Avant-Garde Ballet
Words by Otty Allum
Ballet is a genre of dance that came about during the Renaissance in the Italian courts and was developed in both Russia and France. It is a dance form that emphasises precision and correctness, due to the fact that it is an old art form, it is steeped in tradition. Many artists have attempted to deconstruct the conventions that define it and create something more modern, that explores the body and its movement within space.
Martha Graham
Martha Graham’s choreographic work is currently featured in the Whitechapel Gallery exhibition Action, Gesture, Paint, in a section of the exhibition called Action, Gesture, Performance: Feminism, the Body and Abstraction which ends on 7th May. It features two films of her performance pieces; “Steps in the Street” and “Heretic”. Martha Graham was an American choreographer, born in 1894, her main aim as a choreographer was to encapsulate the human experience within dance, rather than it simply be a form of entertainment. She essentially stripped ballet of its rigid conventions and embellishments, in order to create something more raw and more human. Graham established her own dance centre in 1926; The Martha Graham Centre of Contemporary Dance in New York City. Within her choreographic practice she employed her technique of ‘contraction and release’, this countered the nature of ballet which intended for the dancer to appear weightless. With this technique she was influenced by the natural movement of the body and the way in which the dancer breathed and held their body could imply different emotions.
“Heretic”, Martha Graham.
One of Graham’s most famous pieces was “Heretic”, a five-minute-long modern ballet piece featuring 13 female performers; 12 in long dark dresses and one in white, the piece premiered in New York in 1929. Upon viewing, the piece has a charged atmosphere and alludes to a sense of isolation. The stomping movements of the dancers in black allude to a sense of urgency. A connection is somewhat made with the dancer in white and the audience as both are physically opposite and exist at the mercy of the menacing dancers in black. Graham’s work explored American and Greek mythology, but with a strong political undertone, dealing with ideas such as the implications of postcolonial America, the Wall Street Crash and the subsequent Depression and Hitler’s persecution of the Jewish people. Graham sank into deep depression and alcoholism after retirement from dancing, what was particularly painful to her was watching others perform the dances she had once choreographed and danced herself. She lived to the age of 96 and is considered to be a pioneer in the world of modern dance and modernised an art form that was becoming stagnated in tradition.
“Steps in the Street”, Martha Graham.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TowX4p9sqEk&t=1s
Tate Shots: “Constructivist Ballet”, Naum Gabo's.
“Constructivist Ballet’s” primary function is a toy for Naum Gabo’s daughter, Nina Williams. Gabo was born in Russia to a Jewish family in 1890, throughout his life he lived in many European cities and contributed to the avant-garde movements there, such as the Bauhaus in Berlin and the constructivist movement in Moscow. His artistic approach and exploration of the abstraction of geometric forms was ground-breaking. A main aim of his practice was to integrate art into everyday life and for the artwork to possess a relevant function within society. Similarly to this he felt that art should reflect real life and be realistic, not necessarily aesthetically but ideologically and conceptually. “Constructivist Ballet” is an artwork and toy made during the Second World War, a time when toys for children were scarce. The piece works using static electricity and tiny delicate figures of people and abstract shapes underneath a globe of plastic, although it was originally in a small box with a clear plastic lid. Each small fragment moves about using static electricity, creating a miniature ballet. Gabo utilised kinesis throughout his oeuvre and became a pioneer of kinetic art which provides the artwork with a sense of both time and space. This piece is intriguing due to its more functional nature as it was intended as a form of entertainment for Williams. This exemplifies the nature of Gabo’s practice; one that intended to be viewed and understood by a wide audience, not just for the high-brow viewer, even a child could be drawn in by the compelling essence of his work.
“Costume designs for Das Triadische Ballett (The triadic ballet)”, Oskar Schlemmer.
“The Triadic Ballet” which premiered in Stuttgart in 1922, was choreographed by the German sculptor Oskar Schlemmer. He was born in 1888 in Stuttgart, Germany and had been a pupil of abstract artists. He began teaching at the Bauhaus School in 1923, he initially was teaching in the mural-painting and sculpture departments, but then moved to the stagecraft workshop. He used the human form as the foundation for his explorations of abstraction. “The Triadic Ballet” possesses a triadic structure with three dancers and three acts; yellow, pink and black. The piece is whimsical and otherworldly and explores a sense of dichotomy between that which is controlled and that which is expressive; writers suggest that it explored the nature of modernity, especially human’s relation to machines. The movements of the dancers playfully echo the sounds of the music. Schlemmer described the ballet as a ‘party of form and colour’, he explored the ways that the body could exist within the world of abstraction. The dancers’ bodies were deconstructed into geometric shapes which they wore as costumes, the shapes of the costumes at some points hindered the movement of the dancers and essentially existed as wearable sculptures. Schlemmer eventually left the Bauhaus in 1929 due to the political atmosphere in Germany at the time which eventually led him to distance himself from the German art scene. He was one of the avant-garde artists to be featured at the Degenerate Art Exhibition in Munich in 1937, which caused him great sadness, he eventually passed away in 1943.
“Triadic Ballet”, Oskar, Schlemmer.
