Romantic ballet on pointesBALLET: How many students or for that matter, teachers are aware that dancing on pointes was introduced during the Romantic ballet. It was a major change during this period that exploitation of dancing on tips of the toes in especially designed padded shoes, was seen for the first time. Many ballet historians may argue that it was not so but pointe dancing was created as an outcome of toe-dancing which was a theatrical term used for pointe-dancing. It was in vogue before Romanticism touched ballet.
Possibly the first case on record where a dancer was on pointes was in Paris in 1815 when Genevien Gossilin danced in Flore et Zephire and Taglioni danced in 1827 for sure. However, critics of the day were not inclined accepting this change unduly. There was evidence of a French dancer, Fanny Dias standing on pointes in a lithograph done by F. Weldeck. The reason to assume such importance on toe-dancing during this era was that it was a natural continuation of the movements demanded by Romanticism's major dancers. The taking-off positions for flight or even the illusion of flights, came easier from pointes. They found that this gave the ballerina added grace and endowed her with better image and theatrical advantage over the male dancers. Pointes enabled dazzling feats of turns and 'pirouettes' that became a permanent niche in her repertoire. These extraordinary changes dazzled and enchanted the audience and as word went round of this phenomenon, people flocked to the theatres. These changes resulted in the gliding effects especially associated with swans like in 'pas de bourree couru' which Anna Pavlova was to dance later in the Swan Lake. Though it was La Camarge who had the presence of mind to introduce the ballet shoes without heels almost a century before, it was Taglioni who demonstrated how one could dance in the padded shoes to facilitate to stand on tips of the toes for only girls. This opened out new vistas and produced subtleties in the repertoire of both the dancer and her choreographer. It conveyed the impression of weightlessness and tremendous feats of elevation. The new audience simply gasped as they followed every movement of Taglioni.
Her father, Flippo Taglioni himself was amazed at his daughter's virtuso and cast her in the title role of La Sylphite when it was performed for the first time at the Paris Opera in 1832. Romanticism in ballet survived a short spell of 20 years between 1830 to 1850. They were based on scenarios in the nature of fairy tales and make-believe stories where men were immortal and women returned after death from beyond the mountains or rose with the waves from seas to court as lovers. But if not owing to the Romanticism in ballet, the natural, free, unstrained manner of movement that looked more like walking to music that prevailed, would have stayed put and who knows, we may not have seen the terrific and dazzling turns that ballet evolved around to immortalise this art, may have yet remained only a dream. So, we all are grateful to the sweeping changes that came into being with Romanticism. And thanks to ballerinas like Mari Taglioni, Fanny Cerrito, Carlotta Grist and many others who fought the system. There was yet another person who helped this new revolution in ballet and that was the highly influential French critic and poet, Theophil Gautier. He completely rejected the notion of natural expressions and was responsible and instrumental in raising the importance of the ballerina at the expense of the male dancer but two centuries short, another great name in ballet, was to reverse this and place the male dancer on centre stage. It was going to be a long jump from 1789 to 1979 when Rudolf Nureyev brushed aside the leading ballerina to accommodate his partner centre stage. So, ballet has been survived, adopted, rejected, abhorred, admired, etc many a new sweeping change to date that have placed this art as the best in any form of dance in revered acceptance. A blow to this smooth system came as a rude shock when Britain brought about a legislation that no teacher could touch a student while training just two months ago. How on earth a child can be trained in ballet without a teacher placing his hand for correction of posture, baffles everyone. Sometimes a teacher has to place the hand at her back to erect her or twist her ankle to position her on pointe. Under this legislation, the young swans in Britain are far left behind while the other countries will produce excellent dancers. This is dooms day for British ballet. To imagine it took centuries to mould the perfect ballerina in her teacher's hands, is only a dream and many tears shed in vain. Next, they will legislate a gynaecologist to deliver a baby without placing his hand on the mother. Believe me, they will to it! With the emergence and survival of Romantic ballet, Giselle was the best ballet to emerge from it because it had all the requirements expected from Romanticism. It had a hero who was a count, a local girl, a villain as well as ethreal spirits. It was scripted in three days while Adolph Adam took only ten days to write the score. With Grisi in the title role, it was a great success at the opening day on 28 June, 1841. The ballet was running to packed house for months and Grisi was called Giselle by each and everyone. Among the leading ballerinas that followed her were, Anna Pavlova-1903, Tamara Tamara Karsavine-1910, Olga Spessivtseva-1924, Galina Ulinova-1932, Alicia Markova-1934, Margot Fontey-1937, Yvette Chauvire-1944, Svetlina Beriosova-1956, Lucette Aldous-1960, Ekataterina Maximova-1960. Natalia Makaroca-1901, Natalia Bessmertnova-1965, Margaret Barbieri-1971, Eva Evdokimova-1971 and many lesser known and new ballerinas. Giselle is held in all repertories of the leading ballet companies around the world. And during the early years of the Romantic ballet's decline in France, the emergence of famous 35 year-old Leo Delibes who along with the popular Hungarian composer, Leon Minkus wrote the score for La Source that was produced at the Paris Opera in 1866. This supplied a ray of hope for ballet music that was crumbling under stereotype scoring. Even the Paris Opera never recovered for decades until Delibes appeared in the horizon. Although not with the same zest and vigour, ballet in other countries flourished with France being the forerunner. French choreographers created many works in full length and excerpts with Jules Perrot leading the way. He created many original ballets between 1842 and 1848. With France's headway, Denmark too was making her own significant contribution. Pointes had come to stay. |
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