The Balanchine Woman: Of Hummingbirds and Channel Swimmers

Daly, Ann

doi:10.2307/1145763

Cited by 51 publications

(24 citation statements)

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“…Jordan and Thomas (1994) reconsider formalism and semiotics. Daly (1987Daly ( , 1991 considered feminism a widely varying phenomenon that is part generational, part personal, and part theoretical. Egan et al (2006) discontent; second, how women could be a catalyst for organizing; and third, corporealizing the abstract and realizing the paradoxes of being subject to and subversive toward existing systems of power, as well as reinforcing and destabilizing male power.…”

Section: Cross-disciplinary: Feminismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dance and Sexuality: Many Moves

Hanna

2010

Journal of Sex Research

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This literature review of dance and sexual expression considers dance and religion, dance and sexuality as a source of power, manifestations of sexuality in Western theater art and social dance, plus ritual and non-Western social dance. Expressions of gender, sexual orientation, asexuality, ambiguity, and adult entertainment exotic dance are presented. Prominent concerns in the literature are the awareness, closeting, and denial of sexuality in dance; conflation of sexual expression and promiscuity of gender and sexuality, of nudity and sexuality, and of dancer intention and observer interpretation; and inspiration for infusing sexuality into dance. Numerous disciplines (American studies, anthropology, art history, comparative literature, criminology, cultural studies, communication, dance, drama, English, history, history of consciousness, journalism, law, performance studies, philosophy, planning, retail geography, psychology, social work, sociology, and theater arts) have explored dance and sexual expression, drawing upon the following concepts, which are not mutually exclusive: critical cultural theory, feminism, colonialism, Orientalism, postmodernism, poststructuralism, queer theory, and semiotics. Methods of inquiry include movement analysis, historical investigation, anthropological fieldwork, autoethnography, focus groups, surveys, and self-reflection or autobiographical narrative. Directions for future exploration are addressed.

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Section: Cross-disciplinary: Feminismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dance and Sexuality: Many Moves

Hanna

2010

Journal of Sex Research

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“…But maybe she can. Maybe she can be both as strong as a channel swimmer, as Daly (1987) would put it, and as graceful as a hummingbird. Maybe women do represent themselves onstage, in their many incarnations, dressed at least part of the time like a Christmas package.…”

Section: Bipolarism and Ballerinas Reconsideredmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…In the early 1990s Ann Daly's forceful argument about balletic gender inequities exerted much influence, and it continues to be read and supported in some universities (Daly 1987(Daly , 1987 In two well-constructed essays written in the late 1980s, Daly persuasively outlines choreographic clues that seemed to symbolize women's oppression in ballet-for instance, that the male dancer maintains a solid stance and appears in control, while his partner needs steadying and is led, handled, and manipulated. Daly concluded that women could not represent themselves on the classical ballet stage as long as they were unstable on the tips of their toes, and as long as they had to be as superlatively strong but were not allowed to exhibit that strength in a recognizable way and receive the respect that obvious power accrues in contemporary society (1987/88,17).…”

Section: The Ballerina In Critical Focusmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Both became converts to modern dance and no longer wanted to go to the ballet, though they did so on rare occasions, for which they offered various mitigating circumstances. Echoing admired critiques by Evan Alderson (1987) and Ann Daly (1987;1987/88), both women said they were no longer seduced by the beauty of the ballerina but instead saw a kind of masochism involved in her creation-the mutilated feet, the underweight body, the elite, exclusionary practices, and the narrow definition of femininity.…”

Section: Expanding the Pool Of Critical Voicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Tulle as Tool: Embracing the Conflict of the Ballerina as Powerhouse

Fisher¹

2007

Dance Res. J.

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The image and interpretation of the ballerina has shifted over time since she first took her place in the pantheon of romantic female performers in the early nineteenth century. For many, she is still romanticized, respected, and revered; in other circles, she has become suspect as a creature who may be obsessed, exploited, and retrogressive in light of the egalitarian strides women have made or are still trying to make. The female ballet dancer's basic contradiction—her ethereal exterior and her iron-willed interior—has not been sufficiently accounted for in either scheme, nor has it been woven into the kind of complex, contextualized analysis that includes practitioners who embody the form, audience members of various kinds, and the multiple, shifting locales and attitudes that surround them. As an elite art form, ballet has until recently relied on the more univocal discourse of bouquets and brickbats from critics and other specialists. In 1993, when dance anthropologist Cynthia Jean Cohen Bull called for a consideration of ballet's relationship of dance to life in ways that other cultural forms are investigated, few took up the call.

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“…The ballerina en pointe is a much-debated feminist concern. Ballet has been shunned by feminists as an oppressive dance form for women and as conforming to the male gaze theory (see Daly 1987;Adair 1992;Cooper Albright 1997;Thomas 2003;and Manning in Desmond 2003). It is certainly true of the choreography in Amelia that the female dancers, when dancing en pointe, are supported and sometimes manipulated by their male partners.…”

Section: The Restrictions and The Limits Of The Male Gazementioning

confidence: 99%

Choreographing theory: an analysis of Édouard Lock'sAmelia(2002) questioning the limits of feminist and poststructuralist perspectives

Ireland

2009

Research in Dance Education

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Édouard Lock's dance film Amelia (2002) is the focus of this essay. Second-wave feminist and poststructuralist perspectives inform the analysis of this piece of contemporary dance. Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory and Julia Kristeva's theory of the semiotic and symbolic realms of representation are explored and critiqued, whilst Jacques Derrida's deconstruction forms the basis of the poststructuralist inquiry. The work of dance scholars including Ann Daly, Susan Leigh Foster and Ann Cooper Albright is drawn upon in relation to applying these theories to dance. This analysis demonstrates how dance, and specifically Lock's work, questions the limits of feminist and poststructuralist theories. The dissection of binary oppositions is a feminist and poststructuralist concern and as such, this common strategy is investigated through Amelia. Application of feminist and poststructuralist theories demonstrate that Lock's choreography presents ambiguous gender identities and challenges the boundaries of balletic convention whilst also acknowledging the necessity of conventional frameworks of identity. This analysis serves to highlight Lock's choreography as a valuable tool for comparing feminist and poststructuralist theories and leads to useful lines of questioning in each. The film version of Édouard Lock's Amelia (2002), performed by La La La HumanSteps, 2 will be analysed here from poststructuralist and feminist perspectives. These perspectives will be critically juxtaposed with the aim of revealing both complementary and contrasting lines of enquiry, striving to highlight some associated challenges specifically in relation to dance. This investigation probes how Lock's choreography questions the limits of Jacques Derrida's deconstruction and explores second-wave feminist theories which question the possibility, or indeed the desirability, of complete gender equality. Lock's confrontation of binary oppositions informs the feminist perspective taken here, which moves towards a postfeminist position, both embracing and inverting dualism and posing a challenge to the respective acceptance and transcendence of dualism in liberal and radical feminisms. In particular, the discussion extends to: the questioning of convention and the necessity to work within, or in parallel to, conventional structures, even when striving to displace them; the contradiction of applying a static theory of female objectification to a mobile art form such as dance; the challenge of identifying a *

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The Balanchine Woman: Of Hummingbirds and Channel Swimmers

Cited by 51 publications

References 0 publications

Dance and Sexuality: Many Moves

Dance and Sexuality: Many Moves

Tulle as Tool: Embracing the Conflict of the Ballerina as Powerhouse

Choreographing theory: an analysis of Édouard Lock'sAmelia(2002) questioning the limits of feminist and poststructuralist perspectives

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