This page is a collection of images of dancers,
primarily from the Renaissance through Baroque
periods. The intent of this section is to show
the costumes and environments of dance, especially
insofar as dance was part of the social ideology
based upon rhetoric. As dance created power to maintain
social stratification, we discuss many of the political
aspects of dance as state ideology.
The discussion is based primarily on material from
two sources:
"Dance as Text: Ideologies of the Baoroque Body",
Mark Franko, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993
"Ballets et Mascarades de Cour de Henri III a Louis XIV (1581-1652)",
M. Paul Lacroix, esp. Tome Troisièe, Slatkine Reprints, 1968
.
"... many historians conclude that court ballet did not prefigure
theatrical dancing as such but the more diffuse spectacle of opera ..."
but "... court ballet was the mannerist scene of a power struggle."
"What were the cutural politics of the baroque dance?" Court ballet was
succeeded by ballet in opera.2
.
"The early baroque period, marked by burlesque and mannerist
elements in art, literature, and performance, challenges what
will become French neo-classicism and academism." Evolution
is displayed in "Le Ballet comique de la Royne (1581),
the first well-documented burlesque ballet, Les Fées
des forests de Saint Germain (1625), and Molière's
comedy – ballets, notably Les Fâcheux (1661)
and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1670)."
3
.
"... Margaret M. McGowan established a clear-cut periodization
of court ballets. She classifies them as predominantly allegorical
and political between 1581 and 1610, as melodramatic from 1610 to
1620, and as burlesque from 1620 until 1636." and
"... Valois court ballet (1564-84) ... was the period of 'flowering'
(1643-72) ... burlesque (c. 1620-36)."
4
.
Burlesque ballet was both preceded and followed by a contrary and
apparently conservative tendency; one that construes dance as textual
in every conceivable way short of actually having dancers speak. Not coincidentally,
during these so-called textual periods monarchial ideology dominates court
ballet. "... their bodies [dancers], all noble subjects ... were subservient
to texts designed to aggrandize the monarch."
5
.
"In reaction to geometrical dance, antitextual, or burlesque, dance was an
attempt to establish a legibility for dance independent of verbal means."
5
.
"Dance history reveals a striking correlation between political resistance
and the body's freedom from, or ironic rapport with, the text in performance.
The choreographic struggle between dance and text in the burlesque reveals
the text to be a metaphore for autocratic power. Consequently, a body wresting
itself - as in burlesque ballet - from control of an explicative text is
potentially subversive. 5
.
"After the burlesque experiment with choreographic autonomy from
texts, Molière returned dance to its role in verbal theatre."
5
.
"Burlesque performance did not stop at pornography as a means for
oppositional statement. By proceeding from the burlesque works of
the 1620s to Molière comedy-ballets of the 1660s and 1670s,
I [M. Franko] am concerned to trace an aftermath of the burlesque
trend ..." 5
.
"By a 'textless' body I mean two interrelated things: first of all,
an independence from verbal, Aristotelian theatre whose model is
the rhetorical one of verbal and phonetic communication and whose
goal is the imitation of human action in a progressive and linear
sense, and the psychological consistency of character that imitation
implies. Second, the text-opposed body signifies a political autonomy
aspired to by many of those who planned, created, and actually performed
court ballets. Burlesque ballets were often the work of the highest
aristocrats and princes of the blood: the duke of Vendôme, Gaston
d'Orleans, the dukes of Guise, Nevers, and Nemours. These grandees used
court ballets to theatricalize a privileged subculture. Late humanist
emphasis on skepticism and stoicism, the political attitudes of Gallicanism
in France, and a more intangible yet widespread impiety and cynicism -
probably the result of France's long history of religious civil wars -
must have contributed to the satiric impulse of the baroque era. Yet it
was the nobility's political precariousness that most directly fueled that
critical and satiric impulse in court ballets. The period of the most
virulent critical burlesque ballets, from 1624 until 1627, coincided with
the first years of Richelieu's administration. At this time, Richelieu's
ministry was engaged in suppressing the political power of Protestants and
princes in order to consolidate centralization."
6
"... [O]ne of Richelieu['s] financial reforms instituted during the 1620s was to
cut nobles' pensions by more than half." and "... Richelieu was assailed by
a 'paper war' of satirical pamphlets during these years." and "... the
minister's support of melodramatic ballet led to the opposition of burlesque
ballet as an antigenre. Richelieu was also confronted with a hail of
satirical ballets ...". 7
"The princely magnates attempted a failed palace coup against Richelieu in 1626.
Concurrently, they exercised political resistance by satirizing heroic ballets
promoted by Richelieu: part of their satire's meaning, as well as its built-in
safety mechanism, was the reduction of the use of words as a context for
ideological control. Distance from text, however, was achieved at the price of
eroticism and obscenity. The popular tradition of carnavalesque reversals and
low style was endemic to the kind of satire that burlesque performance produced.
Burlesque ballets were not conceived and performed in isolation by separate
factions but enacted with the participation of Louis XIII."
6
.
"... a carnivalized or grotesque element survived the Renaissance: ...
burlesque court ballets (also called 'travesti'), as well as in
Molière's comedy-ballets." 8
.
"... Les Fées des forests de Saint Germain (1625)
is the first well-documented example of the burlesque style in
court ballet."
9
.
"Following the dominance of geometrical dance at the close of
the sixteenth century and burlesque
10
style ballets in the early seventeenth century, Molière's
invention of comedy-ballet represents the third most significant
innovation in baroque theatre dance. The first work of this genre,
Les Fâcheux (1661)
11
... Grafting burlesque entrées12
onto the acts of his play, Molière rehabilitated
the use of interlude. 13
.
Views concerning the relationship between rhetoric and dance
evolved. Thus Baïf: "The ballet adhers to the song/step by step/,
as they both follow speaking" (the rhetoric of gesture).
14
Also, "The union of the arts of poetry, dance, and music ...
music and dance merely enhance the word and become rhythmically
dependent on it." 15
Beaujoyeulx focused upon harmony of opposing views, "... where
geometrical dance represents social and political cohesiveness
in terms of ordered shape, rhythmical measure, and relative
legibility." However, harmony of diverse views supported a degree of
"... moral and political ambivolence ... as an emblem of mutability."
"... mutability was presented as a hidden attribute of unity and
celebrated ... as a principle of stability rather than a threat to
order."
Each season, each element
Each star is made differently;
And everything would become topsy-turvey,
If by diverse changes,
Always diverse Nature
Did not maintain the Universe.
16
.
However, the Molière changed this! Usually the play was
"interrupted" by (dance) interludes entre'act: the play drove
the interludes. In burlesque the interludes drove the play! This
becomes evident in Les Fâcheux, which is dependent
upon the entrées being interrupted; thus, repeated incidence
of fantasmata.
17, 18
"Burlesque ballets stage no geometrical figures, ...". "... one
can think of the baroque in purely stylistic terms as 'rebellion
against earlier fear of dissonance.' "
19
.
"Dissonance in court ballet was signaled by eroticism, thinly
veiled obscenity, and transvestism ..."
19
.
"Obscenity was vaguely justified as part of a larger stylistic
preoccupation with ingenuity that led to juxtaposing and blending
the serious and the grotesque ('un ballet de buffoonerie et de
gravite entremeslee'). Ambiguities of social class position
resulted in the ambiguity and destabilization indicated by signs
of sexual ambiguity, homoerotic overtones, tranvestism, as well
as racial dominance. Thus there appeared androgenous, half men/half
women figures (Le Grand bal de la douairière de
Billebabhaut, [1626]). Sexual ambiguity, the ambiguity of the
androgyne resulted in dance movement that was a hybrid of male and
female dance vocabularies as grotesque dance.
20
.
For the Eunuchs
What do I see here? Are these bodies
Which are alive as ourselves,
Or stumps which by means of springs
Are made to dance in men's clothing?
O Beauties, beautiful suns of souls,
Until we know what they are
If they be men, beasts or women,
They are everything you would like them to be.
20
.
At least some of the causes of this evolution of dance can be
identified:
"An anti-Catholic pamphlet, Le Ballet politique
(1627), satirizing ballets as metaphors for oppression
emanating from the state: 'Il se faict à Paris
le plus excellent et politique Ballet, qui ait oncques
esté representé au monde' ('You can now
see in Paris the most excellent and political Ballet
that was ever produced in the world')." In Franko's
view, "... the most satiric of burlesque ballets were
in dialogue with the monarch and society at large over
nobility rights versus royal power." Indeed, this was
the time of Mazarinades.
21
Consolidation of power by Cardinal Richelieu and Cardinal
Mazarin at the expense of courtiers.
.
At this time, one of the most important burlesques appeared:
The Ballet des infatigables. One of the entrées
was the récit of Monsieur le Compte de More,
in which it is likely that an aristocrat plays the part of a bourgeois,
a role reversal in which he suggests switching his role with that of
the king click here.
Thus, class mobility between bourgeois and king conflates political
potency with sexual potency.
22
.
"It is logical that court ballet performance became
a surrogate outlet for political contestation."
23
.
"The classic Ballet à entrée will consist
of several parts, vaguely connected, each of which will have
the structure of a ballet mascarade with its initial
récit followed by entrées, the
whole ending in a grand ballet." This is effectively a
definition of "burlesque". A mascardae has no structure
or rules. "Unlike plays that develop character and action
through dialogue, burlesque ballets attempt to communicate
principally through the dancer's appearance."
24
.
Burlesque "figures" were "Rounded projections from the
shoulders and hips, conelike volume to the skirts often,
but not always, reaching the ground, and voluminous sleeves
widening away from the torso in unexpected directions ...
triangular, spherical, and conical distortions. ... Some
costumes reduced the body to one anatomical feature, such
as an enormous head or legs walking without a trunk."
25
.
While the object of court ballet was to praise the "presence",
... "burlesque ballets erode the intention to praise while
still appearing to be about nothing: 'pure caprice.' The
object of a dancer's impersonation was freqently commented on
by cartels: small scrolls handed or thrown, and sometimes
shot with an arrow, by performers to members of the audience for
them to be read aloud." The objective being Menippean satire,
the satire NOT of individuals (such as found in Mazarinades),
but rather of mental attitudes found in representative "types"
such as pedants, bigots, cranks, parvenus, virtuosi, rapacious
officials, etc. 26
.
Eventually, the king and his court spent an excessive
amount of time on dance and other aspects of fêtes
that the court was in danger of bankruptcy. Furthermore,
attention was no longer paid to both external threats such
as from Spain, as well as internal unrest. Criticism was
directed towards the Crown that these spectacles recalled
the Roman gladiators and circuses.
Click to see.
.
For a somewhat detailed analysis of some of the costumes
used in burlesque ballets,
click here.
Dances took place at different sites, including:
Court masques (found in a different part of this website)
Theatre, opera (Entre'act, intermedios, intermezzi)
Aristocratic weddings, feasts, etc. (in palace gardens)
Burlesques
Commedia dell'arte
Les Fâcheux ("annoyances" due to obstacles, anger, boredom : Molière, Beauchamps, Lully)
Peasant weddings, feasts, etc. (Breugel paintings)
Annual fairs (Théâtre de la Foire in Paris: Saint-Germaine, St. Laurent, St. Ovide)
With the ever increasing emphasis placed upon rhetoric
of eloquent dance, mime started to take on a significant
life of its own. After all, isn't mime another form of
rhetoric tacens? Choreographers such as John Weaver,
Gennaro Magri, Jean-Georges Noverre, and others created
a new form of dance in which the gestures of rhetoric
muette took their origin from pantomime. A dance form
using pantomime had to be able to convey complex ideas,
and emotions in a dialog form, sans text (spoken, written,
or sung). Was this possible?
"Ballet d'Action"
was the name given to this new art form.
1
The tradition of anti-masques eventually faded, to be
picked up and developed as the grotteschi in the
Commedia dell'arte. This was very much due to the influence
of Gennaro Magri, dancer and choreographer, known
internationally as ballerino grottesco. See "The
Grotesque Dancer on the Eighteenth-Century Stage: Gennaro
Magri and His World", Harris-Warrick, Rebecca; Brown,
Bruce Alan (Eds.), Univ. Wisconsin Press, 2005.
2
"Dance as Text: Ideologies of the Baoroque Body",
Mark Franko, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993, p. 1
3
Ibid., p. 2
4
Ibid., p. 3
5
Ibid., p. 5
6
Ibid., p. 6
7
Ibid., p. 195 (footnote 33)
8
Ibid., p. 7
9
Ibid., p. 9
10
"Burla" means jest (origin from gest, or gestures used in
rhetoric). "Burle" and "bourle" means mystification. Burlesque
replaced the earler term grotesque. Ibid., p. 69
11
"Fâcheux" in Les Fâcheux is a play on several French
words, thus "fâcheux" can have all of these meanings, depending
upon the subjective interpretation (Ibid. pp. 115-116):
fáchée: anger
fâcheux: a bore
fâcheux: an obstacle
Entrées in "Les Fâcheux" (see the next
footnote) focused upon déclassé (dispossessed
courtiers or aristocrats) acting out or playing roles that by
being overly verbal, bore or frustrate by interrupting the "story".
There was a vasillation involved here as this performer could be a
courtier playing the role of a déclassé, or could be
a déclassé playing the role of a courtier playing the
role of a déclassé, etc. Thus the irony of one who
vascillates between classes, no longer fixed in the social strata
(moving "up" or moving "down"). Certain "roles" were commonly used
to purposely frustrate or delay the story line. Thus these bores
cause anger due to the obstacles they introduce that interrupt the
action! Some of these "roles" include:
joueurs de mail: croquet players
joueurs de boules: boccie players
petits frondeurs: stone throwers
savatiers et savatières: shoe makers (sabots - sabotage)
jardiniers: gardeners
les curieux: the curious (crowds that push people or otherwise
get in the way but contribute nothing constructive)
12
An entrée is used in burlesques as a succession of
"scenes", each introduced by a récit (recitals,
or vocal air, narrative, story: Ibid., p. 163) at the commencement
of each "scene". As the dancers play out the entrée,
cartels may be thrown (or "shot with a small bow and
arrow) to the audience. These scrolls or cartels allow some
textual explanation related to the entrée.Click here
13
Ibid., p. 11
14
Ibid., p. 26
15
Ibid., p. 27
16
Ibid. p. 64
17
Ibid. pp. 116, 117
18Fantasmata are "discordant concordia", mirroring the
discordant concordia between Catholics and Protestants (the
religious wars of the Frond). Ibid. p. 51
19
Ibid. p. 65
20
Ibid. pp. 66-69
21
Ibid., pp. 69, 70
The Fronde: a series of civil wars in France between 1648 and 1653,
occurring in the midst of the Franco-Spanish War, which had begun
in 1635. The word fronde means sling, which Parisian mobs used to
smash the windows of supporters of Cardinal Mazarin. These wars
were between the Catholics in France (Catholic League) opposed to
the Protestants (Huguenots). The Protestants were not only those in
France, but also those in the Netherlands. An example of these
Mazarinaides (propaganda), directed against not only Mazarin,
but Mazarin's army as well as aristocratic supporters, follows:
.
Buggering bugger, buggered bugger,
Bugger to the supreme degree,
Hairy bugger and feathered bugger,
Bugger in large and small volume,
Bugger sodomizing the State,
And bugger of the purest mixture...
—Paul Scarron, La Mazarinade (1651)
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