through Balanchine irst. That part of ballet heritage is often glossed
because it sounded more sophisticated. It sounded sophisticated, but it
over and “invisibalized,” as Brenda Dixon Gottschild and others have
was still the competition category “lyrical” after it started including more
concluded. Ballet can swallow up inluences and march on without
angled, hard-hitting movement, probably around the time hip hop was
calling attention to them, because the word “ballet” is irm, enduring,
going mainstream.
and iconic—like love-life, storytelling, spiritual-seeking, and showing
So, what we have now is the generic word “contemporary” used to off. What I see onstage now is Europe and Russia and Denmark,
describe both Hubbard Street Dance Company, and formula dance plus Africa, and whatever emerges next to temper its strength. Ballet
contestants who embrace hip hop crew-style cheering, extremes, absorbs whatever it wants, while never giving up the basics that can
and frontal orientation. If you want to see a condensed version still be read on the stage as ballet.
of the “moves” that occur over and over in the competition version,
We are in the middle of dance history, so it’s hard to tell what labels
you need only look at a viral YouTube clip that provides the formula
will stick and how they will evolve, as the victors and the interlopers
(keywords: “contemporary dance how-to”). A satirist who calls himself
continue to write it. I’m starting here with the premise that ballet
“Contemporary Eric” demonstrates 15 “moves” that you can put
survives—and, to the metaphors of “hooker” and “cockroach”, I’m now
together in any order, add emotion and an Adele song, and presto, you,
adding the idea that ballet survives like a philosophy, a religion, or a
too, can be a contemporary dance choreographer. (Picture sudden
man-made compound you can build with. Which ballet am I talking
startled responses and ragdoll shakes, and moves he describes by
about now? Still the one we recognize enough to make it a topic, the one
saying you have a serious conversation with your knee, then put it
that started in Louis XIV’s era, had golden ages in Paris, St Petersburg,
down because you realize you shouldn’t be doing that.) It’s funny, as
and New York, then migrated all over the world. Ballet accrued even
they say, because it’s true: for the competition world, where everything
more intellectual content eventually, when choreographers like William
boils down to a formula.
Forsythe started reading theory and approaching it like a puzzle or
Even “competition contemporary” tends to use ballet as a base, mind game. Jiří Kyliàn stepped up the complexity and deathless
and I feel sure that competition babies will not succeed in toppling beauty of duets, providing a breadth of vision that has never stopped
the substantial identity that contemporary dance has built. Both appealing. Alonzo King brought ballet closer to spirituality, explaining
“contemporary ballet” and “contemporary” labels, as they exist in the that dance is about nature and life, and something larger than you,
professional world, rely a great deal on classical training and will always about what is honest and true. By stepping out of the ordinary, he
exist in overlapping ways. It’s just another way ballet has changed over suggests, you partake in an important ritual, where you can see the
the 300-plus years it’s been evolving in conservatories. First there highest incarnation of human beings. Current choreographers keep
was “modern ballet” and “neoclassicism” to indicate some departures going—some of them even challenging gender stereotypes, which are
from Petipa-land. Then there came “post-neoclassicism,” or perhaps particularly entrenched in the ballet world. The idea of “the thinking

Page 36 2015 | Volume XXXV

dancer” gets more and more expanded, even in a realm where taking
orders has been the rule of law.

Ballet is one of the clearest labels in the dance business, despite

all the changes that have taken place. I say it survives because of
its adaptability—and I happily give the last word to the philosophy
and religion metaphors, moving on from ones that emphasize its
dependence on commerce, or its sheer ornery persistence. Ballet
adapts, grows, and serves many needs successfully, without breaking
the law, while it remains an art form capable of deep meaning. It
evolves while providing an endlessly fascinating model for the striving
of human beings to be their best selves; ballet is a model of harmony,
or embodiment of loss. It’s art, commerce, and politics (not forgetting
who is excluded and possibly worn down in that model); and the word
“ballet” endures because it tends to mean a dance form that includes
the recognizable core of elements, those ive basic foot positions, turn
out, grace, precision, careful placement, and lifted and extended limbs.
It tends to conceal effort and has a strong relationship to pointed toes
and verticality, except when it doesn’t. It’s a durable, protean brand.

Is “contemporary” dance, whatever that is, watering it down? Enguling

the art form? Does competition dance diminish it? Do the many
experiments equal endangerment or extinction? I doubt it, but when
you’re the big dance form on the block, you invite (and repay) a lot
of critique and examination. What we call things matters, of course,
and my premise is that a discussion of meanings—the way they
are used, and how much they are in lux—is more interesting than
seeking deinitive deinitions. I propose we enter the “tends to be used”
zone, as I’ve done so frequently here. As in—“Classical ballet tends
to be vertical, rhythmically straightforward, and strictly aligned, while
neoclassical ballet plays with all that.”

I introduced the term “tends to be used” to Wendy Perron recently

when she spoke to a group of dance majors at my university, and she
found it useful right away when someone asked her what she thought
of as “contemporary dance.” I won’t attempt to quote her answer, but
the reason “tends to be used” came in so handy will be obvious to those
of us who know in how many ways the term “contemporary dance”
pops up in different contexts. As scholars, we want to honor history
and evidence, but we also have to admit to the way things tend to
shape-shift as time marches on. Ballet, I suggest, is one of the most
stable labels, even as it absorbs, adapts, and changes. It endures. Or,
at least, it has tended to endure, so far.

www.sdhs.org Page 37
 Vectors was published in the Dynamic Body in Space. She is External
Contributors Examiner for Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and was
awarded the 2014 Distinguished Alumna medal by the University of
Utah Ballet Department. www.gleichdances.org
Gretchen Alterowitz is a choreographer, scholar, performer, and Maura Keefe, Ph.D., is a contemporary dance historian. She is a
educator whose research focuses on the social and cultural work scholar-in-residence at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, where she
of contemporary ballet choreography, performance, and pedagogy. writes about, lectures on, and interviews artists from around the world.
Companies and festivals that have presented her choreography She has served on the board for the Congress on Research on Dance
include Atlanta Ballet (emerging choreographer’s series), Wabi Sabi, (CORD), as a dance panelist for the New York State Council of the Arts
Grachtenfestival (Amsterdam), and Women on the Way Festival (San (NYSCA), and as chair for the Department of Dance at the College at
Francisco). Alterowitz recently published articles in Dance Chronicle Brockport. Keefe teaches dance history and theory and choreography
(2014) and Journal of Dance Education (2014). She is also a member of at the College at Brockport, State University of New York.
AGA Collaborative, a trio of artist-scholars who collaborate on research
and performance projects. She is assistant professor of dance at UNC Ann Murphy is Assistant Professor and current Chair of the Mills
Charlotte, teaching ballet technique, dance history, and choreography College Dance Department, San Francisco. Her chapter “Bill Robinson
and Shirley Temple Tap Past Jim Crow” will appear in the Oxford
Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel, Ph.D., is Senior Lecturer in Dance Studies at Anthology of Screendance Studies, out in spring 2015. She also
the Faculty of Education at the Royal Academy of Dance in London and recently contributed to and co-edited Rhythm Field: The Dance of
sits on the Executive Board of the Society of Dance History Scholars Molissa Fenley, a collection by fellow artists about the 25-year career
(2012-2015). Her scholarship on Transmodern Dance Practices is of the choreographer and dancer. The volume is due to be published
articulated through the contemporary ballets by Angelin Preljocaj, by Seagull Press this spring. Murphy, a dance critic in the Bay Area for
Mauro Bigonzetti and their re-imaginings of Bronislava Nijinska’s Les over 20 years, writes for the Bay Area News Group.
Noces (1923). Dr. Farrugia-Kriel has presented at several international
conferences within North America, Europe and South Africa. When time Ann Nugent, Ph.D., is a British dance critic and senior lecturer at
permits, she examines postgraduate dissertations at the University the University of Chichester, where she teaches criticism and writing.
of Cape Town’s School of Dance as well as guest lectures at the Her research focuses on the choreography of William Forsythe and
University of Malta. - following some 50 articles, papers and broadcasts about his work,
she is currently completing a monograph for publication. She was
Jennifer Fisher, Ph.D., is the author of Nutcracker Nation: How an founding editor of Dance Now and, subsequently, editor of Dance
Old World Ballet Became a Christmas Tradition in the New World Theatre Journal. Her irst career was as a dancer, with London Festival
(Yale, 2003), which won the Special Citation of the de la Torre Bueno Ballet and Sweden’s Gothenburg Ballet. She continues to work as a
Prize given by the Society of Dance History Scholars. She co-edited freelance critic, and is a regular contributor to the Shinshokan Dance
with Anthony Shay When Men Dance: Choreographing Masculinities Magazine, Japan.
Across Borders (Oxford, 2009). An associate professor in the dance
department of the University of California Irvine, she is also a ballet Jill Nunes Jensen, Ph.D., instructs courses in dance history and ballet
coroner whose most recent inquest into the death of Giselle was held technique at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. In 2014 Dr.
at the San Francisco Ballet. She is writing a “memoir ethnography” Nunes Jensen completed two terms of service on the SDHS Executive
titled An Autobiography of Ballet. Board as the Corresponding Secretary. She has presented work at
CORD and SDHS conferences both nationally and internationally. Her
Julia K. Gleich (MFA, MA) is Choreographer and founder of Gleich research on Alonzo King LINES Ballet has been published in When
Dances; Head of Choreography at London Studio Centre; faculty at Men Dance (Oxford University Press), Dance Chronicle (Routledge,
Trinity Laban; and Co-Founder of Norte Maar for Collaborative Projects Taylor & Francis), and Theatre Survey (Cambridge). Additionally, she
in the Arts in Bushwick Brooklyn, NY. Gleich produces and curates has an article on King and AKLB that will be published in Dance in
CounterPointe: women making work for pointe in NYC and London. American Culture (University of Florida Press, forthcoming).
Her original research on movement theories using Mathematical

Page 38 2015 | Volume XXXV

Samantha Parsons is a movement analyst, dance educator,
researcher and scholar. She holds a BA (Honors) in Dance Education
from the University of Surrey and is currently pursuing a Masters in
Liberal Studies through State University of New York - Empire State
College. She received her certiication in Laban Movement Analysis
from IMS. Her interests lie in the analysis of 21st century balletic forms,
systems of representation and recent discursive dance practices.

Caroline Sutton Clark is a doctoral candidate at Texas Woman’s

University. Coming from a range of experience in modern dance,
butoh, ballet, and other forms of world dance, Clark received her BFA
from the University of Michigan and MFA from the University of Hawaii,
where she received the Carl Wolz Award for outstanding graduate
student in dance and a Hawaii State Dance Council Choreographic
Award. An avid oral historian, Clark’s dissertation research focuses on
the monthly performances of Austin Ballet Theatre at a psychedelic
rock and country music hall during the 1970s.

Eric Underwood trained at the School of American Ballet in New

York, joining Dance Theatre of Harlem in 2000 and American Ballet
Theatre in 2003. He joined The Royal Ballet Company in 2006 as a
First Artist, creating roles in Christopher Wheeldon’s DGV: Danse à
grande vitesse and Wayne McGregor’s Chroma, and was promoted to
Soloist in 2008. In almost a decade with the company in London, he
has created roles for Wheeldon in Aeternum, Electric Counterpoint and
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (the Caterpillar), and for McGregor in
Infra, Live Fire Exercise, and Tetractys – The Art of Fugue.

Meredith Webster studied dance under Jean Wolfmeyer, at the Harid

Conservatory and Paciic Northwest Ballet School. She has worked
with Sonia Dawkins and Donald Byrd in Seattle and earned a BS in
Environmental Science from the University of Washington before
joining Alonzo King LINES Ballet. In her nine seasons there, Webster
performed and originated many central roles, received a Princess
Grace Award, and guested at gala events around the world. In August
2014, she moved into the role of Ballet Master for AKLB..

www.sdhs.org Page 39
 Annual SDHS Awards
• Distinction in Dance Award, awarded to an individual whose
professional, artistic or scholarly work has made a signiicant
contribution to the ield of dance

• de la Torre Bueno Prize®, awarded annually to the Best Book in

the ield

• Gertrude Lippincott Award, awarded annually to the Best

Article in the ield

• Selma Jeanne Cohen Award, awarded to up to three students

for exemplary conference papers

• Graduate Student Travel Grant, granted to subsidize student

travel to conferences

For further details and submission information please visit our website
at www.sdhs.org

News

Page 40 2015 | Volume XXXV

SDHS Awards
Prize Winners for Outstanding Scholarship
2015 de la Torre Bueno Prize®
Prarthana Purkayastha (Plymouth University, UK) Indian Modern Dance, Feminism and Transnationalism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)

2015 de la Torre Bueno Prize® special citation

Rebecca Rossen (University of Texas-Austin, USA) Dancing Jewish: Jewish Identity in American Modern and Postmodern Dance (Oxford University
Press, 2014)

2015 Gertrude Lippincott Award

Sherril Dodds (Temple University, USA) “The Choreographic Interface: Dancing Facial Expression in Hip-Hop and Neo-Burlesque Striptease” in
Dance Research Journal 46: 02 (Aug 2014): pp. 39-56.

2015 Selma Jeanne Cohen Awards

Naomi Bragin (University of California, Berkeley, USA) “Global Street Dance and Libidinal Economy”
Brianna Figueroa (University of Texas at Austin, USA) “Economies of the Flesh: Scripting Puerto Rican Colonial History through Dance”

2015 Graduate Student Travel Awards

Celena Monteiro (University of Chichester, UK) for her paper:
“Screening Subjects: Transnational Dancehall Queen Culture in a Social Media Age”
Heather Rastovac Akbarzadeh (University of California, Berkeley, USA) for her paper:
“Does Iranian Dance Need Saving? The Politics of Preservation in the 1st International Iranian Dance Conference”
Maria Eugenia Cadus (Buenos Aires University, Argentina) for her paper:
“Electra (1950): Argentine Ballet and Welfare Democratization in a Mass Public Event of First Peronism”

www.sdhs.org Page 41
SDHS Publications
Studies in Dance History
SDHS’ monograph series
published by the University of Wisconsin Press
Forthcoming
Katherine Profeta
Dramaturgy in Motion: At Work on Dance and Movement Performance
Yutian Wong, Editor
Contemporary Directions in Asian American Dance Studies

Call for Monograph Submissions

The Editorial Board of the Society of Dance History Scholars is actively seeking submissions of manuscripts for its monograph series Studies in
Dance History.
Because the society deines dance history in the broadest possible terms, the board encourages submission of manuscripts on a wide range of
topics. Submissions & inquiries may be sent at any time to Sarah Davies Cordova, Chair, Editorial Board: [email protected]

Conversations across the Field of Dance Studies

Call for Contributions
Dancing the African Diaspora
Guest Editors: Takiyah Nur Amin and Thomas F. DeFrantz
This volume of Conversations across the Field of Dance focuses on the complex routes of identity and exchange that produce ‘black’ and
‘African’ dance in the twenty-irst century and considers contemporary African dance; routes of theatrical performance that include Africa in global
opera-house settings; black social dances traveling to and from the continent via Central and South America; and pedagogies of teaching African
dance in university settings.
Deadline for submissions: June 30 2015. Please forward submissions to Thomas DeFrantz ([email protected]) and Takiyah Nur Amin
([email protected])

Call for Guest Editors / Special Topics

We invite proposals for single issues of Conversations by individuals that would like to guest edit a special topic issue. Conversations is
conceived as a ‘cross-over’ publication that speaks to research agendas and the profession, addressing the concerns of the ield through
discursive, polemic, poetic and experiential articles.
Guest editors / topics will be selected by the SDHS Editorial Board.
Proposal for topics/guest editorship can be sent at any time to Norma Sue Fisher-Stitt, Managing Editor: [email protected]

Page 42 2015 | Volume XXXV

Conference Proceedings SDHS Editorial Board
SDHS 2014 Proceedings: Writing Dancing / Dancing Writing Editorial Board Chair
Sarah Davies Cordova (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
SDHS 38th Annual Conference held jointly with CORD, University of
Iowa, Iowa City, USA. Managing Editor, Conversations across the Field of Dance Studies
(available at https://sdhs.org/proceedings-2014) Norma Sue Fisher-Stitt (York University)

Editorial Board Members

• Susan Cook (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Forthcoming Conferences
• Sherrill Dodds (Temple University)
May 20-21, 2016
SDHS Special Topics Conference – • Norma Sue Fisher-Stitt (York University)
“Contemporary Ballet: Exchanges, Connections • Jens Richard Giersdorf (Marymount Manhattan College)
and Directions”
Center for Ballet and the Arts, New York University (NYU) • Hannah Kostrin (Ohio State University)
Program Committee Chairs: • Ramón H Rivera-Servera (Northwestern University)
Jill Nunes Jensen, Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles, USA)
• Rebecca Rossen Pavkovic (University of Texas-Austin)
& Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel, Faculty of Education Royal Academy of
Dance (London, UK) • Linda J. Tomko (University of California, Riverside)
Local Arrangements: Ariel Osterweis, Skidmore College
May 25-29, 2016
4th Historical Dance Symposium – Italy and the Dance
Rothenfels am Main, Germany
http://www.historical-dance-symposium.org/en/
November 3-6, 2016
SDHS Joint conference with CORD
Pomona College, Claremont, California, USA.
The Society of Dance History Scholars will be partnering with the
Congress on Research in Dance (CORD) for our 40th annual
conference in California.

www.sdhs.org Page 43
‘Conversations Across the Field of
Dance Studies’ Editor
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