Ballet Body Narratives: Pain, Pleasure and Perfection in Embodied Identity

198 Pages·2015·0.809 MB·English

by  Angela Pickard

PETER ASDASDW
Ballet Body Narratives is an ethnographic exploration of the social world of B
classical ballet and the embodiment of young ballet dancers as they engage a
in ‘becoming a dancer’ in ballet school in England. In contrast to the largely l
l
disembodied sociological literature of the body, this book places the corporeal e
body as central to the examination and reveals significant relationships between t

body, society and identity. Drawing on academic scholarship as well as rich B
ballet body narratives from young dancers, this book investigates how young o
ballet dancers’ bodies are lived, experienced and constructed through their
d
desire to become performing ballet dancers as well as the seductive appeal of
y
the ballet aesthetic. Pierre Bourdieu’s critique of the perpetuating social order

and his theoretical framework of field, habitus and capital are applied as a way N
of understanding the social world of ballet but also of relating the ballet habitus a
and belief in the body to broader social structures. This book examines the
r
distinctiveness of ballet culture and aspects of young ballet dancers’ embodied r
a
identity through a central focus on the ballet body.
t
i
v
e
s
Angela Pickard is Director of Teaching, Learning and School Experience in the School
for Music and Performing Arts and Subject Lead for Dance at Canterbury Christ
Church University. She has performed, created, taught and presented dance as a
dancer, choreographer, teacher, advisor, consultant and academic. She has worked
Ballet Body Narratives
with a number of choreographers and artists in a range of projects across a multitude
of venues in Kent, London and Europe and she is currently Artistic Director and
choreographer of Canterbury Dance Company. Her research on ballet, the body, A
N
Bourdieu, identity, gender, talent and pedagogy has been widely disseminated. She Pain, Pleasure and Perfection in
G
is also Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Research in Dance Education. E
L Embodied Identity
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ISBN 978-3-0343-1786-3
www.peterlang.com
Peter Lang
PETER ASDASDW
Ballet Body Narratives is an ethnographic exploration of the social world of B
classical ballet and the embodiment of young ballet dancers as they engage a
in ‘becoming a dancer’ in ballet school in England. In contrast to the largely l
l
disembodied sociological literature of the body, this book places the corporeal e
body as central to the examination and reveals significant relationships between t

body, society and identity. Drawing on academic scholarship as well as rich B
ballet body narratives from young dancers, this book investigates how young o
ballet dancers’ bodies are lived, experienced and constructed through their
d
desire to become performing ballet dancers as well as the seductive appeal of
y
the ballet aesthetic. Pierre Bourdieu’s critique of the perpetuating social order

and his theoretical framework of field, habitus and capital are applied as a way N
of understanding the social world of ballet but also of relating the ballet habitus a
and belief in the body to broader social structures. This book examines the
r
distinctiveness of ballet culture and aspects of young ballet dancers’ embodied r
a
identity through a central focus on the ballet body.
t
i
v
e
s
Angela Pickard is Director of Teaching, Learning and School Experience in the School
for Music and Performing Arts and Subject Lead for Dance at Canterbury Christ
Church University. She has performed, created, taught and presented dance as a
dancer, choreographer, teacher, advisor, consultant and academic. She has worked
Ballet Body Narratives
with a number of choreographers and artists in a range of projects across a multitude
of venues in Kent, London and Europe and she is currently Artistic Director and
choreographer of Canterbury Dance Company. Her research on ballet, the body, A
N
Bourdieu, identity, gender, talent and pedagogy has been widely disseminated. She Pain, Pleasure and Perfection in
G
is also Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Research in Dance Education. E
L Embodied Identity
A

P
I
C
K
A
R A����� P������
D

www.peterlang.com
Peter Lang
Ballet Body Narratives

Angela Pickard
Ballet Body Narratives
Pain, Pleasure and Perfection in
Embodied Identity
PETER LANG
Oxford • Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • Frankfurt am Main • New York • Wien
Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche National-
bibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at
http://dnb.d-nb.de.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pickard, Angela.
Ballet body narratives : pain, pleasure and perfection in embodied identity / Angela
Pickard.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-3-03-431786-3 (alk. paper)
1. Ballet. 2. Ballet--Social aspects. I. Title.
GV1787.P53 2015
792.8--dc23
2015006242
Cover image © Maksim Šmeljov – fotolia.com
ISBN 978-3-0343-1786-3 (print)
ISBN 978-3-0353-0717-7 (eBook)
© Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers, Bern 2015
Hochfeldstrasse 32, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
[email protected], www.peterlang.com, www.peterlang.net
All rights reserved.
All parts of this publication are protected by copyright.
Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without
the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution.
This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming,
and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems.
This publication has been peer reviewed.
Contents
Chapter 1
Ballet, Bodies and Becoming 1
Chapter 2
Ballet, Body and Bourdieu 21
Chapter 3
Thinking through the Body 45
Chapter 4
Body, Capital and Habitus 61
Chapter 5
Ballet Bodies in Pain 81
Chapter 6
Gendered Experiences of Pain 101
Chapter 7
Ballet Bodily Pleasures 125
Chapter 8
Pleasure, Power and Perfection 143
vi
Bibliography 159
Index 183
Chapter 1
Ballet, Bodies and Becoming
I Am a Dancer
I have become a dancer through a process of construction that began in
early childhood. I was taken to ballet classes at a young age by my mother
who claimed it was because I was always moving or ‘jiggling around’, as she
put it. I remember that I started to really enjoy it at about 9 years old. At
this time I was participating in a number of other activities – gymnastics,
theatre group and swimming – but I preferred ballet. I do not remember
wanting to be a professional dancer but ballet (and other genres of dance)
did eventually encompass every aspect of my leisure time as I decided to
reject the other activities and engaged in an increased number of classes,
preparation for examinations, rehearsals, performances and an ongoing
practice of steps and combinations. I do not remember being persuaded
or coerced overtly to do this; I believe that it was my choice. The codified
vocabulary of ballet steps were taught in French and English, with classi-
cal music played to accompany the class. I learned particular ways of being
through ballet. I learned about the ideal ballet aesthetic of perfection and
the discipline that is involved in attempting to achieve this. I experienced
teaching methods that treated my body as a ‘petite fighting machine’; I
pulled up, extended and stretched my body to achieve the necessary and
purposeful tension and softness to carry the illusion of weightlessness and
to express vulnerability. I learned about the ideal ballet body; I was deemed
to be ‘naturally petite and slim’ by my ballet teacher at age 11. This physique
fitted with the pre-requisites for ballet training. Such a physique was unob-
tainable for some of my peers so some were engaged in a daily struggle to
reconcile the ideal ballet body shape with their own body shape and size
2 Chapter 1
through a regime of restricted food intake from about age 12 onwards.
I never dieted or even contemplated it. As I became a teenager and moved
onto pointe work I witnessed that many of my peers were engaging in
patterns of disordered eating behaviour so that they felt lighter en pointe.
I remembered questioning this on many occasions. Now I realise that I
could not have possibly known how they felt or how they viewed their
bodies because my body fitted with the expected dimensions and propor-
tions of the idealised ballet body in shape and size.
In ballet class there was a uniform of a tight fitting leotard that accen-
tuated my body shape in a particular colour that signified the structured
system of teaching and learning and the level of ballet that I had achieved:
pink, then light blue, dark blue, cerise and black. The leotard was worn
with pink ballet tights that accentuated the shape of the legs. My long
hair was pulled away from my face and worn in a bun hairstyle that took
a long time to do and involved using numerous hairgrips and hairspray as
I had fine hair. The shoes that I wore were soft ballet shoes that I had in
pink leather, red leather and black leather (I loved my red leather shoes
because I loved the film The Red Shoes and my black ones because they
were the most comfortable) and, of course, my pink satin pointe shoes.
I loved the smell of my ballet shoes and the ritual of getting them out of my
bag, unravelling the ribbons, putting them on, dancing and then putting
them back into my bag. I remember receiving my first pair of pointe shoes
as a Christmas present from my parents. I spent a long time just looking
at them, touching them, smelling them and trying them on, dancing a bit
and then taking them off again. Pointe shoes signified an achievement:
that I was a ballet dancer.
I felt that I fully committed to ballet after being told by an examiner
at age 13 that I was ‘naturally talented, with good feet and lovely, expres-
sive arms’. This afforded me much attention from my teacher, which
again many of my peers could not obtain. I was highly successful in
assessments and auditions. I considered myself good at ballet – I could
do it; I was alert and enthused by ballet, I picked up movement patterns
and new vocabulary easily into my movement memory. I could execute
the movements easily and express them fully. I looked forward to my