Possibly The First Dance Photograph Ever Made

Unknown Dancer by an anonymous American daguerreotypist, c.1849. International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester, NY

William A. Ewing about the image (in Ewing 1987: The Fugitive Gesture):

Even straightforward daguerroeotype portraits of dancers are extremely rare. Neither the Paris Opéra nor Dance Collection of the New York Public Library has a single example in their immense holdings. It was astonishing to find, therefore, in the archives at George Eastman House, in Rochester, New York, not only a daguerreotype of a dancer (unfortunately unidentified), but a depiction of a simple step. Even though the exposure time must have been a minute or even longer, the image has undeniable vitality and none of the wooden quality we have learned to expect as the nineteenth-century norm. Surprisingly, what may be the earliest known photograph of the dance is a delight to the eye. Unfortunately, we cannot acknowledge its creator, who remains anonymous.” (p.15)

Der (Miss-)Erfolg von Schwanensee — Petipa/Iwanow vs. Reisinger

Aus Schneider/Kieser 2006: Reclams Ballett Führer:

“Die Popularität von Schwanensee geht allerdings nicht auf Wenzel Reisinger Produktion [Uraufführung: 4. März 1877, Bolshoi-Theater, Moskau] zurück, sondern auf die Inszenierung, die Marius Petipa und Lew Iwanow knapp 20 Jahre später in Sankt Petersburg herausbrachten. Denn diese begründete die bis heute andauernde Aufführungstradition, die insbesondere die so genannten weissen Akte (der II. und IV. Akt) als Juwele klassischer Ballettkultur weitgehend original konservierte. Reisinger hingegen hatte eine nach den Massstäben der Zeit durchschnittlich erfolgreiche Choregorafie geschaffen, die sich, mit kleineren Veränderungen, bis 1883 im Repertoire des Bolshoi-Theaters hielt (1880 und 1882 stellte Reisingers Nachfolger Joseph Hansen überarbeietete Fassungen vor).” (S.415)

“Seit der Produktion von Petipa und Iwanow gehört Schwanensee zum festen Bestandteil des Repertoires; im Lauf des 20. Jahrhunderts prägte sich die Tendenz zu einer psychologisierten Handlung aus. II. und IV. Akt (Zählung gemäss der Uraufführung) werden dabei häufig in einer auf Iwanow basierenden Fassung aufgeführt, während I. und III. Akt in unterschiedlichem Umfang neu choreografiert werden. Bei jeder Neuchoreografie stellt sich zudem die Frage, welchen Ausgang die Geschichte nehmen soll: wie bei Reisinger, wie bei Petipa und Iwanow, oder ein Happy-End?” (S.417)

Tchaikovsky’s Thoughts on Swan Lake’s Visual World

From Thérèse Hurley: Opening the door to a fairy-tale world: Tchaikovsky’s ballet music in Kant 2007: Cambridge Companion to Ballet:

“Little evidence survives of the collaboration of Swan Lake’s choreographer Julius Reisinger and the composer; we cannot know how Tchaikovsky might have responded to any specific requests Reisinger made. We do know that the composer took a keen interest in more than just the musical aspects of the ballet’s first production. He was very specific about special effects, as machinist Karl Valts recalls:

‘Peter Ilyich gave special attention to the final act. In the storm scene, when the lake overflows its banks and floods the entire stage, a real whirlwind was built at Tchaikovsky’s insistence. Branches and twigs of trees were broken, fell into the water, and were carried away by the waves. After the storm, for the apotheosis, dawn came and the landscape was illuminated by the first rays of the rising sun at the curtain.’ [quoted from: Karl Federovich Valts: Shest'desyat pyat' let v teatre (Sixty-five Years in the Theatre), Leningrad 1928 (p.108). Translation in Roland John Wiley: Tchaikovsky's Ballets: Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker, Oxford 1985 (p.56)]

[...]

Clearly, Tchaikovsky had a vision of the way in which his ballet was to come to life – not just the music, but also the visual and sound effects on stage combined. And he was more interested in conveying the tumult and despair felt in the final scene than the immediate picture of swans in flight. When he chose to depict the swans, he did so very effectively.” (p.165)

“[...] Tchaikovsky was very conscientious in his use of instruments to simulate nature (harp arpeggios as waves), affect the plot (instrumentation used to deceive Siegfried [in Act III]) and add a touch of magic (harp cadenza and accompaniment in the love pas de deux). Yet the composer himself was not satisfied with his instrumentation for Swan Lake and according to Drigo ‘had intended to take up the matter, but he never managed to do this’ [quoted from: Wiley 1985: Tchaikovsky's Ballets (p.244)]. We can only speculate what changes Tchaikovsky himself would have made had he lived long enough to collaborate on the Petipa/Ivanov production.” (p.167)

On the rise and fall (or fall and rise) of Swan Lake

From Thérèse Hurley: Opening the door to a fairy-tale world: Tchaikovsky’s ballet music in Kant 2007: Cambridge Companion to Ballet:

“Swan Lake: A Ballet in Four Acts (composed August 1875–10 April 1876) was premiered in Moscow on February 1877 to less than enthusiastic reviews, but the 1895 revival of the ballet by the choreographers Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, at the Maryinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, found much greater success. (Alas, Tchaikovsky did not live to see it.) For this later version upon which [most of] today’s productions are based – Tchaikovsky’s brother Modest reworked the libretto and the Maryinksy conductor and composer Riccardo Drigo reorchestrated the score, adding to it three of Tchaikovsky’s piano pieces from Op. 72, L’Espiègle, Valse Bluette and Un poco di Chopin, which he orchestrated as well.” (p.164/165)

Petipa’s Thoughts on Color (and More) in Swan Lake

From Lynn Garafola: Russian ballet in the age of Petipa in Kant 2007: Cambridge Companion to Ballet:

“Here [in Odile's pas de deux in Act III of Swan Lake], writes Krasovskaya, Petipa ‘brilliantly {set} off Ivanonv’s Odette, with her elegiac arabesques, against Odile, the bird of prey, with her resilient and commanding attitudes. His skill triumphed in the fouetté’ – a sequence of thirty two [!] of those highly virtuosic turns – ‘which was no longer a technical stunt but the culmination in the depiction of cunning temptation: the swift repetition of the dancer’s spins put the finishing touches to Odile’s charcter.’ [quoted from: Vera M. Krasovskaya: Ivanov, Lev in Selma Jean Cohen and Dance Perspectives Foundation (Ed.): International Encyclopedia of Dance, Oxford 1998]” (p.159/160)

“[Petipa] pondered the colour scheme of the costumes, deciding on black and white to underscore the theme of moral guilt and the presentiment of death. The intonation of sorrow was intensified [...] when the black swans cut through the lines of white swans and climaxed at the end of the act, when first Odette, then Siegfried died by their own hands, thereby breaking the spell. With the lovers united in death, Rothbart, the ‘evil genie’, as he was called in the libretto, fell dead. In the apotheosis the lovers appeared in the clouds, seated on enormous swans, giving the ballet a happy, if banal, ending.” (p.160)

Romantic Ballet in France

From Sarah Davies Cordova: Romantic ballet in France: 1830–1850 in Kant 2007: Cambridge Companion to Ballet:

“Romantic ballet changed the way Europeans, in particular, danced and the way they looked at dance. The requirements of its technique ensconced the separation of social and theatrical dance so characteristic now of Western societies. The paradigm shift, which occurred as ballet abandoned its use of spoken language, resulted in romantic ballet’s exclusive reliance on nonverbal movements. Carefully coordinated musical illustration, iconic and objective props such as a portrait or a royal accoutrement, occasional written signposts indication location, a character’s gravestone, and constructed machine-dependent effects which created the illusion of flying, all complemented the bodies’ pantomime and movement to convey ballet’s stories.” (p.119)

“Romantic ballet’s choreographic richness emphasised the language of line, extension and verticality and a belief in the universality of the language of dance and mime. The radical new look of pointe work and adagio, of effortlessly graceful feminine bodies dressed in tutus disguised the increasingly strenuous technical virtuosity and extensive training for these performances. The silent solos of the practitioners, or the pas de deux, pas de trois or pas de quattre wove aesthetic and unified figures in space as their movements patterned their interconnectedness.” (p.120)

Ballet Evolution in the Eighteenth Century

From Dorion Weickmann: Choreography and narrative: the ballet d’action of the eighteenth century in Kant 2007: Cambridge Companion to Ballet:

“The ballet d’action, a narrative ballet, was an invention of the eighteenth century. It replaced the pompous grands ballets of baroque absolutism that had evolved out of the Italian Renaissance intermedii or divertissements, had primarily represented and glorified the sovereign; the ballet d’action, on the other hand, was supposed to tell stories that followed their own narrative logic and lay beyond princely power fantasies.

The emergence of the ballet d’action relied on three factors: first, enlightenment ideas had spread to dance theory. Hence it became possible to introduce the notion that dance could and should be independent from the other arts. Secondly, the academic ballet of the eighteenth century strove towards a technical refinement that aristocratic amateurs practising dance could no longer fulfil. Thirdly, theatre as a cultural institution underwent a process of professionalisation in which the performer and the observer began to be separated from each other.” (p.53)

“They [French ballet theorists of the eighteenth century] intended to supply the dance with an unmistakable and autonomous poetics instead of understanding it as a hybrid form of poetry, music and painting. Against the absolutist demand of servitude the French writers defined form, function and content of ballet in a new way and harmonised all these new components. Instead of presenting mere virtuosity and conceptual emptiness, dance was supposed to translate human emotions and affects. Instead of simply confirming power relationships, dance was now to show ‘la belle nature’ itself, that is, the beauty of the human condition, of human temperaments and chacteristics. Dance literature from the mid-eighteenth century onwards followed this motif of a new sensibility.” (p.55)

“In his [Cahusac] opinion, the poverty of action of the court ballets and divertissements destroyed the aesthetics as well as the function of theatrical dance: ‘L’Opinion commune est que la Danse doit se réduire à un developpment des belles proportions du corps, à une grande précision dans l’exécution des airs, à beaucoup de grace dans le déployment des bras, à une légerté extrême dans la formation des pas.’ [quoted from: Louis de Cahusac: La Danse ancienne et moderne ou Traité historique de la Danse, Paris 1754] (Common opinion assumes that dance can be reduced to the development of beautiful physical proportions, great precision in execution of airs, graceful deployment of the arms and an extreme lightness in making steps.) Yet that was not enough in itself because it would often only mean mechanical repetition.
[...] Cahusac not only demanded that absolute spectacle be replaced by narrative composition but also suggested a dramaturgical structure for all ballets: they were to follow an Aristotelian three-part organisation in which the expostition of the dramatic conflict was followed by its development and its dissolution. Cahusac hoped that clarification of the subject in turn would lead to a revival of ballet.” (p.56)

Dance Photography in the 21st Century

From Jack Mitchell: Capturing Emotion In Motion. Photographing Ballet Dance in Dance Magazine, December 1999:

“Dance photography has improved dramatically during the twentieth century. Dance photography in the twenty-first century should develop by even greater strides. There are more good dance companies around the world, more accomplished dancers worldwide, and more photographers interested in dance photography. Add the technical developments in cameras and the ongoing evolution of digital photography, and it seems that the future of dance photography is very bright indeed. “

Full article at encyclopedia.com