This book explores the relationships between genders in terms of the choreography, the patterns of movement and the narratives of the bodies in the space. Sally Banes, a well-known scholar in the ®eld of the dancing arts, revisits the history of western dance (from classical ballet to postmodern performance) from a feminist perspective. She rejects any essentialist evaluation on the different styles: she focuses on the analysis of individual performances, and provides a detailed reconstruction of some 20 famous choreographic arrangements within their speci®c sociocultural context. What cultural meanings are in fact conveyed by the bodies on stage? What cultural representations of gender identities are offered by the language of the dance? These are the questions that Sally Banes provides answers to, dealing with one case at a time, in her detailed historical-materialist analysis (which at times, however, threatens to underestimate the metaphorical worth of the art of dance).The distinctive, highly original nature of this study is exempli®ed in the grid used to compare choreographic works: the`marriage plot'.`Where dances were ®rst embedded in weddings, weddings came to be embedded in dances', Banes declares (p. 5); and indeed, from 1832 La Sylphide, through to Stravinsky and Nijinsky's Les Noces (1923), and on as far as to A. de Mille's Rodeo (1942), the moment of the partner choice is seen as lying at the very core and heart of many dances. When this is not the case, as in certain speci®c historic phases ± including the early 20th-century forerunners of modern dance, and postmodern developments ± the choice of doing without the marriage plot and without its associated stylistic feature, the pas de deux, is in itself signi®cant in terms of gender representations. Thus, Banes elaborates a sociosemiotic grid with which to evaluate the performances in terms of the failure or success of the marriage plot, and of the dysphoric or euphoric affective value of the marriage in question; consequently, she takes into account the dialectic between plot, choreography and musical score, and helps us to understand the bodily language of dance and its speci®c varieties of meanings with regard to the coupling of the sexes. Thus dance may sometimes propose new con®gurations of certain well-known themes from our cultural heritage. It is the case, to quote but one example, of Tschaikovsky and Petipa's The Sleeping Beauty (1890):`in terms of female agency, when the story of the Sleeping Beauty is staged, especially in dance terms ± which require action ± it becomes dif®cult, if not impossible, to depict the protagonist as passive and immobile ' (p. 49).Dancing Women provides us with a vast and complex framework within which to formulate an analysis of dance from the cultural studies perspective, something that had in fact been lacking up until now.
Encouraged by the voice coach Margaret Carrington to find 'his own personal sound', working closely with the designer Robert Edmund Jones (whose work reflects the influence of Craig as well as that of Freud), Barrymore created what seemed at the time an impressively modern production. Modernity was carried over into his legendary Hamlet (1922), whom he played not in the gentlemanly manner of Forbes Robertson, but as an intense, even nervous, intellectual. Indeed some spectators complained that his gentle, concerned playing of the nunnery scene gave Ophelia no cause to ask the heavens to 'restore him', a problem that recurred with his tender treatment (again Freud-inspired) of Gertrude later in the play. As a classical actor, Barrymore took the Victorian tradition of bravura acting and made it of interest to a younger generation. Gielgud thought that his Hamlet had 'a beautiful presence, a profound magnetism', which he also considered 'very sardonic and amusing in a way, sort of dregs humour'. According to Olivier, Barrymore 'put back the balls', a strengthening of the role that prepared him for his own psychological interpretation in 1937 and, on film, in 1947. This is a highly professional account of an actor who now appears as historically transitional, so it may seem ungrateful to complain about excessive detail. Conceding that his reconstructions of what the audience might have witnessed during a 'typical' performance are 'made, of course, with full knowledge that no such thing ever existed', Morrison still provides 52 pages on Richard and 138 on Hamlet. The breakdown, based on reviews and prompt-books, proceeds line by line, sometimes word by word. Following a reconstruction this thorough can feel like being stuck in a queue with the kind of bore who insists on describing the minutiae of the show they saw the night before. Unless they are exceptionally vivid, other people's commentaries can stifle the desire to imagine a theatrical experience for oneself. The best criticism makes a past performance come newly alive, and in his efforts to compile an exhaustive account Morrison does not always rise to this challenge.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.