Where Does Ballet Stop and Contemporary Begin?

[Sim]

A discussion on the 4T thread made me start to ponder this question....and I have no answer. I don't suppose there is a definitive one! So, for example, are Rite of Spring and Les Noces ballet, or are they contemporary (even though they were made a century ago) because they don't use the classical choreographic idiom? Is Chroma a ballet, or something else?

 

I look forward to hearing your views on this...

[Terpsichore]

Does it really matter so long a it is done well?

[JulieW]

Good question Sim. And no, Terpsichore, or probably doesn't matter but it's still an interesting question and I'd be interested to read people's opinions :-)

 

(Edited to correct my phone's over-enthusiastic auto-correct) 

[Beryl H]

The thing I don't like about contemporary dance technique (such as Shechter) is that it seems to be earthbound, dancers walk and grovel on the ground but rarely DANCE, there is a difference. I would consider all of Wayne McGregor's works as modern ballet, which I love.

[bangorballetboy]

On the subject I shall write you a most valuable letter,

Full of excellent suggestions when I feel a little better,

But at present I'm afraid I am as mad as any hatter,

So I'll keep 'em to myself, for my opinion doesn't matter!

 

[thanks W.S. Gilbert for such a wonderful lyric]

[Sim]

Does it really matter so long a it is done well?

Terpsichore, does anything 'really matter' when it comes to art?  If we all asked your question, we would have no forum and no interesting debates about art of any kind.  In any case, 'done well' is a subjective perception as we see over and over again in the discussions on this forum.  In the grand scheme of things no, it doesn't really matter, but I was hoping my question would lead to some interesting answers. 

[aileen]

I was thinking of Rite of Spring and Les Noces last night. Simplistically, I would say that ballet involves the dancers being 'turned out' and the women wearing pointe shoes. How many 'barefoot' ballets does the RB have in its repertoire?

[ToThePointe]

Well when some are prepared to argue that the RB should only be presenting 'ballet' works, it actually becomes quite an important question. Where can we draw the line? 

 

(I have no answer either which is why I have zero problem in the RB experimenting with different forms of dance!!!) 

[Mary]

It's a fascinating topic to discuss.

To complicate matters even further, I can see that McGregor is modern ballet not dance, I like the complexity of it, I admire the highly technical nature of it...but I usually don't like his pieces! (a lot to do with the music, also the lack of variety- it is involved and complicated but all in the same way.)  But it seems to me much more interesting to watch than a piece like the Shechter. I objected to that largely because of the lack of visible interesting movement. Marching about- grovelling-  good word Beryl- don't seem to me sufficiently visually interesting. Also, ballet is about the contrast between corps and solos or small groups. Dance en masse, which, on some  principle, does not foreground individual dancers, is less interesting to me.

Ballet is highly technical and it's interesting. At the same time it imposes constraints, and all art is about working with constraints ( discuss.)

If all the constraints are removed,and  any movement at all is allowed, it gets progressively less interesting..

But if the style is adhered to rigidly with no development it can get fossilised and boring.Of course it never really has because as we all know there are endless versions of even the classics.

Recent modern ballet such as in Winter's Tale seemed to me- MOSTLY ( not all of it) a very good development of ballet, using some elements of modern dance, to dance a story. Different characters had different styles-(whereas in McGregor they all have the same style.)

[Fonty]

I am so glad you started this thread, Sim, because this question has also been raised in the Swan Lake thread.

[Sim]

I was thinking of Aileen's description above regarding the women wearing pointe shoes and having turnout as being indicators of classical ballet, and agreeing with this.  Then I remembered La La La Human Steps.....the women in that company have turnout and wear pointe shoes, but is it ballet?  Certainly the purists would say 'no', but are there enough classical ballet elements here to refer to it as ballet?  I wouldn't say it is ballet as such, but rather contemporary dance incorporating elements of classical ballet, as much contemporary dance does.  For me, ballet is the rock around which just about all contemporary dance revolves;  with very few exceptions, all contemporary dance incorporates some ballet, even if just basic things like a plié, or a jump, or a turn, or a port de bras. 

 

This is an example of La La La HS performing their own, distinctive brand of 'ballet'.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUGewBdAy8c

[zxDaveM]

contemporary dance - rolling around on the floor in the dark...

[Sim]

contemporary dance - rolling around on the floor in the dark...

Not forgetting running around in a circle for no apparent reason.....

[Bruce Wall]

Not forgetting running around in a circle for no apparent reason.....

Oh, and at least one avid contraction ...  

[capybara]

I enjoy most ballet (perhaps the narrative more than the abstract); I am enjoying the Shechter piece for the RB, I liked both Scarlett's No Man's Land and Khan's Dust for ENB but, in general, I have not taken to MacGregor's works. Just about sums up the difficulty in making a distinction I think!

[Fonty]

I have always wondered why the Royal Ballet appointed an in house choreographer who was, in their own words, "the first contemporary choreographer to hold the post."

 

What was the thinking behind it? Surely a classical ballet company should have a resident choreographer who creates those sorts of ballets.  And if they want a contemporary piece, then either commission one occasionally, or bring something in from another company.  

[Sim]

Maybe they are trying to 're-brand' themselves, Fonty.  You know, a 'ballet company for the 21st century' type of thing. I hope not, and agree that by all means commission new, and different, pieces, but not forgetting where you came from and what has largely kept you going all these years.  I am heartened, though, that Wheeldon and Scarlett are there to balance out McGregor;  the former are trying (and succeeding to varying degrees) to tell narratives through neo-classical balletic styles. 

 

I don't suppose that anyone will ever choreograph like Ivanov/Petipa, or Ashton or MacMillan, again, just like no-one will probably ever compose in Baroque or Mozartian style as they were all of their time; however, the importance of preserving and cherishing these past glories is just as important as the creation of the new.

[JulieW]

One of our festival adjudicators went on about "weight and relaxation" and others wanted to see them use their breath in their movements (for contemporary).  Not sure it helped anyone really!

[Terpsichore]

Terpsichore, does anything 'really matter' when it comes to art?  If we all asked your question, we would have no forum and no interesting debates about art of any kind.  In any case, 'done well' is a subjective perception as we see over and over again in the discussions on this forum.  In the grand scheme of things no, it doesn't really matter, but I was hoping my question would lead to some interesting answers. 

With respect you asked the question where does the boundary lie between one dance form and another.   As you say it is a topic about which there is more than one opinion. I gave you the perfectly reasonable reply "what does it matter so long as it is good?"    I could just as easily have replied "I don't mind so long as it is good."  That is not closing off debate even on this issue.  Much less is it closing off debate on other issues.   Least of all is it  challenging the function of this or any other forum.   It is expressing a neutral position that I am entitled to hold.

 

As to specifics I watch Phoenix and Northern Ballet and enjoy them both.   I recognize different styles and techniques such as floor work in one and pointe work in the other.   I acknowledge the merits of each.   I don't regard either as superior or inferior to the other.   I go to watch dance not ballet or contemporary.   At a  very basic level I have taken classes in both styles and.in my very limited experience I find contemporary is even harder than ballet.  

As for your second point, the quality of a performance is not always subjective.  To take an extreme example a member of the cast may not show up.   That would be a bad performance in my book.   I would however agree with you that taste is subjective.

[Fonty]

As to specifics I watch Phoenix and Northern Ballet and enjoy them both.   I recognize different styles and techniques such as floor work in one and pointe work in the other.   I acknowledge the merits of each.   I don't regard either as superior or inferior to the other.   I go to watch dance not ballet or contemporary.  

 

Regarding your last sentence, this seems to me a bit like saying "I go to listen to music, not Mozart or Modern Jazz". 

 

All right, contemporary dance isn't quite as divorced from classical ballet as jazz from Mozart.  However, a lot of the pieces I have seen at the ROH have been as mystifying to me as modern jazz  A weird collection of movements by dancers doing their own thing and pushing their bodies to the limit, while the sound track seems to have the sole purpose of keeping the rhythm, or hiding the dancers' panting and puffing.  And I am left scratching my head at the end wondering what on earth it was all about. 

[Timmie]

Ballet is hard to define but to use a famous colloquialism ‘I feel I know it when I see it’. For me something like Chroma is (contemporary) ballet, Untouchable (as a recent example) is not ballet and something like Sim’s La La Human Steps isn’t but it does seem borderline.

 

I’m a fairly recent convert to ballet watching but to be a ballet, for me, a dance needs a goodly amount of:

 Pointe work,

 Long lines and extensions,

 Contrast between corps and solos or small groups (pinched from Mary),

 Beauty*.

 

*a combination of qualities, such as shape, colour, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight.

[lyn]

For me, contemporary is anything that isn't inside this book: http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Ballet-Technique-Gretchen-Warren/dp/0813009456-- anything that departs from the standard RAD (or equivalent) library!

 

My dance teachers (and dancers themselves) often make the distinction that's been made above -- the earthiness. It's quite characteristic of contemporary to keep your center of gravity as low as possible. When you go for contemporary class, they keep emphasizing the use of quads and remaining close to the ground. You might even notice that contemporary dancers are built different from classical ballet dancers.. with much larger thigh muscles.

 

Personally, anything 'high', like with pointe, huge extensions, but non classical ballet vocabulary, (i.e. Wheeldon/McGregor/La La La) I personally call "modern ballet", which I would park under contemporary.

[Fonty]

I think the grounded quality of Contemporary dance is one of the reasons I like it less than classical ballet.  I love the beauty of the controlled jumps, and wish the present choreographers would put more of these in their pieces.

 

And I adore batterie as well.  That used to be the thing that I excelled at when I took lessons, which is why I like it so much.  I'd rather see twinkling footwork than massive extensions.  

Edited April 2, 2015 by Fonty

[alison]

I have always wondered why the Royal Ballet appointed an in house choreographer who was, in their own words, "the first contemporary choreographer to hold the post."

 

What was the thinking behind it?

 

My impression at the time was that a not-insignificant amount of importance was attached to his potential for encouraging new/younger choreographers and their thought processes and inspirations.  Obviously, though, I'm not Monica Mason, so can't be sure of this.

[MayKwok]

Contemporary dance -- containing some of these moves?

 

 

(Not an entirely serious video but I do find I think along these lines when I want Contemporary these days...)

[Fonty]

 

I particularly like the climbing out of the well move!

[taxi4ballet]

contemporary dance - rolling around on the floor in the dark...

...in your underwear

[Pas de Quatre]

Or even without it!

[Jan McNulty]

That is brilliant select*from.  Thankyou!

[Sim]

That is brilliant select*from.  Thankyou!

Indeed it is...captures the whole genre perfectly!

[Timmie]

Contemporary dance -- containing some of these moves?

  

(Not an entirely serious video but I do find I think along these lines when I want Contemporary these days...)

That's genius. I just hope there isn't a ballet version out there!

[FLOSS]

At a time when Michael Corder finds it necessary to say that he is concerned that many people professionally engaged in the world of dance say that they find it difficult to distinguish between classical ballet and contemporary dance it might be thought rather surprising that many of us although we may have difficulty in pinning down the essential differences between these two types of dance and putting thosedifferences into words seem pretty sure that we recognise those differences when we see them.

 

Without realising it our early experience of watching dance affects how we watch it subsequently. Whether for example we value technical skill or expressiveness more is as much the result of our experience of watching dance as it is the aesthetic of the period in which we begin to become interested in the art form.These early forays into the world of dance "get our eye in".I am sure that what I saw in my first visits to the ballet have had that effect on me for good or ill.The ballets that I saw then were the works of Petipa, Fokine, Massine, Nijinska, Ashton, Balanchine, Tudor, MacMillan and Cranko. All of whom worked in the classical style. Their works are definitely ballet as opposed to modern dance as contemporary was,then, called.

 

It seems to me that whether or not dancers wear pointe shoes is not that significant in determining whether a work is a ballet, nor is strict adherence to steps as taught in the class room. Most ballet choreographers enjoy inverting and transforming class room steps and positions into something that is unmistakably theirs. Indeed it is those transformations and the selective emphasis on certain aspects of the classical ballet's vocabulary and rules that create the choreographer's individual style.What all the choreographers named above have in common is that central to their works is an emphasis on movements which elevate, elongate and stretch out the body; their use of line;their knowledge and use of pointe work,pas de deux and the corps.Whether created in the nineteenth,twentieth or twenty first century ballets,particularly abstract ones,often have floor plans that emphasise order and symmetry in a way that contemporary work never does.

 

Putting dancers on stage in bare feet does not make the work that they are dancing a contemporary one.

Neither Ashton's evocation of Isadora Duncan nor his Dante Sonata, both of which are danced in bare feet,it seems to me ,are contemporary works. The Walk to the Paradise Garden in which one dancer spends most of the ballet flat on his back as he partners the woman who he is holding above him is also definitely a ballet. Although both Les Noces and MacMillan's Rite of Spring contain sections with movements and groupings similar to those encountered in contemporary dance, it seems to me that they are both definitely ballets.

 

If the floor is the ballet dancer's enemy something from which they try to escape through jumping, spinning and terre a terre work it is the contemporary dancer's friend.Choreographers of ballets generally use the area above the surface of the floor rather than the floor itself. Contemporary dancers use the floor rather than trying to escape from it.They are not required to move effortlessly and elegantly as if weightless.It clearly requires the dancer to use his or her body and muscles in a very different way from how a ballet dancer would use them.Rojo describes contemporary dance as requiring the dancer to be grounded and centralized as opposed to elongated and elevated. As far as classically trained dancers are concerned these differences must pose a real threat of injury to any dancer switching between the two genres without time to adjust. It is noticeable that Guillem who has had a long and relatively relatively injury free career used to dance both types of choreography but always had a gap between genres to enable her body to adjust,something that is not possible for less exalted dancers.

 

It seems to me that I have ended up defining contemporary dance as not ballet.One of the reasons for this is that those creating contemporary works all have their own way of making dance works which makes it difficult to identify elements that are common to each choreographer working in this genre.The freedom that they have to do anything they wish seems, paradoxically, to restrict their inventiveness. They seem to produce one or perhaps two interesting works and then begin to plagiarize themselves.Whereas choreographers supposedly constrained by working within the rules of classical ballet seem to find infinite possibilities for invention because there are rules to break.

[alison]

As far as classically trained dancers are concerned these differences must pose a real threat of injury to any dancer switching between the two genres without time to adjust. It is noticeable that Guillem who has had a long and relatively relatively injury free career used to dance both types of choreography but always had a gap between genres to enable her body to adjust,something that is not possible for less exalted dancers.

 

I think that is part of what I was thinking when I said that there must be a point at which it becomes counterproductive for ballet dancers to do contemporary dance - the risk of injury if you're having to dance two different styles at once.