Dancing Women: Female Bodies on Stage

296 Pages·1998·7.27 MB·english

by  Sally Banes

DANCING WOMEN
In this compelling and lively book Sally Banes recasts canonical dance history
since the early nineteenth century in terms of a feminist perspective. Setting the
creation of specific dances in socio-political and cultural context, Dancing
Women shows that choreographers have created representations of women that
are shaped by society’s continuing debates about sexuality and female identity.
Banes raises questions about issues of representation in dance, showing that
the relationship of performance to storyline is a complex one, and reveals that
over and over again, in both ballet and modern dance, women characters on the
dance stage are enmeshed in various permutations of “the marriage plot.”
In Dancing Women, Banes uses an interpretive strategy different from that of
other feminist dance historians, finding a much more complex range of cultural
representations of gender identities. Investigating women’s images ranging from
seductive sylphs to reluctant brides to tyrannical mothers, Banes suggests how
“female microcosms”—girlhood friends, fairy godmothers, or avenging unclean
spirits—create both positive and negative pictures of women’s communities and
how women dancing solo challenge social norms.
Sally Banes is the Marian Hannah Winter Professor of Theatre History and
Dance Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is an internationally
known writer and lecturer on dance.
DANCING WOMEN
Female bodies on stage
Sally Banes

London and New York
First published 1998
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection
of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
© 1998 Sally Banes
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Banes, Sally.
Dancing women: female bodies on stage/Sally Banes.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Women dancers. 2. Women—Identity. 3. Sex in dance. 4. Body.
Human. I. Title.
GV199.4.B35 1998
792.8′082–dc21 97–24496
CIP
ISBN 0-203-02914-3 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-20338-0 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-09671-5 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-11162-5 (pbk)
To Noël, for the never-ending conversation and the
euphoric marriage plot
CONTENTS
List of plates vi
Acknowledgments v iii
Note on transliteration x
Introduction 1
1 The Romantic ballet: La Sylphide, Giselle, Coppélia 12
2 The Russian Imperial ballet: The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, 42
Swan Lake
3 Early modern dance: Fire Dance, Lily, Brahms Waltzes, Mother, 66
Revolutionary Étude, Radha
4 Early modern ballet: Firebird, The Rite of Spring, Les Noces 94
5 Modern dance: Witch Dance, With My Red Fires, Rites de Passage, 1 24
Night Journey
6 Modern ballet: Jardin aux Lilas, A Wedding Bouquet, Rodeo, Agon 1 69
Envoi: recent developments 2 16
Notes 2 34
Index 2 80
LIST OF PLATES
1 Marie Taglioni in La Sylphide, Paris (1837). Devéria lithograph, Edwin 13
Binney 3rd collection, Harvard Theatre Collection, The Houghton
Library. Courtesy of the Harvard Theatre Collection.
2 Hans Beck as Madge, Valborg Guldbrandsen as Effie, Gustav Uhlendorff 21
as James in Act I of Bournonville’s La Sylphide (1903). Photograph by
Georg Lindstrom. Courtesy of the Royal Theatre Archive and Library,
Copenhagen.
3 Carlotta Grisi in Giselle (ca. 1844). Lithograph by Challamel. Courtesy of 26
the Dance Collection, The New York Public Library for the Performing
Arts, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
4 Carlotta Brianza as Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty. Courtesy of the Dance 50
Collection, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Astor,
Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
5 The Fairies and their retinues from The Sleeping Beauty, illustration from 53
the Yearbook of the Imperial Theatres (1890–91). Courtesy of the Dance
Collection, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Astor,
Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
6 Loïe Fuller, 1896. Cabinet photograph by Falk. Bequest of Evert Jansen 70
Wendell, Harvard Theatre Collection, The Houghton Library. Courtesy of
the Harvard Theatre Collection.
7 Isadora Duncan, Ave Maria, 1916. Photograph by Arnold Genthe. 77
Courtesy of the Dance Collection, Irma Duncan, The New York Public
Library for the Perform ing Arts, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
8 Ruth St. Denis in Radha, 1906. Photograph by White Studio. Courtesy of 87
the Dance Collection, the Denishawn Collection, The New York Public
Library for the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
9 Tamara Karsavina as the Firebird and Michel Fokine as Prince Ivan in the 96
pas de deux from Firebird. Gift of the Stravinsky-Diaghilev Foundation,
Harvard Theatre Collection, The Houghton Library. Courtesy of the
Harvard Theatre Collection.
10 Six women dancers in The Rite of Spring. From The Sketch Supplement, 1 01
1913.
11 The Bride’s Chamber scene in Les Noces, photographed in rehearsal on 1 12
the roof of the Casino at Monte Carlo by J.Enrietty, 1923. Courtesy of The
Royal Opera House Archives, London.
vii
12 The Bride’s Chamber scene in Les Noces, photographed in rehearsal on 1 14
the roof of the Casino at Monte Carlo by J.Enrietty, 1923. Courtesy of The
Royal Opera House Archives, London.
13 Mary Wigman in Witch Dance, 1926. Photograph courtesy of the Stiftung1 29
Archiv der Akademie der Künste.
14 Doris Humphrey as the Matriarch in With My Red Fires, 1938. Photograph1 41
by Barbara Morgan. Courtesy of the Morgan Archives.
15 Katherine Dunham as the Woman with the Cigar, from Tropical Revue. 1 54
Courtesy of the Dance Collection, The New York Public Library for the
Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
16 Martha Graham as Jocasta and Erick Hawkins as Oedipus in Night 1 63
Journey. Courtesy of the Dance Collection, The New York Public Library
for the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
17 Hugh Laing as The Man She Loves, Peggy Van Praagh as An Episode in 1 79
His Past, Antony Tudor as The Man She Must Marry, and Maude Lloyd
as Caroline in Jardin aux Lilas. Photograph by Malcolm Dunbar. Courtesy
of the Ballet Rambert Archives.
18 The Sadler’s Wells Ballet in A Wedding Bouquet. Photograph by Felix 1 84
Fonteyn. Courtesy of the Dance Collection, The New York Public Library
for the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
19 Agnes de Mille, Peggy Van Praagh, and Charlotte Bidmead in the 1938 1 90
version of Rodeo. Gift of Agnes de Mille. Courtesy of the Dance
Collection, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Astor,
Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
20 Diana Adams and Arthur Mitchell in the Pas de Deux from Agon, 1957. 2 06
Photograph by Martha Swope © Time Inc.
21 Meredith Monk in Education of the Girlchild. Photograph by Lorenzo 2 29
Cappellini. Courtesy of The House Foundation for the Arts.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the following individuals for their help in the research,
writing, and preparation of this book: Erik Aschengreen, Helen and Daniel
Banes, Barbara Barker, Gigi Bennahum, Susan Bernstein, David Bordwell, Buff
Brennan, Ramsay Burt, James Carroll, Laurie Beth Clark, Susan Cook, Arlene
Croce, Stephen Davies, Jill Dolan, Alison East, Sorella Englund, Sharon
Friedland, Beth Genné, Isabelle Ginot, Linda Gordon, Robert Greskovic, Linda
Caruso Haviland, Deborah Jowitt, Janet Lansdale, Li Chiao-Ping, Alastair
Macaulay, Susan Manning, Elaine Marks, Carol Martin, Judy Mitoma, Monica
Moseley, Madeleine Nichols, Cecilia Olsson, Jane Pritchard, Douglas Rosenberg,
Laurence Senelick, Marc Silberman, Elizabeth Souritz, Mike Vanden Heuvel,
Karen Vedel, Juliette Willis, and Phillip Zarrilli. I also want to thank all my
colleagues in the Theatre and Drama Department and the Dance Program at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison for their support and for nominating me for
various grants that allowed me to pursue my research. I owe a special debt of
gratitude to the students in my dance history courses at the University of
Wisconsin who helped me work out some of the ideas in this book.
I have worked on Dancing Women at numerous archives over the past six
years and am indebted to the helpful staff members there: the Dance Collection at
the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; the Performing Arts
Library and Museum, San Francisco; the Royal Theatre Archive and Library,
Copenhagen; the Theater Museum, Copenhagen; the Royal Opera House
Archives, London; the Ballet Rambert Archives; the Harvard Theatre Collection;
the Theater Museum, St. Petersburg; and the Bakhrushin Theater Museum,
Moscow. I am grateful both to those institutions and also to the Stiftung Archiv
der Akademie der Künste, Berlin, and the House Foundation for the Arts for
supplying illustrations.
Parts of this book have been developed through talks given at the University
of California-Los Angeles, Swarthmore College, Bryn Mawr College, the New
Arts Program of Kutztown at the Painted Bride, the University of Copenhagen,
Dans i Dialog at Dansenhus (Copenhagen), the University of Stockholm,
Danshögskolan (Stockholm), Montpellier Danse, the Institute for Research on
Women and Gender at the University of Michigan, the School of
Performing Arts (Auckland, New Zealand), the University of Surrey, and, at the
ix
University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Institute for Research in the Humanities
and the Women’s Studies Research Center. I appreciate the opportunities for
refining my ideas provided by those invitations and audiences.
I am especially grateful for the semester I spent as a fellow at the Institute for
Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin, which allowed me to
pursue writing full-time and to engage in very fruitful conversations with the
other fellows there about my work. I thank, as well, the members of the
Performance Studies group at the University of Wisconsin, who provided
feedback and support.
This book could not have been written without the financial support I received
from a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities; a Howard
D.Rothschild Fellowship in Dance from the Harvard Theatre Collection; and
grants from the University of Wisconsin Graduate School and Vilas Associates
Fund.
I am much obliged to my first editor at Routledge, Julia Hall, for suggesting
that I write this book and to my second editor, Talia Rodgers, for her enthusiasm
in the final stages of the project. Joan Acocella has been a faithful friend and
colleague throughout, and Lynn Garafola has generously supported me in so
many ways—archival, editorial, intellectual, and sororal. Mary Evans has helped
me keep my focus. Finally, I am more thankful than words can convey to my
husband, Noël Carroll, who collaborated with me on one segment of Chapter 1,
who helped me think through every part of the book, and whose imagination,
curiosity, erudition, perspicacity, decisiveness, patience, impatience, and humor
continue to inspire me and bolster me in every way.
Some sections of this book have already been published or will be published
separately, and I would like to thank the editors for allowing me to incorporate
that material. Parts of Chapter 1 appear as “Marriage and the Inhuman: La
Sylphide’s Narratives of Domesticity and Community” (with Noël Carroll), in
Lynn Garafola, ed., Re-Thinking the Sylph: New Perspectives on the Romantic
Ballet, Studies in Dance History (Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press/
University Press of New E ngland, 1997); parts of Chapter 4 appear in “Firebird,
the Asian Bloodline, and the Body Politic,” in Lynn Garafola and Nancy Van
Norman Baer, eds., The Ballets Russes and Its World (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1998); and parts of the Envoi were published as “Feminism and
American Postmodern Dance,” in Ballett International/Tanz Aktuell (June 1996)
and as “Postmodernism, the Emotions, and the Dancing Body,” in Gerhard
Hoffmann and Alfred Hornung, eds., Emotion in Postmodernism, American
Studies, Vol. 74 (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C.Winter, 1997).