Many complain that the most neglected area in our cultural education is music. I disagree: I believe it is dance, and ballet in particular. The current syllabus for secondary education in Catalonia includes a course called ‘History of music and dance’ (see http://xtec.gencat.cat/web/.content/alfresco/d/d/workspace/SpacesStore/0084/cc151bd5-caee-4c3d-8e35-a7053619c91e/historia_musica_dansa.pdf), which seems an improvement in relation to the total absence of these two arts from the secondary school curriculum back in the 1980s. Of course, one may learn about any field of interest outside formal school education: after all, cinema does not even have its own BA degree in Film Studies in Spain but this has been no obstacle for many Spaniards to become committed, self-taught cinephiles.
With dance, however, matters are far more difficult as, apart from the general public indifference to this art, there is actually very little accessible introductory material, both print and audio-visual. This surprises me very much in view of the proliferation of ballet schools for middle-class children. At any rate, I have been unable to find a good audio-visual introduction on YouTube, a basic history of ballet, beyond brief amateur presentations or boring professional TED lecturing. Likewise, there seem to be very few books addressed to beginners in the field, beyond Susan Au’s Ballet and Modern Dance, as ballet books are primarily about the practice, and not the history of dancing. Actually, most children introduced to this art (and their parents) have no idea about who the current main stars are–much less about why they must practice particular dance steps, or that truly strange staple of ballet, pointe work.
The volume I am currently reading, the Cambridge Companion to Ballet, demands a certain stamina from readers and, like any other book on this topic, it is limited by the lack of moving images, without which ballet terminology may be quite daunting. Searching, then, for an illustration of the issues covered in the first part of the Companion, specially baroque dance, I came across the BBC documentary The King Who Invented Ballet: Louis XIV and the Noble Art of Dance (2015). This turned out to be a beautiful film presented by Birmingham Royal Ballet’s artistic director David Bentley, with a wonderful surprise: whereas the first hour is devoted to exploring what ballet meant for the Sun King, the last 35 minutes offer Bentley’s own ballet The King Dances. Without forgetting that English culture has also produced rowdy Magaluf tourists, I marvel at its public television. I just don’t see Spanish or Catalan TV walking down the ballet road and, thus, remain wonderfully ignorant of the local situation.
Let me pass on what I have been learning these days. Ballet is a ritualized dance form originating in 15th century Italian courts which reached France thanks to Catherine de’ Medici. All European courtiers were expected to master ballet as a social skill applied to controlling body language but also to offering spectacular displays of power. Louis XIV, a keen dancer since childhood, made the best of this aspect of ballet, as the BBC documentary explains, to solve a major political crisis which threatened to dethrone him when he was still a teen king under the regency of his mother and of Cardinal Mazzarino (or Mazarin). The twelve-hour Le Ballet de la Nuit in which young Louis dazzled his subjects by playing the dancing Sun King, gave the monarch not only a lasting nickname but also the authority he craved for. Hard as it is to imagine any contemporary crowned individual dancing in public–beyond perhaps waltzing in gala dinners–the fact is that Louis did so for decades, and to great acclaim. He eventually founded the first ballet academy in the world in 1661, the Académie Royale de Danse.
Formally a celebration of Louis XIV’s major contribution to ballet, the BBC documentary–or, rather, choreographer David Bentley–also has a gendered agenda: vindicating the role of men in ballet. My own interest in this field is being fuelled by the paradoxical position as public women of 19th century ballerinas, owners of the only female bodies on display which deserved artistic respect and even stardom (hence, power). All scholars agree that ballet has been dominated by women since the Romantic period but Bentley’s approach is part of a currently ongoing reflection on the role that male dancers may play in art form today much conditioned by rampant homophobia.
You may see the problem summarized in the 35 minutes of The King Dances: although he had devised the piece for an all-male cast, Bentley reluctantly decided to cast a ballerina as the ethereal Moon spirit; her appearance on stage reduces the principal male dancer playing the King to becoming a supporting prop, what men mostly are in classical ballet. This is frustrating, as throughout the rest of the piece he interacts wonderfully with the rest of the male cast in original, creative dance moves. The controversial suggestion then is that, if male dancers could free themselves from the burden of the ballerina (a figure unknown in Louis XIV’s reign) then they could take centre stage again. And dance as men–as the Sun King did.
Bentley’s film connects with another excellent documentary which I have mentioned just in passing here: Steve Cantor’s Dancer (2016). The film focuses on Sergei Polunin, a young, brilliant ballet dancer whom you may have seen in a viral YouTube video, directed by David LaChapelle. There, Polunin offers an amazing display of formidable dancing accompanied by Hozier’s catchy song “Take me to Church” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-tW0CkvdDI). As it turns out, Polunin intended this video to be his goodbye to ballet but, paradoxically, its success made him reconsider his decision. This is what Cantor’s film documents: the cost of being a ballet star in a world in which ballet’s demands may no longer make sense, much less to a young man.
As dancing male bodies on display, Louis XIV and Sergei Polunin occupy diametrically opposed positions: one is the King of the most powerful nation of his time using ballet to flaunt his political power; the other is a poor boy from Ukraine whose working-class family collapses under the burden of lifting him onto stardom. And here lies the problem in Polunin’s case: for Louis XIV, ballet is an extension of his absolutism, inherited by divine right; for Polunin, ballet is not a personal choice, but a road onto which he is placed by teachers and family because of his body’s uncanny capacities and abilities. In my Marxist reading, Louis XIV puts the foundations of an elite taste for ballet which allows Polunin to leave poverty behind in 21st century post-Communist Ukraine at a very high personal cost. This includes his radical de-classing, his permanent exile from his home town, the divorce of his parents and even his own estrangement from the whole family. Polunin wonders, as the film does, whether the sacrifice is worth it. The dancer’s many tattoos and his athletic style (see the video) also hint what he later vocalizes: ballet is a world in need of updating, particularly for male dancers. Bentley’s own message…
And, then, there’s homophobia. In an encounter with the audience at the Toronto Film Festival, after a screening of Dancer, a shy man asks Polunin (himself quite shy despite his undeserved ‘bad boy’ reputation) how homophobia can be combated and, thus, more young boys introduced to ballet. In Polunin’s Ukraine boys were given, as he was, a choice between gymnastics and ballet and perhaps because of this he seems puzzled, also a bit uncomfortable. “I do a man’s job”, he quips and this is it. Both Louis XIV and Sergei Polunin, beginning and present, embody what ballet is at risk of losing: heterosexual masculinity. It seemed that after the phenomenally successful Billy Elliot (2000), the problem would have been solved. Yet, it has not. This does not mean that gay male dancers are acknowledged and respected, either. The Bolshoi’s recent decision (June 2017) to cancel the world premiere of a ballet based on top Russian ballet star Rudolf Nureyev (1938-93) has dismayed many. Although the Bolshoi authorities have invoked technical problems to justify their decision, Russian legislation against promoting homosexuality in any way is most likely their main consideration. For, of course, Nureyev was gay and died of AIDS-related complications.
Ironically, then, although ballet was formally codified to display men’s power it eventually became an art focused on the iconic femininity of the ballerina. I don’t intend to discuss here this femininity, nor how it fits the current cult of the unnaturally thin woman. What anyone knows is that ballet schools are full of girls because most parents believe that ballet gives even the less gifted girl tools to carry her body gracefully, still, believe it or not, a much appreciated social skill. But what about little boys? Whenever I attend a ballet school’s performance, as I do yearly, and see just one or two boys surrounded by twenty or more girls, I wonder who they are, what is motivating them and what obstacles they’re facing, whether they’re gay or straight. Louis XIV would not understand this situation at all.
By the way, Polunin was discovered thanks to the Ukrainian public school system, of which ballet was part. This is hard to imagine in my local context. I’ll leave for some other day why the supposedly cultured, cosmopolitan city of Barcelona offers so little ballet and at such prohibitive prizes. This, I believe, King Louis XIV would understand.
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