Run like a dancer
“Esplanade” is a work by modern dance choreographer Paul Taylor that highlights the difference between modern dance and ballet. Ballet dancers are sometimes drawn to Taylor’s more graceful pieces such as “Esplanade,” because at first glance seems it seems as though they’d be suited to a balletic style. But I’ve never seen the crossover work really well. The effect is something like an opera singer trying to perform jazz or pop: the technique is strong but the tone, the emphasis—and, in the modern-to-ballet transition, the weight—are so different as to be virtually nontransferable.
When I speak of “weight,” I’m not talking about poundage. Ballet dancers are almost always ultra-light, and modern dancers can either be very light too or a bit more muscular and solid. But that’s not the difference I mean. Ballet training is geared towards pulling the entire body upwards to create a lighter-than-air illusion, while modern dance works with gravity to make grounded shapes. Ballet fights to conquer gravity; gravity is modern dance’s friend.
In a traditional ballet corps the idea is to dance as one. Individuality can come out in the soloists, but for a classical corps member it’s ordinarily not a virtue. Modern dance has no corps, and the dancers are chosen specifically for individuality. Paul Taylor especially emphasizes this, preferring dancers at extremes either of physique (very tall or very short) or quality of movement (distinctive) or both. It is said that at every audition he requires the dancers to run and to walk, and if they don’t pass muster on those moves, they’re eliminated.
“Esplanade” was choreographed in 1975, and it’s a work of inventive genius. Although lengthy, it employs no recognizable dance steps, just walking and running and jumping, and falling to the floor quite regularly. “BOR-ing!” you might say, and I’d forgive you for saying so, but if you did you’d be wrong. You can see why when you watch Esplanade, which has been posted in its entirety (in five parts) on You Tube. Here’s the final segment:
Pat benatar was classically trained
Benatar was cut off from the rock scene in nearby Manhattan. Her musical training was strictly classical and theatrical.
Training as a coloratura with plans to attend the Juilliard School, Benatar surprised family, friends and teachers by deciding a classical career was not for her and pursued health education at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. At 19, after one year at Stony Brook, she dropped out to marry her high school sweetheart Dennis Benatar, an army draftee who trained at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
And don’t forget Balanchine ballet and jazz dance w herbie Harper For slaughter on tenth ave
Agnes demille also was part of this fusion on broadway and film with “Oklahoma!” “carosel” “brgadoon”
see Katherine Dunham, Jerome Robbins, and Jack Cole
that was the birth of the choreographers and the dancers that could do whatever was asked
later bob fosse would expand the repetoire by no longer self censoring the erotic and literally anything and everything was mashed together by then. 🙂
Have u seen the recent hoopla w the African American ballet dancer? Heavy thick legs yet she is graceful and beautiful to watch. I wish I could remember her name
For the little I know about dance – I liked it. The energy/physicality was astounding but then again, I get winded going up an escalator.
I think Bach is smiling on this dance– I have often thought many of his orchestral pieces have a dance-like quality, and good for Paul Taylor for giving them such stunning visual expression.
The women are feminine but very athletic. Something tells me the typical ballerina wouldn’t throw a baseball like a girl, but i could be wrong.
I’ve never had a taste for ballet but I like to see modern dance companies.I loved the Esplanade. Thanks for the link. Pilobolus and Momix are some of my favorite companies; they even land in flyover country and perform in Iowa once in a blue moon or two.
Wow…at the end she doesn’t even look like she’s breathing hard.
Thanks for this!
Sammy Davis on choreography:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgWxUipUYjA
If they were running and falling at random, it would be boring. I thought the patterns and rhythms were beautiful.
I don’t know anything at all about dance but for some time have been intrigued by what people who do like it, and write about effectively, seem to see in it. So I recently made an effort (see this blog post, which didn’t really come to much–see this blog post. But I quite like this piece, better than the others I sampled. It actually makes me feel something, rather than just admiration for the physical skill involved.
Concentrating on not messing up those URLs, I left out the right paren which should follow the first “post”.