Although in its origin the term pas de deux simply defined any dance performed by two dancers –regardless of their sex– it would later imply a structure of a combined duo in which the male holds the female, who performs slow steps of plastic splendour or dynamic movements of acrobatic virtuosity. These novel acrobatics provided a great impulse to the art of choreography, and they were in part propitiated because the male dancer saw his work made easier, since for the first time he could see what his partner’s legs were doing while holding her, either on the floor or in the air.
Also at that time the pointe shoes evolved to becoming almost what we know as present day shoes. The Russian School16 gave another twist to the work begun during the Romanticism: the dancers could now perform sur les pointes, for example, fouetté en tournant [a turn outwards, around the axis of the dancer, which is the current emblem of technical acrobatics17], the petits sautés [literally, “little jumps”], the promenades [turn of the dancer on her axis while the man helps her to keep her balance on pointe] and other steps now common in classical dance. As the decades passed, more new steps were added to each re-staging of the Romantic ballets, probably because to the choreographers it seemed absurd to only use these new discoveries in their own new creations, and soon ballets such as Giselle passed through the hands of Marius Petipa18 or Agrippina Vaganova,19 who with all good intentions, incorporated their newly invented movements according to their own personal criteria.
During the 20th century, studies and experiments of scientific interest on movements of the human body would open up a new field in the art of choreography, and the dancer will be presented on stage, for the first time, as a mobile instrument and not as a character. The futurists, symbolists, dadaists, expressionists…20 opened new windows onto the world of dance which, later on, would lead the founders of Modern Dance to change the lightness of classical ballet for heavier movements, elements of tension and contractions, other evolutionary movements related to the reflected emotions, as well as to the images they project upon the audience.21 The social changes, once again, would penetrate the creative process of dance, and a generation of female choreographers and dancers would claim their place on and off stage, freeing themselves from the artistic concepts that had been imposed on women by male choreographers for centuries. The corsets disappeared as a female ornament thanks to the work of artistic pioneers such as Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis, or Martha Graham and Mary Wigman years later;22 women were decisive elements in the new aesthetics of the scenic dance.
Meanwhile, the natural heirs of the academic ballet –led by Michel Fokine23– would find their place in Sergei Diaghilev’s Les Ballets Russes24 and although they would revolt against the stereotyped characters, situations and predictable movements of Petipa’s ballets, at no time did they renounce the academic heritage and training they had received; quite the contrary, they renewed it, allowing themselves to be affected by new aesthetic currents, encouraged by Diaghilev himself. In a few decades, the novelties applied to ballet by those who we now call neoclassicals25 were mixed with the experiments of scholars perhaps less trained in choreography and professional dance, but great transgressors with respect to the analysis of movement.
Thus, the space/shape movement studies developed by Rudolf von Laban,26 for example, would have a major effect on the use of direction and space in choreography; George Balanchine’s dancers would perform décalés on stage in rehearsal clothes, showing bodies and choreography without any artifice.27 Little by little, the tendencies were intermingled and the expressive and aesthetic creative thinking was widened. The choreographer, the Ballet Master, the dancer, as well as the tastes and demands of the audience, have been constantly influenced by the ever-changing stage costumes and vice versa.28 All this has not only been the cause but also the vehicle and consequence of all this evolution.
1 “Ballet,” in La Grande Encyclopédie Larousse… 2018.
2 “Ballet,” in Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary… 1996.
3 CLARKE - CRISP, The Ballet Goer’s Guide… 1981, p. 6.
4 cfr. HILTON, “Ballet Technique /… French Court Dance,” NOLL HAMMOND, “id. /… Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries,” and GLASSTONE, “id. /… Since the Mid-Nineteenth Century,” in International Encyclopedia of Dance… 1998.
5 In fact, the influence of the costume goes far beyond mere choreography to reach any show or even any public act; cfr. MCCORMICK, “Costume in Western Traditions/An Overview,” in International Encyclopedia of Dance…
6 CHAZIN-BENNAHUM, The Lure of Perfection… 2004, p. 3.
7 JÜRGENSEN, The Bournonville Tradition… 1997, vol. 1, p. 4.
8 BOURNONVILLE, “Lettres sur la danse…,” 1st letter, 08.07.1860, transl. 1999, p. 24.
9 In French in original.
10 WEIKMANN, “Choreography and Narrative…”, 2007, p. 55.
11 For further discussion, vid. AU, “Tutu” , in International Encyclopedia of Dance…
12 “Tutu,” in The Oxford English Dictionary… 2018.
13 Giselle, ou Les Wilis, music by Adolphe Adam, choreography by Jean Coralli & Jules Perrot, libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint Georges on an original story by Théophile Gautier after Heinrich Heine’s De l’Allemagne and Victor Hugo’s ‘Fantômes’ from Les Orientales, premiered at la Salle Le Peletier –Théâtre de l’Académie Royale de Musique– in Paris, June 1841. La Sylphide, music by Jean-Madeleine Schneitzhoeffer and choreography by Filippo Taglioni, libretto by Adolphe Nourrit on Charles Nodier’s Trilby, ou Le lutin d’Argail, premiered at la Salle Le Peletier in Paris, March 1832.
14 Petipa’s ballets marked the greatest splendour of Classicism; Swan Lake, La Bayadère or Don Quixote are still performed by the world’s leading dance companies; vid infra, chap. 8.
15 Also associated to the later tutu designed by Karinska because of the free layers of fabric that built the tutu.
16 This is the pedagogical system created by Agrippina Vaganova [vid. infra, nt. 19] at the Imperial School of Ballet. Today it is named after her, Vaganova School, and provides dancers to the Mariinsky Ballet; the Vaganova School crystalized the purest tradition of classical ballet.
17 They can be performed individually or linked one after the other, as we can usually see in the coda of most of the classical pas de deux; the female dancer usually performs 32 fouettés in 32 musical measures of 2/4; vid infra, chap. 8, nt. 40, and chap. 7.
18 Based in Russia, Petipa created a huge repertoire and consolidated the academic ballet training; he also re-staged the old romantic ballets as they were performed in Russia; vid. infra, chap. 8.
19 Dancer and teacher at the Mariinsky Ballet in Saint Petersburg. It was her career as a ballet teacher what gave her prestige, but she also re-staged new versions of old ballets and choreographed some original pieces like Carnival in Venice Divertissement or Diana and Actaeon Pas de Deux.
20 vid. infra, chap. 10 and