Dance      Dance

Rhythms for life. Movement of the body to reflect sadness, celebrate joy and reveal the essence of the subconscious where words are unnecessary. 

A Little History

For the Ancient Egyptians music and dancing were an integral part of life. At parties, singers and dancers performed to the music of harps, lutes, drums, flutes, cymbals, clappers and tambourines. During festivals, priests and crowds chanted and clapped, carried along by the rhythm of orchestras, while dancers performed amazing feats, leaping twirling and bending their bodies in time with the music. Music and dance appeared early in the Pre-Dynastic periods (pre 3100 BC). Large numbers of musical instruments have been unearthed and banqueting scenes found in many ancient tombs include depictions of dancers and musicians. A satirical papyrus even depicts an ass playing a harp, a lion with a lyre, a crocodile with a lute, and a monkey with a double oboe. In the Pre-Dynastic period images of female figures dancing with their arms raised above their heads indicate its early role in ritual. Labourers worked in rhythm to the sound of songs and percussion, and street dancers entertained all. Troupes of musicians and dancers were hired for banquets and celebrations and even for the temples. A well-born Egyptian would however not dance in public. Others provided the entertainment. Priests danced in processions and the army had styles of dance. Muu-Dancers in kilts and reed crowns performed beside funeral processions. Men and women however were never shown dancing together. 

Around 3000 - 1400 BC the Minoan civilization of Crete developed music, song and dance, as part of their religious ritual as well as for entertainment. Dance was performed most often in open or closed circles around a tree, an altar, or special objects and later around a singer or a musician, but it also included couples and swaying dances of women choruses.

In the history of modern dance there existed stars that inspired and remain legendary. The Dance like all the arts had stars in the past, but like all facets of life, the age of the great personalities is over and ensembles are the norm. Perhaps this is democratic, but without true heroes to inspire us I am not sure that greatness is achieved. There is often an ordinariness in art and the talents. Everyone wants to be ordinary (average?). The talent is there, but the grand personality is not. We in Australia call such things the tall poppy syndrome, where no one is allowed to be too great. They are admired, but if they get too popular we tend to knock them down, so once again everyone is average or at least seen to be. Perhaps it is only in Hollywood or teen music that heroes are still created by the media, but often too soon and within months they fall by the wayside. Where are however those who deserve their own legend? Pride is perhaps not a great human quality, but I am willing to allow the occasional pompous personality to exist when their talent warrants it. I am not their spiritual judge, I just admire their talent and no more.

Sir Frederick Ashton                                 Michel Fokine                                    George Balanchine  

Throughout history and contrary to modern imagery it has been vigorous male dancing that has been the centre of ritual and celebration. Women in many societies were banned from such activities. This is still found in many cultures. We often have the belief that as an art form it is feminine and gentle, but this appears to have been popularised in recent times, in part, by the influence of the French, particularly under the influence of the Jockey Club of the nineteenth century, a band of males who attended the theatre to talk and drink and admire the girls on stage The ballet was often added just to satisfy the voyeuristic needs of these, usually, young men of high society. This had little to do with the performance, but became part of the accepted fabric of entertainment. Even many Italian operas were re-written for the French to include a mandatory ballet sequence for the entertainment of the men. Vaudeville or burlesque for the mass entertainment, along with the rise of female liberation also led to the flirtatious prominence of female dance. It is what we call Western Civilisation or its influence that has changed the image of the dancer and appears to have emasculated the art in the minds of many.

Michel Fokine was born April 25 1880 in St. Petersburg. He studied at the Imperial Ballet School and became a notable soloist in the Maryinsky Ballet (Kirov Ballet). In 1909 to become chief choreographer for Serge Diaghilev’s troupe of Russian dancers, which became the Ballets Russes and by rejecting the artificiality of conventional ballets changed the course of Western ballet history with greater naturalism of movement and returning male dancers to the spotlight. In 1923 he moved to New York and died there in 1942.

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On the return from Europe a few years ago and having spent the entire trip listening to a tape of Carmina Burana I was so excited to find it being performed here soon afterwards as a ballet. The evening of strong emotive and sensuous dance came to a climax as the full orchestra boomed and a curtain rose to show the 200 voice choir, white faced on black, mounted behind the dancers in a swirl of blinding red smoke as bodies soared on ropes into the sky. Just an image that has remained with me.

Another memory of great nights of Ballet was many years ago when the 52 year old Dame Margot Fonteyn danced act two of Swan Lake here. Fearing for her age we went with trepidation, but as she made her entrance on point and skimmed diagonally across the stage we left our seats to stand in the aisle so that no inch of her spectacular body in motion would be missed. As you might imagine the cheering was over the top.

Beauty, physique and graceful strength still draw many to the art of dance. Youth has once again taken over the image of the dancer and high emotion as well as sex appeal draws more people to ballet then the gentle expression of once, almost revered music. While the classic ballets still draw an old and very young audience, it is the more energetic and modern Ballet in Australia has always been popular and there are many national, state and regional companies that receive much deserved  acclaim. Choreographers abound and the works of the our companies  fill our stages with works that honour our theatres and fire our imagination. 

Vaslav Nijinsky

"May the 19th, 1909, was a great day in the history of the Russian Ballet of Serge Pavlovich Diaghilev; for it was on that day that it gave its first public performance. Thus began an enterprise that was destined to last twenty years: to create an enormous repertoire; to bring up several generations of wonderful dancers; to raise the art of ballet to great heights; and to diffuse it all over the world."

Vaslav (Waslaw) Formich Nijinsky was born the second of three children to Thomas and Eleonora in Kiev March 12 1888 and baptised along with his sister in Warsaw  in 1891. His father was matre de ballet at the Imperial Theatre School of Warsaw, his mother was also a dancer and his sister Bronislava Nijinska became a well known choreographer. His elder brother Stanislav was mentally retarded. His parents separated after the birth of his sister. He made his first appearance in a ballet at age five and joined the Imperial Theatre School of Warsaw at seven and was accepted with his sister into the Imperial Theatre school of St. Petersburg at nine.

He made his debut in the Maryinsky Theatre in 1907 and resigned in 1911 after an argument about a revealing costume. He became a follower of the aristocratic and the rich and had his first relationship with and was constant companion to Prince Paul Dmitrievitch who introduced him to Diaghilev in 1908. They slept together immediately and thus Diaghilev became his lover and mentor, although Nijinsky was later to claim that he would have done anything to help himself and his mother. After his first appearance in Paris in 1909 the husband of Colette wrote -

'Yesterday when Nijinsky took off so slowly and elegantly, describing a trajectory of 4 1/2 meters and landing noiselessly in the wings, an incredulous "Ah!" burst from the ladies.....Since the Romantic period it had been the women, the Muse, the diva, the ballerina who had been worshipped: to admire a man for his grace and beauty was unheard-of.'

He was a principal dancer of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes until 1914. 

 Nijinsky and the Faun 

At twenty one he made his choreographic debut with 'The Afternoon of the Faun' which caused a scandal not just with the static dance but the final scene of erotic masturbation, described by Rodin - 'nothing could be more striking than the impulse with which, at the climax, he lies face down on the secreted veil, kissing it and hugging it to him with passionate abandon...'  

The  following ballet 'Jeux' was received badly for the flatfooted steps and the story is said to have been that of Diaghilev having a relationship with two boys but changed to two female dancers for acceptability.

In 1913 he toured South America with the company and soon after arrival he married Romola de Pulszky on the 10th September at St Miguel's church in Buenos Aires followed by reception (at right) and honeymoon at the Majestic Hotel. Following this Diaghilev flew into a rage and fired him. Nijinsky took his own troupe to London, but the season failed. Returning to Budapest he had a daughter Kyra, who years later married Diaghilev's last protégé Igor Markevitch. Being a Russian, at the outbreak of WWI he was sent to a prison camp for two years but was released in 1916 to join Diaghilev in New York. They again went to South America and split up again. Nijinsky returned to Europe. He stopped dancing around 1919. He suffered from schizophrenia and spent 1932 and 1933 in an institution in Switzerland.

Nijinsky died in England April 8 1950 of a kidney disease at age 62.

Updated April 24, 2007