Lace dance

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The point dance or en pointe ( French: pointed ) is a movement technique in ballet that is performed in special pointe shoes ( French: pointes ). Together with the tutu , the pointed dance has been part of the ( cliché ) idea that one has of a ballerina since the 19th century .

Development of the top dance

Jocelyn Vollmar at the tip dance (1947)

There were early forms of toe dance as early as the 17th century, for example with Marie Camargo , but still more in connection with jumping than with turning. The modern point dance is traced back to Marie Taglioni , who danced as Helena in the so-called "nun ballet " in Giacomo Meyerbeer's opera Robert the Devil (1831) and in the title role of the ballet La Sylphide (1832). Newspapers at the time mentioned that various ballerinas had “fantastic toes” or “fell off the tip”.

The point dance changed the ballet of the 19th century fundamentally. However, the top technology only gradually developed into a pronounced form. Point dance as we know it today did not gain acceptance until the end of the 19th century. In the 1960s and 1970s, pointe shoes were made more stable: the toe box was reinforced with glued paper or linen, and there were leather or paper inserts between the inner and outer soles.

Even in the thirties and forties of the 19th century, step sequences, pirouettes or long-held poses "en pointe" were not possible. The apparent overcoming of gravity was based more on technical tricks. Dancers stretched their entire bodies, raised their arms and repeatedly performed small jumps. This created the impression of weightlessness in the eyes of the audience.

In the pas de deux , dancers supported the illusionary detachment of the ballerinas from the floor: They lifted their partners and supported the weight of their partners. When lifting, the dancers' straight feet simulated lightness and a pointed dance. Ballets created at that time such as La Sylphide (1832) or Giselle (1841) are still preferred to be performed in historical form. The choreographies of the premiere are being reconstructed, but the current standards of point-to-point dance are still being exploited: unlike in the 1930s and 1940s, dancers are made to dance with the sturdy pointy shoes that are common today on full lace.

At the beginning of the 20th century, dancers and choreographers turned their backs on top dance: among them Isadora Duncan , Mary Wigman , Gret Palucca , Rudolf von Laban and Kurt Jooss . The so-called “free”, modern dance and the later German expressive dance emerged in opposition and as an alternative to the movement techniques of ballet. The American Isadora Duncan in particular took to the field against top technology:

"For the dancer of whom I speak has never tried to walk on the end of her toes. Neither has she spent time practicing leaps in the air to see how many times she could clap her heels together before coming down again. She wears neither corset nor tights, and her bare feet rest freely in her sandals. "

The top dance from a feminist perspective

Anastasia Stashkewitsch and Vyacheslav Lopatin in Sleeping Beauty

The Dance Studies has been working since the eighties of the 20th century, first in the Anglo-American and later in Germany with feminist issues: dance and ballet are described as artistic expression, presenting the recognized femininity and masculinity ideals (re). In this context, the top dance is seen as a mirror of a conservative image of women. Ballerinas radiate grace, elegance and fragility, thus embody traditional femininity values. Because of their small self-supporting surface, their dance partners have to keep securing their balance. In pas de deux , the dancer supports the ballerina and assists her in poses or pirouettes. This corresponds to male tasks as propagated in the 19th century. The ballerina can

“Do not express independence. The cutting-edge technology exposes them to an unstable equilibrium and forces them into dependent positions: comparable to the fact that women remain subject to the guardianship of their father, brother or husband in everyday life. The dancer keeps his partner upright and takes on the provisioning function that the man also has outside of the stage. "

Not only in reconstructed classics of the 19th century ( La Bayadère , Swan Lake , Sleeping Beauty or The Nutcracker ), but also in later and contemporary choreographies, top technology remains a central stylistic device.

Point dance for men

Dancers from the Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo and Shirley MacLaine (center) in the TV show Where Do We Go From Here? (1977)

In the last third of the 20th century, more and more dancers began to dance to the top. In September 1974 the first appearances of the Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (" Les Trocks "), which are in demand worldwide today, took place in New York . The all-male ensemble has shown parodies of well-known ballets from the 19th and 20th centuries: including excerpts from Don Quichotte (1869), Swan Lake (1877/1895), Sleeping Beauty (1890) or The Nutcracker (1892). Choreographies such as The Dying Swan (1907) or Les Sylphides (1909) appear on the stage as complete satirises of the original choreographies . All female roles are interpreted by dancers in tutus and pointe shoes.

Furthermore founded Victor Trevino , a former dancer of the " Trocks ," two separate ensembles: 1996 Les Ballets Gran Diva , based in New York and 2011 Les Ballets Eloelle based in Palm Beach. These two companies are also purely male companies: Here, too, dancers appear "en travestie " in parodies of popular ballets. The performances of all three companies are based on a high level of technical ability: All dancers have mastered top technology. Out of an interest in top dance, many seek support from dancers while they are still in mixed companies. However, the lace dance for men has certain problems. Ballet training is gender-specific. Girls learn to point dance and movements characteristic of dancers, while boys learn jumping techniques and a habitus typical of dancers. Therefore, the body and muscles develop differently. When men start to dance to the point, they have to relearn. This is what Paul Ghiselin, long-time dancer and later ballet master at Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo says:

"Dancing on point is a different way of working with your feet and legs. It was like learning how to dance all over again [...]. It feels like you're walking on stilts. When you're six feet tall, there's a lot of weight going over those [toe] shoes. There's also the pain. When you're first adjusting to point work, you develop nasty corns. At first, the pain holds you back, but once you learn how to protect yourself by toughening your feet and developing muscle stamina. "

Point dance for men was not limited to the travesties of the Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo , the Ballets Grandiva and the Ballets Eloelle . Even in “serious” choreographies, dancers occasionally appeared “en pointe”. The Belgian Bart de Block performed a short toe dance in Karole Armitage's ballet The Dog Is Us (1995). After an engagement with the " Trocks " he moved to London to Mark Baldwin . Baldwin choreographed the solo M-Piece (1998) especially for Bart de Block and the title roles in Le Chant du Rossignol (1998) and The Demon (1998): De Block's dances on top were characterized by a serious aesthetic without any parody in all of the ballets Elements from. The same applies to Mats Eks She was black (1995): Here Veli-Pekka Peltokallio danced on top. Last but not least, Marie-Agnès Gillot had nine dancers in pointe shoes in her choreography Sous Apparence (2012).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Marion Kant: The soul of the shoe. In this. (Ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Ballet. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-53986-9 , pp. 191ff.
  2. ↑ See Marion Kant: The soul of the shoe. In: Marion Kant (Ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Ballet. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-53986-9 , pp. 191f; Gunhild Oberzaucher-Schüller : “Robert le Diable” and the formed movement. In: Gunhild Oberzaucher-Schüller, Hans Moeller (ed.): Meyerbeer and the dance. G. Ricordi & Co. Bühnen- und Musikverlag, Feldkirchen 1998, ISBN 3-931788-11-3 , p. 222f.
  3. ^ Isadora Duncan: The Secret Beauty of Her Movement: Letter to the "Berlin Morgen Post". (1903). In: Franklin Rosemont (ed.): Isadora Speaks. Charles H. Kerr Publishing, San Francisco 1994, ISBN 0-88286-227-8 , p. 34.
  4. ↑ See among others: Christy Adair: Women and Dance. Sylphs and Sirens. NYU Press, London 1992, ISBN 0-8147-0621-5 ; Sally Banes: Dancing Women. Female bodies on stage. Routledge, London / New York 2004, ISBN 0-415-11162-5 ; Friedrich Berlin Verlagsgesellschaft (ed.): Ballett international & tanz aktuell. Issue 8/9 (August 1998): Dance of the Sexes ; Judith Lynne Hanna: Dance, sex, and gender. University of Chicago Press, London / Chicago 1988, ISBN 0-226-31551-7 ; Hedwig Müller: From external to internal movement. Classic ballerina - modern dancer. In: Renate Möhrmann (ed.): The actress. On the cultural history of female stage art. Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main / Leipzig 2000, ISBN 3-458-34365-2 , pp. 321–341; Hartmut Regitz (Ed.): Yearbook Ballet. Male Female. Berlin 1987; Sarah Rubidge: Deciphering Dance. The hidden political concern. In: ballett international, zeitgeist handbook. 1/1990, pp. 83-91; Janine Schulze: Dancing Bodies Dancing Gender. Dance in the 20th Century from the Perspective of Gender Theory. Edition Ebersbach, Dortmund 1999, ISBN 3-931782-98-0 .
  5. ↑ Sandra Meinzenbach: Civil roll ideal and romantic ballet . P. 10.
  6. ↑ See Richard Glasstone: Breathing Arms. Gender-specific training methods in ballet. In: Friedrich Berlin Verlagsgesellschaft (ed.): Ballett international / tanz aktuel l. August 1998 (Issue 8/9): Dance of the Sexes. P. 32f.
  7. ↑ Paul Ghiselin in an interview with Gia Kourlas. See Gia Kourlas: The Biggest Toe Shoes in Town. In: The New York Times. December 19, 2004.

literature

  • Sally Banes: Dancing Women. Female bodies on stage. Routledge, London / New York 2004, ISBN 0-415-11162-5 .
  • Sibylle Dahms: Thoughts on the Aesthetics of Romantic Ballet. In: Gunhild Oberzaucher-Schüller, Hans Moeller (ed.): Meyerbeer and the dance. G. Ricordi & Co. Bühnen- und Musikverlag, Feldkirchen 1998, ISBN 3-931788-11-3 , pp. 36-49.
  • Sarah Davis Cordova: Romantic ballet in France: 1830-1850. In: Marion Kant (Ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Ballet. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-53986-9 , pp. 113-125.
  • Bernd Feuchtner : The man on top. Bart De Block slips into his tutu and does pirouettes. In: Friedrich Berlin Verlagsgesellschaft (ed.): Ballett international / tanz aktuell. August 1998, issue 8/9: Dance of the Sexes. Pp. 28-31.
  • Susan Leigh Foster: The ballerina's phallic pointe. In this. (Ed.): Corporealities. Dancing knowledge, culture and power. Routledge, London / New York 1996, ISBN 0-415-12139-6 , pp. 1-23.
  • Lynn Garafola: Russian ballet in the age of Petipa. In: Marion Kant (Ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Ballet. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-53986-9 , pp. 151-163.
  • Lynn Garafola (Ed.): Rethinking the Sylph. New Perspectives on the Romantic Ballet. Wesleyan University Press, Middletown / Connecticut 1997, ISBN 0-8195-6326-9 .
  • Deborah Jowitt: In Pursuit of the Sylph: Ballet in the Romantic Period. In: Alexandra Carter (Ed.): The Routledge Dance Studies Reader. Routledge, London / New York 1998, ISBN 0-415-16447-8 , pp. 203-213.
  • Suzanne Juhasz: Queer Swans: Those Fabulous Avians in the Swan Lakes of Les Ballets Trockadero and Matthew Bourne. In: Dance Chronicle. Studies in Dance and the Related Arts. Volume 31, number 1/2008, pp. 54–83.
  • Marion Kant: The soul of the shoe. In this. (Ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Ballet. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-53986-9 , pp. 184-197.
  • Marion Kant: The nuns ballet from “Robert le Diable” and the second act from “Giselle”. In: Gunhild Oberzaucher-Schüller, Hans Moeller (ed.): Meyerbeer and the dance. G. Ricordi & Co. Bühnen- und Musikverlag, Feldkirchen 1998, ISBN 3-931788-11-3 , pp. 250-263.
  • Rudolf Liechtenhan: Ballet and Dance. History and basic terms of stage dance. Nymphenburger Verlag, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-485-00844-3 .
  • Gunhild Oberzaucher-Schüller: "La Sylphide", or: veiled phantasmagoria. In: Sibylle Dahms, Manuela Jahrmärker, Gunhild Oberzaucher-Schüller (ed.): Meyerbeer's stage in the structure of the arts. G. Ricordi & Co. Bühnen- und Musikverlag, Feldkirchen 2002, ISBN 3-931788-13-X , pp. 283-304.
  • Gunhild Oberzaucher-Schüller: “Robert le Diable” and the formed movement. In: Gunhild Oberzaucher-Schüller, Hans Moeller (ed.): Meyerbeer and the dance. G. Ricordi & Co. Bühnen- und Musikverlag, Feldkirchen 1998, ISBN 3-931788-11-3 , pp. 215–249.
  • without author: Berlin connections. Mark Baldwin and Bart De Block. In: Vivace. Journal of the State Opera Unter den Linden. November / December 1998/99, p. 7.
  • Gus Solomons: Bart De Block: Getting the Pointe. In: Dance Magazine. September 1996, pp. 76-79.
  • Dorion Weickmann: The trained body: cultural history of the ballet (1580-1870). Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main / New York 2002, ISBN 3-593-37111-1 .

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