Female Fragility

Read your post this morning, and tonight saw this article in my local Hartford, CT newspaper:
www.courant.com/features/hc-healthdancers.artjun03,0,6689596.story

As a former ballet and modern dance student turned publicist in the performing arts in NYC (1981-1995), at Jacob's Pillow (1995-97), and briefly with Hartford Ballet before its sad demise (1996-97), must say I have been troubled by the severe injuries dancers incur, especially by women.

Without data to support my observations of dance in recent decades vs. early to mid-20th century history, I'm on a slope more slippery and steep than any ramp used by Eliot Feld in his choreography, but I'll say the first part of my opinionated digressions....

In 1978 I took a course in dance history at Hunter College. One written examination inelegantly and inaccurately posed the question, if memory serves, "Do ballet dancers and modern dancers have different bodies?" I wrote yes, and my professor told me I was wrong. She may have studied with the modern dance greats, but no way would she ever have been ballet material, even in the 1940s.

Female physical types accepted for ballet were gradually narrowed and heightened as the 20th century progressed. I cannot lay the blame solely on George Balanchine. Some of his ballerinas were slim and long-limbed from the 1910s until his death in 1982, but not all were will o' the wisps. To name a few: Danilova, Toumanova, Adams, Hayden, Verdy, Farrell, and von Aroldigen, who all had pelvises associated with healthy womanly builds. Other members of the company were petite in frame and height, and you wouldn't find their likes on the stage today.

Also, at American Ballet Theatre from the 1970s until they opted for retirements, Cynthia Gregory and Martine van Hamel were regal on the stage: tall, strong, womanly bodies.

As for legends of yesteryear, Margot Fonteyn, even Anna Pavlova and Tamara Karsavina, had hips.

So what's my point? These women were students of great teachers who taught them how to work strenuously yet safely within ballet's unattainable ideal. In earlier days, turnout and extension weren't as important as flowing and harmonious line in space. In recent decades, the emphasis has been placed on extremes: 180 degree turnout from the hips (and knees, ankles, and feet), high extensions that would have once been considered vulgar (a battement or develope by a dancer's ear is sublime. Sounds cheap

If the revolutionary spirits of Isadora Duncan and Michel Fokine could see ballet today, both would be more appalled at its increasingly hidebound character.

More later.

I tend to agree. My son attends a well-respected arts boarding school in the Boston area where he studies ballet. Each year I'm surprised at the percentage of injured ballet students, who seem to suffer predominantly from overuse injuries. Between injuries and illnesses that are difficult to overcome because of students' overfull schedules (school, class and rehearsals), the school frequently has concerns about whether students will be perform when needed.

I believe the head of the school's dance department currently is spending his sabbatical studying what he too believes are a heightened number of injuries in recent years. My understanding is that he thinks it has some relation to the predominant use of floating floors, which seems odd to me, but I can see there are some ways in which they might contribute.