Frank Rodriguez

Dance 3126 – The Moving Body in Media and Performance

October 30, 2011

The Development of Western Concert Dance: Celebrating Male

Ordinance

Focus and representation of human movement can be traced

back to times of ancient peoples where human movement and dance

was captured in cave paintings and statue-like artifacts.

Examples of means of capturing body performance can be traced

back to early times of ancient Mycenaean Greece as described in

Lillian Lawler’s The Dance in Ancient Greece. Dances for funerals and

weddings were captured through artistic representations in

statues and vases (Lawler 1964). Individual and group depiction

of dance in these art forms reveals people in various positions

with slightly lifted legs, holding items which can be considered

markers of their role in society such as bow-and-arrows, tools,

etc., and facial expressions were sometimes detailed to convey

emotion. Considerable uses and interpretations of ancient dance

have been to train individuals to be soldiers, branching

generational gaps for societies, and to be able to connect with

supernatural entities such as gods and deities. While some dances

in ancient Greece were for pure social interaction, several were

filled with ideas of gender relations, labor distribution, and

community orientation towards certain shared ideologies. While

dance has served as a chief avenue for expression throughout

history structures and ideas of movement in dance performance, as

well as preserving dance such as the ancient Greeks, run deep

with cultural constructions that aim to achieve goals that

instruct others how to behave and pass on ideas of aesthetic to

others.

While dance has held a wide range of societal functions

throughout its rich history across time and even geographical

regions, what can be arguably certain about dance is that it is

filled with construed ideologies which first serve to provide a

framework for society to gauge itself against and second, provide

either a perpetuation of dominant ideology, challenge dominant

ideology, or confront it altogether. Because of the fact that

ideas of emotion, narrative, and conflict are forced to be

represented by bodily movements rather than voice, it is

important to remember that any form of message attempting to be

carried out in dance performance shall be done through body

movement itself, placing a crucial role on social and culturally

constructed ideas behind each movement that the audience

sees.  This social phenomenon where socially constructed ideas

are conveyed through bodily movement is particularly true

regarding the development of Western concert dance over time. It

can very much be argued that the development of Western concert

dance is one that is filled with sexualized symbols which keep

the male-dominant societal ideals in place. Male dominance is

illustrated in ballet by way of the sexualized ethereal woman,

regard for homosexuality, and the value of the way in which males

are deemed as “providers” for the usual male-female sexual

relationship where the female is viewed as the passive receiver

of his “maleness”. Before analyzing the course of development in

Western concert dance in any particular direction, it is crucial

to evaluate the value of the symbol at the macro-level cultures

and how the symbol and its spatial relations work together to

relay meaning and relation.

Interaction with Symbolism

Culture consists of behaviors and understandings which are

learned and passed on to later generations through a wide range

of ways. Culture instructs its members on how to behave and

provides means to understanding the world around them (Nanda &

Warms 2009). Members of cultures adopt cultural values and norms

and repeat the cycle of cultural education. While a significant

portion of passing on culture is through child upbringing, a

major source of gaining an understanding on cultural norms is

through the performing art of dance. As previously mentioned,

most types of cultural dances serve a purpose but regardless of

the goal of the dance, it will always be rich with cultural

symbols that give insight as to how one should move, maintain

posture, utilize their bodily extremities, and possibly relate to

others nearby.

Marcel Mauss expresses this point in his discussion of

movement as socially constructed in his Techniques of the Body. For

Mauss, it is crucial for an individual to learn movement of his

culture to be a part of the authority system that a society

functions by. Mauss also brings up the possibility of an inherent

society of men and a society of women within each society. These

two pillars in Mauss’s understanding of societal constructed

ideas of movement because they bring about the possibility of the

highly intertwined values of gender and authority, which in turns

brings the question as to why gender and authority must be so

highly integrated. Given the extent to which Mauss describes

various movements and their purpose, it becomes given that each

movement done by a person is performative. Because all movement

can be argued as being performative, aesthetic judgments

inevitably come into place when others participate with movement

or even witness it. George Birkhoff’s addresses how aesthetic

appreciation becomes significant in situations in which one

observes movement in Mathematics of Aesthetics. Birkhoff describes

feelings of aesthetic as deriving from “an unusual degree of

harmonious interaction within the object”. If the given argument

that each movement is performative and therefore filled with

social meaning, it must also be given that this social meaning

serves as the catalyst for arousal from audience participants.

These types of aesthetic reactions should motivate members of a

society to want to preserve their dances, as illustrated by the

efforts of the ancient Greeks who captured dance through

sculpture. Erwin Panofsky gives insight on one way in which this

type of effort was pursued throughout history at times when there

was a need to capture social and cultural phenomenon on flat,

two-dimensional, paper representations in Durer as a Mathematician.

During the times of attempts to rationalize through earth

quantities, one can understand that it is not substantial for the

human race to observe and participate with dance performance, but

it is also necessary to actively engage in documenting dance,

possibly as a means to achieve cultural education. Documenting

movement by means of mathematics points to the significance of

individual visual interpretation of movement and which implies

that movement is not a meaningless activity that we engage in,

but something that we must be actively aware of.

Declaring the claim that movement, both mundane and

technical, is rich with cultural and social symbolism is

necessary in order to analyze the development of ballet in

Western culture. This analysis of the development of ballet in

Western culture will utilize this necessary claim in order to

develop the following ideals that have served to maintain the

male-dominant status quo over the course of ballet’s development:

1.      Objectification of the female.

2.      Celebration of the heterosexual male provider.

3.      Generalization of class levels.

As mentioned in Power and the Dancing Bodies by Sally Banes, observing

dance can be insightful to understanding out social practices.

Because social practices are reflections of social ideologies,

observing dance equates observing social ideology. For Chris

Shilling in The Body and Social Theory, death is the central importance

of the sociology of the body. For Shilling, it shall be valid to

interpret symbolism in movement as illustrations of efforts for

individuals to reach certain desired states before death. Because

this should be true for societies at the macro ideological level,

the thought of death should be a central catalyst in life

perspectives that we are presented in dance performance. Socially

constructed perspectives that revolve around the idea of living a

favorable life before death can be argued to reinforce the regard

that religion asks for from society. One possible argument for

how social ideologies revolving around religion remain a secure

pillar in societal behavior is because there is no means to

disprove religion, therefore there are no was to invalidate these

understandings. Understanding the importance of social constructs

in the interpretation of movement performance is the basis for

being able to provide a critical analysis of Western concert

dance.

Renaissance

            A crucial theme of the renaissance time period was an

innovative approach to understanding the human body interacting

with the world around it. New questions were asked as populations

across Italy and France became greater connected through

advancement of trade and technology. Because man was now the

center of focus in nature, there became a need for self

expression through art (Lee 2002). Social dance was one means of

conveying ideas of the body and relationships as it allowed for

this visual self expression that was sought after by many.

Commedia del arte was another form of expression which focused on

ideas of tragedy and love. Commedia performers traveled and gave

performances focusing on these two major ideas with many of their

stories surrounding the importance of acquiring love,

companionship, and ultimately marriage. Being that such art from

the renaissance can be argued as the origins for the royal court

ballets of King Louis XIV, and ballet in general, one can relate

the need for self expression with a focus on the yearning for

love to being central for all of ballet.

            Given that man was now oriented as the center of

nature and had a desire to convey desires, one can possibly begin

to observe signs of egocentrism in which heterosexual

companionship was the general standard that many were expected to

long for. This inherently implies that it is through this type of

companionship that one may find happiness. This social message

begins to become apparent after consideration of the physical

means in which commedia artists tried to convey their themes in

performances. Commedia artists utilized masks in their work in

order to remove the physical actor from the situation and help

him or her to become one with the story being portrayed. This

aimed to aid the process of self expression, increased the need

to effective bodily communication that the actors would perform,

and brought the actors to the present to provide greater bodily

expression.

            Considered to be one of the first court ballets, Le

Balle de Polonais (1573) is where structure and hierarchy begin to

take roles of symbolism aiming to convey meaning. Performed for

Polish ambassadors, Le Balle de Polonais used 16 female dancers to

depict the 16 provinces of France. The dancers performed by

creating formation patterns and symmetrical spatial relations in

order to elicit positive responses from the noble audience.

Symbolism worth noting which was present in this piece is what

the aim of the rigidity of the movement across the floor implied.

Throughout the development of Western concert dance, and in

Western media and performance today, there has been a continuous

focus on the naturalness of the female body, namely as the source

of nature itself – where life springs from. The subtle and overt

sexualization of women in ballet illustrates this concept in

light of the celebration of the strong male provider figure. The

societal constructed focus on the female body as the tomb of life

is important regarding what the depiction in Le Balle de Polonais was

aiming to accomplish. Having women mobilize in an almost

harmonious state of functionality and order speaks to just how

the society in question desires to maintain a functional and

orderly state for its women, its child bearers. This of course

entails the standard of female objectification alongside male

dominance however the point of maintaining a functionalist is one

worth unfolding as it closely relates to one key way in which the

male dominant status quo remains in place.

            French sociologist, Emile Durkheim’s theory

of functionalism which describes each institution of society as

deeply related and dependent on one another, and it is necessary

for each institution of society (religion, government, education,

art, etc.) to maintain their roles to ensure harmonious function

for a society (Urry 2000). It is through maintaining

functionality and not questioning the status quo of it that

pervasive, everlasting ideologies continue to pervade across

generations in a society. Royal court ballet fits the

functionalist approach in addition to the physical movements in

the way that the performers relate to the audience members.

Having audience members view the performance from above creates a

sense that they are worthy of being able to view and measure the

universe functioning from their perspective. This is closely

related to the renaissance view of man as the pivotal point of

nature where he is entitled to measure the world around him.

Baroque Ballet

            The development of ballet within the realm of King

Louis XIV is closely connected to the integration of art as a

means to represent power. In Peter Burke’s The Fabrication of Louis XIV,

he maintains a theme that is centered on understanding the

importance of how one constructs themselves and how this should

be viewed in a holistic manner, as court ballets served to

instruct members of this society how to view and obey their king.

For the court ballets within the baroque period, the important

experience that was to be taken from performance was proximity to

the divine and its integration with representation of power.

Representations of authority, being combined with elements of the

supernatural are difficult to question due to the difficulty

associated with questioning religion. By orienting depictions of

power in line with the essences of functionality that the public

is meant to passively adopt, yielding to royal authority becomes

an essential value that the public will accept. Geometry and

symmetry helped to elicit certain responses from the audiences of

court ballets in that these patterns in performance help to

remove the humanness behind the dancers and utilize them as

figures for visual purposes.

King Louis XIV utilized his palace of Versailles to further

institute the methods that were responsible for his power

depictions. It may be possible to argue that creating an

environment of high standard and regard for the hierarchy of

court ballet, and the court itself, speaks elements of

selflessness on behalf of Louis XIV however it’s important to

consider that this rigorous order served to place him in line

with worshipped divinity. The lavishness of Ballet de la Nuit (1653),

where Louis XIV earned his nickname “The Sun God” demonstrates

how marvel allowed hierarchy to secure itself as the correct way

to understand power and authority. Associating performance so

closely with the hierarchy of the court placed baroque art in a

divine light.

While royal court ballet of the baroque period can be

regarded as a distant spectacle meant to observe, it also was

inviting for other trained members of nobility to participate.

Engaging those of qualified status to participate in this

spectacle multiplies the impact understanding authority in

relation to King Louis XIV. Allowing social members to engage in

the performance hints that the hierarchical structure of the

court was a desired social standard to meet that brought harmony

and favorable conditions in life. Active engagement with baroque

performance was an example of how passive adoption of the status

quo is important in maintaining it.

In Meredith Martin’s Dairy Queens, she explains the ways in

which the institution of the pleasure dairy integrated gender

distribution and social behavior of gender relations was crucial

for female representation from the 17th century until the French

Revolution. One theory on female behavior in the dairies was that

their time was filled with minuscule frolicking behavior however

Martin voices the point that these dairies served as a form of

safe havens were women felt in control and comfort in carrying

out their tasks. Gender generalizations should not be passively

accepted as they are under functional mentalities for societal

harmony. Assuming an informed understanding of such a social

institution as dairies in the 17th century is what is important

in keeping males in a privileged position much in the same way

that accepting male dominance has been a part of the development

of Western concert dance throughout history.

Given the story of Moliere (Mnouchkine), one can understand

the desire for a competence in baroque art that was sought for

during the time period. Monsieur Jourdaine’s to make a positive

impression by understanding performative art also illustrates the

ideology of finding companionship. Monsieur’s attempt to meet his

sexual needs by way of displaying a competence in performance

shows how sexualization can very much be a significant aspect of

something as divine and regal as relations within the royal

court. It is nearly admitting that having membership to the royal

class justifies sexualization of women and sexual relationships.

Because royal hierarchy is validated as the way to understand

society, sexualization can also be taken as a necessary value

that members of society can take on.

The Enlightenment

For Immanuel Wallerstein (The Bourgeoisie as Concept and

Reality), education is critical in the formation and securing of

human capital. There must be the question of to what extent are

our current education systems maintaining certain cultural norms

as worthy ones and others as subordinate. One can relate this

concept of what role education plays in developing valuable

understandings to that of ballet in the enlightenment, or 18th

century. There are distinguishable levels of stratification in

ballet where leading dancers hold roles and command attention

from audiences and members of the ballet corps exist for background

staging effect and function as one generalized entity. Observing

this relation in ballet performance can make one question to what

degree is this representative of the relationship between

aristocracy and proletariat where aristocrats maintain ownership

of land titles and proletariat occupy the land as a generalized

body of farm workers. In certain circumstances, where labor

division is the defining factor for class, it almost appears that

social class can be taken as a race where one comes to understand

cultural differences through observing class differences. For

ballet to instruct and form human capital on grounds of class and

generalization of different class groups is characteristic of

functionalism in which generalized classes passively fulfill

their roles in harmonious society.

La Fille Mal Gardee (1789) contributes to the celebrated male

perspective in its reduction to emphasis on physical sexual

behavior. Depicting the relationship between mother and daughter

where the mother aims to protect her daughter from the sexual

desires of a member from a considerable lower class status

underlies the dominance of the male when the mother was portrayed

in a cumbersome and inapt manner as she was in La Fille Mal Gardee.

Desire and emotion were conveyed through pantomime-like motions

in the choreography in addition to a gender specific division of

labor where the female is dependent on the male for not only

narrative points of emotional support and companionship, but for

physical support in lifts and run-and-chase relations across

stage. The numerous arabesques performed by the female while she

faces towards the male serve as phallic symbols where the female

is depicted as being penetrated by the strong male who supports

her throughout the choreography. Another ideological idea from

this particular ballet was the generalization of the working

class as functioning in harmony, creating visually pleasing

effects, travelling in patterns with proportionate male-female

ratios, and happily accepting their place as the workers of the

land. Symmetry is used as a tool here to imply communal

cohesiveness and organization, something vital to the idea of the

happy peasant. La Fille Mal Gardee perpetuates class and gender

generalizations in efforts to ultimately perpetuate both the

male-dominant status quo and generalization of class differences,

both ideas being related to the passive acceptance of a

functional understanding of society where the male is in a

privileged position as the revered provider of the heterosexual

relation between a male and female.

The Romantic Period

Infatuation with the dying, sickly female is a primary

characteristic of the Romantic period of ballet. This phenomenon

was illustrated particularly by the new physical appearance of

the ballerina on stage in her performance. Lifting to bodies to

new limits with point work was utilized to create the illusion of

the ethereal female. Long and burdensome dresses were now

shortened and replaced with the romantic tutu which exposed a

great degree of the ballerina’s legs and of course allowed for

greater leg mobility. These characteristics of even the physical

appearance and new capabilities of the Romantic ballerinas both

center around sexualization of the female on stage. While ballet

audiences were composed of a wider range of class, they still

remained predominately male oriented. New sexualization of

females for a wider range of males brings the noble desire for a

heterosexual relationship to a mainstream accessibility where

more men can be taught how they should be expected to sought

after the woman who can be their compliment in a heterosexual

relationship. Objectification of women as submissive and

vulnerable was executed through frail, arched arms and the

tilted, offset head placement was arguable utilized to emphasize

the need for male companionship. Being deprived of a healthy

heterosexual love relationship appears to have the female

deprived of her health also.

In Susan Sontag’s Illness as a Metaphor, she establishes that

certain for one to acquire tuberculosis can be viewed as a

disease of stimulation. It is not appropriate to generalize all

forms of sickness as being conditions of erosion of the body, as

tuberculosis itself can be seen as a disease of passion. In

Romantic ballets, sickness and being near death creates yet

another level of vulnerability that the female experiences,

again, implicating the need for male sexual companionship to

avoid reaching the degree of sickness that drains the female to

death. Across variations of Giselle, Giselle is taken as being in

need of a male partner. This reoccurring idea is developed

through expressive gestures. The use of expressive gestures to

convey this particular meaning in different productions of Giselle

remind audiences that the message of the production is one that

must be fully developed, therefore the use of pantomime is

integral to viewing Giselle as in some form of need and

vulnerable state. Giselle captures the significant statements and

contributions to the development of Western concert dance that

the Romantic period executed. Creating and objectifying the

sickly female is crucial to empowering the male and catalyzing

him to feel needed as a provider figure in a heterosexual

relationship.

Russian Imperial Ballet

The grand spectacles of Russian Imperial ballet, equipped

with outstanding new technical abilities and large elaborate sets

were centered on the importance of family and wealth. The

importance of wealth was directed towards the strength and wealth

of Russian royalty. One of the most renowned ballets, The Sleeping

Beauty, is an example of how the mystical traits of fairy tales

were incorporated into grand representations of nobility and

honor while also maintaining aspects of the vulnerable female,

characteristic of the Romantic period. Because the tale of

Sleeping Beauty revolves around the importance of heterosexuality

as the providing force behind life for the royal court, it is

clear that the honored male provider is still an essential pillar

of social ideology that the ballets wish to convey.

Because the Russian Imperial era in ballet survived by use

of fairy tales, it is important to consider the mission that

fairy tales aim to accomplish – cautionary tales regarding proper

behavior. Imposing behavior restriction inherently requires a

non-questioning mentality that is characteristic of the

structural functionalist mentality. Don’t Bet on the Prince by Jack

Zipes points to this reality in fairy tales by demonstrating how

fairy tales, by depicting gender roles where females are in need

of assistance, perpetuate the male-ordinate expectation of

society. Fairy tales in Russian Imperial ballet utilize this

reality in securing the objectified female on stage.

Diaghilev Era

            The early 20th century was a time of radical reform

that attempted to break away from the usual gender roles that

were characteristics of Western concert dance up to that time.

Diaghilev, one of the most prominent figures behind this reform,

was an arts patron who strove to convey emotion in his work

rather than focusing on the mere physicality of executing

technical moves. While Diaghilev and similar pioneers of his time

aimed to fight many structures of ballet before their time, there

still remained many aspects of their work which held to ideas of

female objectification and male ordinance.

            Vaslav Nijinsky, one of Diaghilev’s main performers

was renowned for his outstanding technical skills. Work that

Nijinsky performed in went against classical ballet norms such as

a strict and hierarchical use of stage spacing where dancers were

now able to move more freely about space. As described in Lynn

Garafola’s The Vanguard Poetic of Vaslav Nijinsky, movement became an end

itself. No longer were messages and significant statements coded

in technical phrases, but message was to be derived directly from

Nijinsky’s movement. One example of this is when Nijinsky moved

about the stage with parallel foot/hip placement as opposed to

using the turnout of the hips in Afternoon of a Faun (1912). The aim

of this was to resemble two-dimensionality of a painting in which

the choreography was inspired by. The piece was received in

uproar when Nijinsky performed the masturbatory section of the

choreography which made him appear extremely vulgar in the eyes

of the audience.  While it is clear that these two traits

of Afternoon of a Faun were pushing the envelope for audiences of the

time, there are still classically constructed ideas of male-

ordinance. What made Nijinsky so revered for audiences was his

outstanding classical technique which he embraced in his

performance. Nijinsky had outstanding leaps that astounded the

audience (Lihs 2009). This illustrates a fascination with

Nijinsky’s strength that is similar to the fascination of the

strength of male dancers in classical ballet of earlier times.

Because of the new notions of emphasizing sexuality that had not

been presented before, it is probable to argue that there was

some push to be ridden from traditional understandings of the

male provider figure in performance however the degree to which

new identifiers of sexuality are successful in breaking

traditional understandings of male sexuality are questionable.

Depiction of the male in a sexual context other than

heterosexuality is difficult for audiences to accept due to a

stigmatization of the homosexual male is “other” and negative.

            In Celluloid Closet many ways in which homosexuality has

been considered something to foreign, humorous, pitiful, and

fearful. Media in Western society has instructed ways for people

to view homosexuality, and even how homosexuals should understand

their social role relative to others. While many television shows

and films have deemed homosexuality as something worth note, it’s

important to remember that producers and writers have not always

been consciously aiming to shed negativity on

homosexuality. Celluloid Closet briefly discusses this reality

however what one must consider is that the reason why placing

homosexuality in any light in general seems normal is because of

a pervasive failure to disrupt heterosexual male dominance in

Western society. All depictions of homosexuality – humorous and

derogatory – appear credulous due to the fact that understanding

gender often is based upon notions of sexual behavior. Because

homosexuality is not going along with male-female, provider-

receiver, understandings that art forms such as Western concert

dance seem to revolve around, it is therefore a highly

identifiable “other” group. Homosexuality is seen as a threat

because it appears to run against the ideology of males as a

strong provider.

            While one may argue that it is not sufficient to

judge the sexuality representations of the Diaghilev era through

one performer or piece of choreographer, this argument may be

countered by drawing these types of observations from other

Diaghilev pieces. In The Dying Swan choreographed by Michael Fokine

in 1905 there is a substantial effort for the ballerina to fight

against her objectification which was never seen before. Anna

Pavlova represented a dying swan where the swan’s death was

sexualized however her animalistic defiance of this struggle,

where her arms and back resembled that of an actual dying swan,

speaks greatly towards progress in which females aren’t

necessarily restricted to be passive in being sexualized in

performance. Connoting these meanings from Pavlova’s physical

expression in The Dying Swan illustrates the importance is reaching

conclusions about meaning in performative movement via the social

meanings attached to different movements. In Michael Fokine’s

work, he wanted to achieve dramatics with the use of the entire

body instead of resulting to pantomime of early ballet eras. He

also felt that using new types of movement was important but that

new movement must relate to current times versus traditional

technical moves that were recycled continually in various dances

(Kraus 1969). 

            The Ballet Russes, under the direction of Diaghilev

lead an innovative approach to new methods of movement and sexual

representation for Western concert. Diaghilev’s value for

movement in itself and steering away from rigid order in

performance made ballet available for the general population.

Having a new, wider audience in the development of Western

concert dance, with the continued representations of the

sexualized female, such as in The Dying Swan, and fascination with

Nijinsky’s classical technique ability only allows the remaining

celebration of male ordinance to permeate through a more broad,

general public which points to the notion that these ideologies

can still be accepted for a different class than what they were

originally intended for during the time of classical court

ballets.

Conclusion

Performance, being pervaded with social symbols, is one form

of education that is utilized in society in order to carry on

cultural ideologies. It is important to note how socially

constructed ideas of: gender, race, class, and power remain

dominant in societies and what social consequences this connotes.

Objectification of the vulnerable female gives power to the

male in two ways. It deems him as a provider figure which

inherently values his sexuality in itself, and it depicts females

as subordinate to males by requiring companionship where males

only desire it. Celebrating the male in this light creates

expectations for males across classes and cultural backgrounds

where homosexuality becomes viewed as negative. Visual symbols,

stage spacing, costuming, and freedom of expression all play

significant roles in depicting expectations and standards that

remain perpetuated throughout culture. By continuing to hold

close to standards of oppression and inequality in art,

expectations of oppression and inequality will remain in society.

Works Cited

Black, A., & Black, C. (1964). The Dance in Ancient Greece. Chatham: W.& J. Mackay & Co.

Ltd.

Kraus, R. (1969). History of the Dance in Art and Education. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall

Lee, C. (2002). Ballet in Western Culture. New York: Routledge

Lihs, H. (2009). Appreciating Dance, A Guide to the World’s Liveliest Art. Hightstown:

Princeton Book Company

Nanda, S., & Warms, L. (2009). Culture Counts: A Concise Introduction to Cultural

Anthropology. Belmont: Wadsworth

Urry, J. (2000). Sociology Beyond Societies: Mobilities for the 21st Century. NewYork:

Routledge