Dressing for the Dance

Dressing for the Dance For decades, the masters of modern dance gradually pared down the traditional elements of the art—costume, music, even movement itself. They also pared down their audiences. Today, our author writes, dance is fitting itself out in a new set of clothes and hoping to renew itself as a more popular art form. by Joyce Morgenroth n the intimate performance spaces of Dance costumes also reflect the chang- New York’s eclectic downtown concert ing role of theatrical dance within society. Idance scene, audiences can expect to Once integral to the functioning of aristo- find politics mixed with their art. In her cratic regimes, dance now often aims to dance, Sarah, choreographer Ann Carlson, subvert the political status quo. Rejecting wearing a strapless dress and high heels, the aristocratic aesthetic underlying the symbolically upends traditional notions of European dance tradition, American con- femininity by turning herself upside down cert dance since the turn of the century and sticking her ladylike heels up in the air. has broken free from the inherited values Christine Doempke, dancing in combat of decorum, virtuosity, expressivity, and boots, presents herself as strong and awk- beauty. This impulse unites Isadora ward, casually disregarding the usual expec- Duncan’s sandaled and loosely draped tations of dancerly grace. Mixing wit and reaction against pointe shoes and tutus at social commentary, these dancers commu- the beginning of the century, Martha nicate not only by how they move but by Graham’s angular, percussive denial of what they wear. ballet’s lyricism a few decades later, and The use of costumes as social statements Merce Cunningham’s withdrawal from is probably as old as dance performance narrative and separation of music from itself. In the 17th century, the lace con- dance beginning in the 1950s. It continues spicuously displayed by aristocratic in the Judson Dance Theater’s rejection of dancers in the royal courts of western virtuosity and even basic dance technique Europe reflected their privileged role in during the 1960s, and soon thereafter in society, just as since the 1960s dancers in the minimalists’ ultimate questioning of elastic-waist pants and T-shirts—or, on the very urge to move. occasion, wearing no clothes at all—have Yet by repudiating elegantly turned-out announced the coming of sexual equality positions, soaring leaps, and multiple and freedom from formal social con- pirouettes, by giving up narrative and straints. doing away with glamorous costuming, 88 WQ Spring 1998 In Sarah, Ann Carlson uses a pair of high heels and black dress to comment on one vision of femininity. modern dance not only parted ways with among the artistic elite in order to survive. classical ballet but abandoned the qualities Taking to the dance floor in well-worn that for centuries had attracted audiences. sneakers, the Soho dancers of the 1960s Trying to escape from aesthetic assump- might not have traveled so far as they prob- tions associated with wealth and inherited ably have believed from their 17th-century privilege, and hoping to forge an aesthetic forebears in fancy heeled pumps. better suited to a democratic and pluralis- tic society, the new American dance allet and modern dance grew out instead ended up producing inaccessible of courtly traditions that germinat- work that excluded the general public. Bed in Renaissance Italy and flow- While the elegantly attired courtiers of ered in the court ballets of King Louis XIV prerevolutionary France had a captive in 17th-century France. Although based audience of court aristocrats, 20th-century on the social dances of the court such as American dancers cultivated an audience the gavotte, the courante, and the gigue, Dance 89 these choreographed spectacles were ted bodice and a tonnelet, or much more elaborate affairs, flared, short skirt that revealed with spoken verse and music the shape of the legs in their interspersed with balletic entrées hose; for the women, dress- performed by professional es of heavy fabric tailored dancers and select nobles. In to the torso with full the final grand ballet, social skirts that entirely con- dance steps were performed cealed legs and feet. By by members of the court, who the symbolic addition of traced detailed, symmetrical a garland and other pas- floor patterns designed to be toral embellishments, a seen by the audience seated in courtier might repre- the court’s raised galleries. sent a shepherd in a The young Louis, himself court ballet. In such renowned for his talent in costumes one dance, came to be was both a known as “the shepherd and Sun King” after a count, he played Apollo playing in the Ballet de la roles in a ballet and in nuit in 1653. the continuing drama of Dancing well was a prerequisite for advance- ment in the elaborate court life Louis created to bind an occasional- King Louis XIV as Apollo in ly restive aristocracy (some of whom had the Ballet de la nuit joined in the Fronde uprisings of 1648–53) more closely to his royal per- son. “A solemn frivolity is one of the sound tools of despotism,” historian court life at the Louvre and, André Maurois dryly observes. Dance, later, Versailles. The costumes with all its costs in both time and also dictated the forms of dance money, was one of many pursuits itself. The style of movement was Louis cultivated to keep France’s restrained by heavy and cumbersome aristocrats preoccupied. “As a mat- clothes that restricted the mobility of limbs ter of policy, Louis forced magnifi- and torso. The shoes, like the normal cence upon all,” Maurois writes. “He footwear of the court, had flexible soles drained everyone by making luxury hon- which allowed for small springing steps, but orable, and thus reduced the courtiers to the raised heels worn by both men and dependence upon his bounty for their women limited the possibility of jumping. existence.” In both form and content, the court ballets served a variety of political hen Louis stopped performing purposes. It was no accident that in the in the 1660s, he raised the pres- Ballet de la nuit, Louis’s sun arrives— Wtige of professional dancers, accompanied by Honor, Grace, Love, once restricted to comic and grotesque Riches, Victory, Fame, and Peace—in parts in court entertainments, by allowing time to drive away thieves looting a burn- them to assume noble roles. He also gave ing house (symbolizing France). It was his approval to several new academies that said to be the king’s favorite role. sped the rise of professional dance, begin- Dancers wore costumes in the style of ning with the short-lived Académie Royale court dress: for the men, a coat with a fit- de Danse, launched in 1661. It was soon > Joyce Morgenroth is associate professor of dance at Cornell University and the author of Dance Improvisations (1987). Copyright © 1998 by Joyce Morgenroth. 90 WQ Spring 1998 followed by the Académie Royale de would require nothing short of a real revolu- Musique, which took up residence in the tion before such radical changes in costum- Paris Opéra and became the home of ing could take hold. opera-ballet, in which dance and sung The expressive style found its most elo- drama were mixed. Performances were quent advocate in the dancer and dancing open to the paying public, but aristocrats master Jean-Georges Noverre. Reacting and aristocratic sensibilities still dominat- against sterile movement and declaimed nar- ed. Yet with a new professional class of rative, he argued emphatically in his Lettres dancers performing on public stages, fur- sur la danse et les ballets (1760) for a form of ther divergence of stage dancing and court dance in which the movement itself could social dancing, and of performer and spec- reveal human emotions. To allow for this tator, was inevitable. change, Noverre called for an end to the stiff A formal school for the training of dancers tonnelets and the elimination of masks that opened at the Paris Opéra in 1713. Beyond hid the natural emotions of the face. The the practice rooms, dance was also being particular style of movement he espoused codified in print, notably in Pierre Rameau’s included mimed sequences that we today Dancing Master (1725), which described would find stilted and melodramatic, but and illustrated correct posture, the five Noverre’s broader principles would power- turned-out positions of the feet, and proper fully influence the story ballets of the next execution of dance steps. century. Innovations in dance costume inevitably The great transition in dance began with accompanied these changes, and they were the French Revolution. With the end of the heralded by two rival star ballerinas—the court’s dominance, dance became more two Maries. Marie Camargo, debuting in accessible to the people, its popularity Paris in 1726, quickly won acclaim for her helped in an odd way by the system of cen- apparently effortless and brilliant technique, and especially for her entrechats, jumping steps in which the feet are crossed several times in midair. She was the toast of Paris. To make it easier for her to perform these difficult steps—and for the audience to see and appreciate them—Camargo shortened her skirts a few inches. Widely imitated, the shorter skirt eventually permitted an array of allegro techniques—brilliant jumping steps such as the now-familiar jeté, sauté, and cabriole. It also inaugurated the progressive shortening of the ballerina’s skirt, which led, in the 20th century, to the now-familiar stiff, hip-length tutu. Camargo’s great rival, Marie Sallé, as reserved in her personality as Camargo was effervescent, was known for the dra- matic, expressive quality of her dancing.

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