Sing Books with Emily, the Blog

This is a transcript of a segment from the American Master’s Documentary AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE: A HISTORY, in which Ballet Historian Jennifer Homans talks about the origins of ballet and the art form is has become.  Please forgive typos. This segment starts at about 12 minutes from the beginning of the documentary:

Ballet grew out of the European Courts of the 17th c.  Before dance was an art form, it was really an etiquette.  It grew out of the social life of the people of the court.  How do you move when you’re in relation to the king?  How do you offer a hand?  How do you pass down the street?  How to you live in your skin in daily life?  It starts to become codified in a way.  

Really where this takes hold the strongest is in the court of Louise the XIV.  And this is a court that is rule bound in the extreme.  Because rules are a form of power.  And that’s how Louis ordered his court and established his authority. 

Think about “The Reverence.”  You bend your knee and you bow.  What is that? That’s a sign of humility to someone of a higher authority than you.  That’s also a step in ballet.  It’s also a bending of the knees, a plie.  It’s a preparation to jump, but it’s also a humility.

And Louis himself was a terrific performer.  He would be, he was king, right?  Don’t forget, this is hte moment when MEN were the great dancers.  This is before the ballerinas and so ballet was created in order to express masculinity, power, strength, physical precision, control.  Because you don’t want to lose control if you are a nobleman and especially if you are a king.

The key thing that got codified in Louis’s court was the five positions.The basic ABCs or building blocks of the art form itself.  They are the same five positions that dancers use today.  And they really designed these positions as the measure of man.  so that there’s a geometric and mathematical precision to the proportionality of the body related to the positions themselves.

All of this comes out of the European Renaissance and it’s the idea that we’re going to go back to antiquity, back to a sort of idealized version, and we’re going to create an art form that expresses the geometric beauty and proportionality of the human body.  So, it’s not just a set of rules.  It’s Leonardo.  Its’ Michelangelo.  It’s, “how do you measure man?”  How can you mix these art forms: poetry, music, dance, into a single art form that’s going to somehow capture what it means to be human?  And what’s interesting about all of this is that although it developed in this courtly and aristocratic context, ti’s actually a radical idea.  Because anybody can do it.

If you’re willing to stand at the bar every day in order to stabilize yourself, in order to practice these steps and positions (and most couriers were), you, too, can become more noble.  And not just more noble ina social class, but as a person.  A more noble person.  Someone who has raised him or herself UP toward the angels and God.  You can leave some of your bestiality behind and transcend UP the great chain of being, IF you can control your physical and emotional and spiritual being.

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This passage caught me.  It caught me because I take ART seriously.  I am an artist and I live in my art and appreciate as much of all others as possible.  And the reason I appreciate it all so much is because of the transcendence.  The thought that if one can practice and art and share it, then one can explore (and share that exploration with others) what it means to be human.  And, one can become more noble (and share that nobility).  One can leave behind some of the baser aspects of our humanity and participate in transcendence, rising up the great chain of being (and bringing others with us).  All by the practice and sharing of an art, where each art form is a practice (with the goal of mastery) of controlling (or harnessing, expressing, manipulating, creating) our physical, emotional, and spiritual begin.  Which all rolled together molds our true, creative selves, our ART.

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