Sleeping Beauty over time
I often complain about how ballet has lost much of its charm and art, sacrificed to ever more spectacular technique and tense gymnastics. The greatest of the olden-day dancers didn’t raise their legs as high, and didn’t perform as many turns, but they were more enjoyable to watch because they transcended the doing of steps and they conveyed the fluidity of dance. The greatest of the newer dancers – most of whom I don’t consider great, but others do – show off their poses and extensions (that’s a term for how high the leg lifts) but tend to ruin the line in the process. Who wants to see a 180-degree split in a tutu? Not me.
I think this video shows some of what I’m talking about. You can see a general decline (in my opinion anyway) from the fluid charm of the elegant Fonteyn and the effervescent Sizova in the first two clips, to a more stop-and-go and slightly static sort of movement (is that an oxymoron?) later in time – although the very last dancer does somewhat better than the ones in-between; and Cynthia Gregory, a dancer from the 70s whom I usually like, is somewhat miscast in this role because of her natural restraint and regalness.
The ballet is “Sleeping Beauty” – not one of my very favorites, but it’s good for illustrating what I’m talking about. The occasion is supposed to be the 16th birthday celebration of Princess Aurora, and this is her first entrance. These dancers aren’t 16, of course, but their art is supposed to aid them in suggesting the innocent and radiant joy and energy of a 16-year-old.
Note particularly what Fonteyn does between minutes 1:42 and 2:17. The steps are simple, but it’s the use of the arms and upper body that is so magical (unfortunately the film quality is blurry). Sizova’s clip starts at 2:41, and you can see her amazingly light and airy jump. Her arms movements are more simple for that same portion I called attention to with Fonteyn, though; you can view Sizova’s version from 3:56 to 4:16:
The same sort of athleticism v artistry is occurring in ladies figure skating. Maybe you’ve already posted about this, but in my dotage I can’t remember.
tcrosse:
In my own dotage I can’t remember either, but I think I have. At least figure skating is considered a sport, unlike ballet.
Part and Parcel of the decline of Western Civilization?
Perhaps Klaus Schwab will save us by welding the physical, digital, genetic and biological together in everyone, as he assures us that the Fourth Industrial Revolution will bring…
Klaus Schwab has taken over quite a bit if your cognitive ability already. You must have been one of his beta subjects. Is he hiding under your bed tutu?
While I’m not into dance Neo and many commenters are.
I can appreciate the skill if not the aesthetics.
And I thought the topic was about the fairy tale and the 1959 Walt Disney “Sleeping Beauty” …
That film haunted me and to some extent still does. I’ve gone back to those animated Disney classics. They hold up.
Sleeping Beauty is a promising career opportunity for “Lia” Thomas once it gets done wrecking girls sports.
It also happened in gymnastics. Women’s gymnasts used to be graceful. It ended with Nadia Comaneci. Olga Korbut started it, but Nadia Comaneci, while scoring perfect tens, had none of the grace a fluidity of her predecessors.
But, like figure skating, it is a sport.
I guess even if I’m not ‘into’ dance I have become sensitized to notice it when I am surfing the web. I did like these:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fiH9edd25Bc
https://andsomeitsjustaswell.tumblr.com/post/649274905490325504
https://64.media.tumblr.com/8f610c7daad22f6343b10683038a60ae/tumblr_povxkoApmT1sb2hm8o6_540.gif
With luck copy and paste will work with a browser
Enjoy!
T
I think I may have seen that 2015 ABT production of Sleeping Beauty, although I have no idea if the same dancer played the lead. If it’s the one I recall, they deliberately chose to perform with lower extension and try for an older, more fluid, style of ballet.
neo:
Does the ballerina get to ad lib her bow, or is it ordained by the choreographer ?
tcrosse:
That’s up to the dancers, but there are certain conventions.
Something similar to neo’s observation about ballet has happened with rock guitar.
Back in the 60s when Jimi Hendrix burst upon the scene with his wildly inventive guitar sounds and incredibly fast blues runs, he blew all the guitar gods away. No one could touch Hendrix. Pete Townshend speculated that he and Eric Clapton became friendly at that time because they were both threatened by Hendrix.
However, today there are many shredders who make Hendrix’s playing sound quaint, almost leisurely. No one IMO has outdone Hendrix in exploiting feedback, but for sheer guitar virtuosity he no longer sounds like the revelation he was in 1967.
However, it doesn’t take long before shredding for shredding’s sake becomes tiresome and one appreciates Hendrix for the whole package, such as the deep, delicate classic:
–Jimi Hendrix, “Little Wing”
https://vimeo.com/166581864
Accept no substitutes.
I’ve never been a fan of ballet, likely because I’ve never known anyone that took part in it. But this is rather fascinating seeing several versions of the same ballet performed by different performers under different directors. I find myself agreeing with your critique.
Maybe you could expand this into a running stop/start analysis a la Wings of Pegasus (that British guitarist) and really give us an education.
Never been the same since Anne Rice did an interesting twist on the story…
Anne Rice casts her lurid gaze upon the the traditional tale of “Sleeping Beauty” under the pen name of A.N. Roquelaure. Her re-telling of the Beauty story probes the unspoken implications of this lush, suggestive tale by exploring its undeniable connection to sexual desire. Reminiscent of the charged erotica of her novel Belinda.
she just died 🙁
Anne Rice, who has died aged 80 after a stroke, was one of the foremost writers of supernatural fiction, and the author of more than 30 novels. The best known of them was her debut, Interview With the Vampire, published in 1976, and adapted in 1994 into a film starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Kirsten Dunst.
A bit more on Hendrix’s “Little Wing”:
________________________
The song is particularly revered among guitar players. Tom Morello wrote in this 2011 tribute to Hendrix in Rolling Stone: “It’s just this gorgeous song that, as a guitar player, you can study your whole life and not get down, never get inside it the way that he does. He seamlessly weaves chords and single-note runs together and uses chord voicings that don’t appear in any music books.”
https://www.songfacts.com/facts/jimi-hendrix/little-wing
________________________
According to SongFacts Hendrix didn’t write the song for a woman, he wrote it for the Monterey Pop Festival personified as a woman.
Here’s Eric Clapton’s version of “Little Wing.” Quite wonderful too, but doesn’t reach Hendrix’s shimmering beauty.
https://societyofrock.com/eric-clapton-pays-tribute-to-fallen-friend-jimi-hendrix-with-little-wing/
I agree on the rise of pyrotechnics over artistry in much of our professional dance today. I hope it abates. Fonteyn’s bouree’s around 1:40 are so quiet and exquisite. Thank you, Neo.
Just recently my husband and I watched Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story. We were dreading another awful remake of a classic and were pleasantly surprised by the superb singing by the two stars — Ansel Egor and Rachel Zegler.
We also did not find the story steeped in too much wokeness, which was a relief.
But overall the dance disappointed us both. My husband never danced much and didn’t quite know why he preferred the original movie’s dance choreographed by Jerome Robbins and danced by marvelous dancers like Russ Tamblyn and Rita Moreno.
I thought about it for awhile and then decided the problem is that the new version uses today’s dancers who have very different bodies than the dancers in 1961 – the men are far more muscular, almost burly and don’t jump as high or extend their legs as in the iconic Jerome Robbins moves that are somehow explosive and lithe at the same time. And mostly in this version the men don’t elevate much when they jump. Jerome Robbin’s version has the male dancers seemingly taking flight with explosive vitality. They are much slimmer, less muscled, but more masculine in my view. A stunning masterpiece of dance, at least for me.
Rita Moreno was also fabulous. The women dancers in the remake are very competent but again more earthbound than in the original. I can’t seem to find out who choreographed the dance in the remake.
Thank you Neo for another dance post!
1. Both Fonteyn and the dancer in “Bolshoi 1964” have recognizably female bodies of normal proportion. Cynthia Gregory is so tall that she is unconvincing as a 16 year old, although graceful. The “Bolshoi 1980s” dancer is painfully thin and elongated. She has some lovely gestures but is unconvincing as a 16 year old – she cannot escape being a ballerina, and she does not connect the whirling en-point passages into one expression of joy as Fonteyn, the 1964 dancer, and the ABT dancer do.
The dancers in the Paris Opera and the American Ballet Theatre clips are more normally female but still longer-torso’d than Fonteyn and the 1st Bolshoi dancer.
2. Costume plays a significant role in this. The dancers with fabric skirts and normal sleeves look the part and the (over)extensions of the more modern dancers are less obvious.
Both Bolshoi dancers are costumed as “Ballerinas” but that poor 80s ballerina is made even wispier by those dangling cobwebby sleeves. She would have made a completely different impression had she been dressed like Fonteyn or the Paris Opera dancer. Her lovely arm gestures would have been charming instead of freakish.