Viva partnering, ballet, and la différence
When people think of ballet—if they think of it at all—they often think of dancing on pointe, something only women do in ballet. George Balanchine, one of the greatest choreographers of all time, famously said, “Ballet is woman.”
Then again, he was a man. And, although it’s not PC to say so, he was somewhat of a rarity in ballet in being a heterosexual man.
Not that they don’t exist in ballet, of course. They do, indeed they do. And when they do they generally have a sexual field day because of the interesting ratio of heterosexual woman (high) to heterosexual men (lowish) in the ballet world.
I disagree with Balanchine; but then again, I’m a woman. As far as I’m concerned, you could instead say, “Ballet is partnering.” The pas de deux is a staple of ballets both traditional and modern, and has proven to be a tried-and-true and protean form adaptable to almost any dance context.
Back when I was dancing, my personal experience with partnering surprised me. What is required of the woman is what you don’t see—what is hidden by the impression of tremendous grace—and that is a tremendous and steely strength.
Not upper-body strength to lift; that’s what the man must have, who must also take care to hide the effort involved and not telegraph it or make it look anything but easy.
But it’s not too hard for an onlooker to imagine how difficult it must be to lift a woman; after all, we’ve all lifted heavy things. And even a 100-pound dancer is heavier than the usual bag of groceries. It’s much harder to imagine the strength the woman needs to hold her pose in the air, even upside down at times, and to conquer her fear and trust a partner who quite literally holds her fate in his hands.
The first time I did it I was about sixteen years old, and fear of heights (yikes! I’m way up there!) made me collapse my back and lose the pose. The strength, both mental and physical, required some time for me to gain.
But when I did it gave me an exhilarating feeling of defying gravity while carving a beautiful shape in space, in addition to creating something romantic. It’s the same for partnered turns, or for any movement connected to partnering, although lifts remain something special.
In addition to the sheer physical thrill and the artistic satisfaction involved, partnering takes the woman back in time to an era when feminine was feminine. Now of course we have feminism, which is something else entirely.
You might say that ballet is feminist, in a way, because it gives a prominent—perhaps even a more-than-equal—role to women. You might say it’s retro, in a way, in that the role it gives tends to revolve around traditional ideas of beauty, grace, and supposed fragility masking strength.
But men and women are different, and ballet not only doesn’t ignore that difference, it celebrates it. Partnering in ballet usually involves emphasizing the difference, and as the French say (French, after all, is the language of ballet), “Vive la différence!”
But there is another strain in ballet, and it is an even older one, interestingly enough, that emphasizes the similarities and unity that coexist with the differences. August Bournonville, a choreographer who was active in the early and mid-nineteenth century ballet in Denmark, was known not only for his emphasis on the male dancer, but for the style of his pas de deux, which emphasized equality and harmony.
In many Bournonville ballets, which are still occasionally performed, you can see a sort of “mirroring” in the pas de deux, in which the two dancers are on their own much of the time and dance the same steps. Here’s a photo of the sort of thing I mean (it features Carla Fracci and Erik Bruhn—the latter a well-known Danish dancer who became an international star—and although I believe it is of a non-Bournonville ballet, “Giselle,” it nevertheless illustrates the style I’m describing).
In the traditional (and, in terms of chronology, somewhat later) pas de deux, the man is more of a porteur. His function is to display the woman while he fades into the background. It is the opposite of the sexual differences in birds: she is the showy, colorful one, and he the drab underling (literally):
The flamboyant Rudolf Nureyev was instrumental in reversing that trend. He always managed to upstage his famous partner Margot Fonteyn, who was the essence of British refinement and taste, whereas he was the quintessential Russian emoter.
Nowadays, of course, almost anything goes in the pas de deux world. In fact, it’s not just nowadays; here are Fonteyn and Nureyev again in an uncharacteristic pose of reversal:
I’ll close with a photo of perhaps the most exquisite ballet ever choreographed, Balanchine’s “Serenade,” in which all the dancers seem to be bathed in the glow of moonlight and dream.
The picture illustrates a mysterious portion of the ballet that involves an unusual sort of partnering. A female dancer is in arabesque, that very familiar dance pose that involves standing on pointe on one foot with the other leg swooping in a high arc behind her. She holds the pose, then holds it some more, and then slowly—in a moment that always makes the audience gasp with surprise and wonderment—revolves majestically in a circle.
What’s happening? The illusion is cleverly hidden so the audience doesn’t see the trick aspects, but there’s a man kneeling behind her and turning her with his hands so that it looks as though she’s doing it by herself.
But she’s not, of course. Sometimes he may take center stage, sometimes she may. But to partner, and to create the illusion of beauty and magic, both are needed in equal measure.
[ADDENDUM: I have found a video featuring some very brief and patched-together excerpts from “Serenade.” It includes (at minute 1:43) that wonderful moment I described above. The ballet is notoriously difficult to film, because it relies on flow and illusions and patterns and must be seen in a theater to view them properly. But this is all I’ve got right now:
[NOTE: These reflections were sparked by a post blogger and reader Ymarsakar wrote featuring a You Tube video of an ice skating couple and a related discussion of men, women, culture, and feminism.]
I met my wife when she was studying ballet at the University of Oklahoma under Yvonne Chateau and Miguel Terekow in the 1960’s. They were a great husband and wife team and when they joined in the college performances he would hold his hand under the small of her back and lift her one handed over his head. Of course she held her position with precision and appeared to be floating while he seemed to be lifting a feather.
You are absolutly right about the grace, strength and control ballet folks have to develop. And after a good performance the guys cannot spike their partners and do a touchdown dance, they are required to just continue moving with grace.
Thanks for posting this, neo. I dance a little myself (although not ballet dancing), and I always enjoy reading your dance posts and your meditations on dance.
You wrote:
That hits the nail on the head. Grace and fragility masking strength are what makes older women so impressive and (IMHO) so much more interesting than younger women in the flower of youth.
Very interesting. Thanks.
Er, sorry I wasn’t listening. Had the pre-season game on.
of course, Nureyev was so much prettier than Fonteyn….
the exquisite artifice of ballet, musicbox in the war zone!
thanks, neoneo
(returns to the arduous rewriting of Hamlet with George Bush as the Prince, Barbara as Gertrude, and Condi as Ophelia….)
When you write about art you shine. Good piece of work here. Beautifully written.
Interesting post – not something I’d normally read either so I find myself asking why I enjoyed it.
One, is that it was beautifully written. Two, is that it was written about beauty. Several years ago my oldest daughter, then in her early twenties, asked me to go with her to a ballet in which a friend of hers was to dance. I agreed because I love my daughter and enjoy spending time with her, but I expected the ballet to be a real snooze fest.
How wrong I was. I enjoyed it in two ways: one part the graceful beauty of the dance itself, which was satisfying on an emotional – almost spiritual – level, and also to the feminine sexuality of the dancers themselves; their tiny costumes, the movements, their poses, everything. Those girls were hot!
Afterwards, my daughter asked what I thought and I gave her my honest reaction, both parts. She thought it was hysterically funny and laughed at me about it for the rest of the day. For the next week, she told everyone we met how she’d taken me to the ballet and I thought the dancers were hot. It never failed to get a laugh. It’s true though. I practically fell in love with them watching them dance. It was a very powerful experience. Of course, being in a small auditorium and sitting near the front, those women were dancing right in front of me, so that probably increased the experience and the feeling of intimacy and being drawn deeply in. But there was something very primal about it, something I responded to on many levels. I’d go again. I really enjoyed it.
I had decided to post my Ice Figure skating link half way through reading your post, Neo, but you got there first ; )
I do want to post a link to Jamie and David however, because it describes their relationship in more detail
By the way Neo, there’s a broken br tag in your link to my Ice Figure skating post. It causes it to go to my main page rather than it.
Fixed, Ymar.
Those girls were hot!
The one thing that is sure to attract men of all ages. Really really beautiful and graceful women, ; )
Thanks, Neo. The funny thing is, much of my interest in harmony comes from my interest in warfare, tactics, strategy, and leadership.
I love it when a plan comes together, to paraphrase the A-Team.
Beauty can be both serene and lovely, or magnificently destructive and shocking.
The light and the dark, both sides of the same face of existence.
Maybe I’m getting too metaphysical. I was always philosophical at heart.
I often despise and feel contempt for the Islamic Jihad. Their inability to accept the help of what would have been their other half, their partners, creates weaknesses that is not shown on their faces. It is shown on their souls. It is so easy to shatter the souls of those that lack the true essence of strength.
I am curious about one more thing, Neo. When did you start writing this post, given that my post in question had been written awhile ago?
Ymar: I jotted down some general ideas for it close to the time I first read your post. But I didn’t actually compose it until the day I put it up on the blog.
That’s not an unusual process for me; I’ve got notes for about 100 unwritten-as-yet posts, mostly on topics known as “evergreens,” meaning they’re not tied into a current event and can be used on days when I don’t feel like writing about the news.
I do remember you saying something to that effect before. One reason for my asking, since I suspected but was not sure.
I often have to get out what I’m thinking when the muse strikes, because often later I can think of nothing to write. (bad rhyming couplet?) Even using a few minutes for revision might change the flow. Which is why having a more or less error free first draft was such an important skill to try to acquire; it makes things a lot easier.
Some years ago, I went to see a dance exhibition put on by a friend–the instructor.
The crowning piece was to “Bolero”. I asked her later how she’d manage to sweep the high school–that was the age of the performers–linebacker corps into dance.
“Oh,” she said, “they weren’t dancers. We had the girls bring in their boyfriends. We taught them to partner. That’s different. And you never noticed they weren’t dancing.”
I sure didn’t.
It was different from ballet. The guys were much bigger than their partners. That added some basic eroticism to the dance without a single hip sashay being thrown in.
IMO, they could have taken it on the road.
I “love dance” — and took many courses at university (USNA & Stanford):
Folk, Tap, Jitterbug, Ballroom, and Modern; as well as boxing and karate. While I like modern OK, and the hot hot babes, the flowing graceful “harmony” movements were a bit effeminate for me (since faggy is such a non-PC description). I recall one same-sex partner exercise where we decided to do more push-up / karate type moves. Most martial arts have a significant dance like set of movements which are more “oppositional”.
The teacher liked it, but I still stopped that course.
Wasn’t there a great movie about two women’s lives who had been rival young dancers, one who got married and had a young daughter beginning to dance, the other remaining a diva (once with 17? curtain calls) — perhaps The Turning Point?
It’s too bad the homosexual men are so dominant / pervasive in ballet. “Sleeping with Madonna” had some notes on this, too. I think the reality show dance competition will be good for getting more men interested in being better dancers.
Tom Grey: It was indeed “The Turning Point.” Not the greatest of movies, I’m afraid, although it was halfway decent. But Barishnikov is a wonderful dancer, and Ann Bancroft is always of interest (although she couldn’t even fake being a dancer effectively, IMHO).
I had a small—actually, an infinitesimal—role in that movie, you know. Read this:
http://neoneocon.com/2005/06/08/heres-to-you-anna-maria-louisa/
“The one thing that is sure to attract men of all ages. Really really beautiful and graceful women.”
Combined with the one thing that is sure to repel men of all ages. Really really beautiful and graceful men. In tights.
Spandex + lumps = disturbing.
What a great article on partnering, which was my forte when I was a member of the Boston Ballet in the early 70’s. I can’t take issue with a single point you made.
Your point of view is beautifully expressed and insightful. I’d be interested to know more about your life and experience as a dancer/teacher. I did find the link to your small part in “The Turning Point” and understand that you are now a therapist–about which you also write lucidly. I’m interested because after retiring from ballet I went back to school for a degree in psychology.
I’m not a big follower of blogs, but I shall have to explore yours thoroughly as I get rewarded at every turn. Keep up the good work.
Great article. As a ballet dancer for many years, I can appreciate such extensive thoughts on dance.