“Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’: Dancing Around Perspectives,” Rocky Mountain Society for Music Theory (2014) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Dance as Embodied Aesthetics 1 Penultimate draft; final draft published in
Dance as Embodied Aesthetics , 2021
Dance critics sometimes refer to the "kinesthetic appeal" of movement or to the importance of a critic having a good "kinesthetic sense." Moreover, dancers themselves often refer to the embodied aesthetic qualities of movements: this step feels smooth and languid while the other is sharp and powerful, for example. Philosophers, however, have traditionally confined the aesthetic realm to the visual and aural. What is the kinesthetic sense for the critic? What is it that underlies dancers' comments as to the feeling of their movements? And can the dance critic's and dancer's insights into the embodied aesthetics of movement be defended in light of the traditional view? These are the questions I aim to address in this chapter.
Dance Research Journal, 2013
Using a plethora of primary source material drawn from letters, sketches, and score manuscripts, Charles M. Joseph proposes that Stravinsky's ballets offer a "looking glass" (247) through which we can chart his developing compositional vocabulary. Joseph's emphasis on Stravinsky's use of musical movement, via his employment of pace, rhythm, meter, and silence, substantiates this assertion. It is important to note that one-third of Stravinsky's works were composed for ballet, and more than half of his remaining compositions have also been choreographed. Stravinsky's Ballets charts a trajectory from "the artistic mentor Diaghilev originally set out to be" (111) to Balanchine, who
Words into Movement: the Ballet as Intersemiotic Translation
Roman Jakobson, in his 1959 article “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation”, extended the concept of translation to include transfer between different sign systems. On the basis of this definition, many ballets may be perceived as a form of intersemiotic translation, since their aesthetic structure and narrative content is largely derived from some preceding text, which may be either verbal or musical or both. This paper looks at the mechanisms involved in the transfer of meaning from the verbal into the kinesthetic code, with reference to the work of classic dance theorists such as Rudolf Laban, Doris Humphries, Merce Cunningham, etc., and to contemporary culturalist approaches. Examples are drawn from 4 different versions of Romeo and Juliet.
Danza e ricerca. Laboratorio di studi, scritture, visioni, 2021
This book provides a two millennia perspective of the intricate interaction between theory and practice to reintegrate "dance theory" within the historical field of dance studies. By doing so, this critical anthology, edited by Tilden Russell-Professor Emeritus of Music at Southern Connecticut State University-, includes fifty-five selected readings from its roots in ancient Greece until the Twenty-first century postmodern "dance theory". The problem of tracing and linking the history of "dance theory" is discussed by Russell in the introduction. «Writers in every age have theorized prescriptively, according to their own needs and ideals» (p. xix) weighing down this discipline 1 , which leads to question whether it is a methodological problem, rather than dance being an ephemeral art. The book is organized chronologically in nine chapters by prevailing historical, intellectual and artistic eras. Dance Theory to ca. 1300 explores a millennium and-a half from Greek and Roman classical authors-Plato's ethics of dance, Aristotle and Plutarch's raw materials of dance or Lucian's culture of dance-up to the Fourteenth-century Parisian musical theorist Johannes de Grocheio. It reveals how after the fall of the Roman Empire dance had an immoral reputation under ecclesiastic dominance.
Dance as a Figural Pattern for Modernist Poetics (2007)
My paper presents an attempt at observing how the arts may mingle with each other and share technical features at the beginning of the modernist period (late XIXth/early XXth centuries), with particular attention paid to dance pieces inspiring works of poetry and poetic rhetorical figures being a source of inspiration for danced gestures. The encounter between dance and poetry, instead of confronting poetry with painting, or poetry with music, paves the way for establishing a new methodology which requires an interdisciplinary use of stylistic and rhythmical devices, as well as the combination of the Aesthetic, Linguistic and Semiotic disciplines. The confrontation of choreographical codes, operating silently, but rhythmically and visually, with the poetic ones, striving to convey such dynamic perceptions through language, will be analysed through Rainer Maria Rilke's, and T. S. Eliot's poetry, both heirs and readers of Stéphane Mallarmé, in relation to the innovative avant-garde dancers Loïe Fuller, Isadora Duncan and Nijinsky. My aim is to state that this interaction between poets conjuring movement within verse and dancers evocating poetry through a choreography on the stage captures the very ambition of modern aesthetics, exploring through hybrid forms and blurred boundaries of traditional genres, the crucial notion of rhythm in every form of art. In this regard, I will try and explain why modern dance at its early stage in the XXth century epitomizes the modern thirst to investigate a renewed form of abstract and rhythmical expression, concentrating on representing dynamic conflicts, and on rendering rhythmical impressions upon the page, the score, the canvas or the stage.
Körper und Klänge in Bewegung, 2022
In her article “The Creation of New Forms”: Igor Stravinsky’s Choreodrama The Rite of Spring in the Context of the “Theater Reform around 1900,” Leila Zickgraf shows how Stravinsky—together with the choreographer Vaclav Nijinsky and inspired by Georg Fuchs and Edward Gordon Craig—aimed at creating “new dance forms” with his The Rite of Spring, premiered in 1913 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Through the rhythms of his composition, he intended to put both the dancers and the audience into a physically experienceable state of intoxication, thus integrating the audience into the action on stage. By providing insight into her 2020 doctoral dissertation Igor Stravinskijs Theater der Zukunft: Das Choreodrama Le Sacre du printemps im Spiegel der “Theaterreform um 1900” (Igor Stravinsky’s theater of the future: The choreodrama The Rite of Spring as reflected in the “theater reform around 1900”), Zickgraf demonstrates how this intention is connected with the “theater of the future” and with Stravinsky’s meeting with central proponents of the pan-European theater reform movement at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The Legacy of Ballets Russes and Nijinsky’s Interpretation of Debussy and Stravinsky
The near-riot that occurred at the ballet performance of Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacres du Primtemps (the Rite of Spring) in 1913 was part of the mixed reaction to Russian orientalism in Parisian contemporary art. Many scholars have analyzed the specifics of the piece, the choreography, and the conditions of the night of May 29 th , 1913 at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. While the analysis of the specific night is useful toward understanding the underlying psychology of the audience, Vaslav Nijinsky's ballet interpretation of The Rite of Spring is indicative of a broader movement in the historical context of the 20 th century. With the imminence of World War I and the growing urge among the French to form a 'nationalist identity', the presence of Russian ballet in Paris created sentiments of infatuation, appreciation, anxiety, and contempt -all in tension with each other. The heavy presence of primitivism, naturalism, and dissonance in Ballets Russes' performances often mocked French traditional civilized values. Ballets Russes 'authenticity' came into question as the company's motives became decidedly commercial and designed for shock appeal. Nijinsky's interpretation of Claude Debussy's L'Après-midi d'un Faune (Afternoon of a Faun) was a precursor to the Rite, but the musical qualities and the choreographic movements were not as provocative. The music itself in Stravinsky's piece, intertwined with Nijinsky's choreography, implied dehumanizing, antiexpressionist ideals that helped fuel the anxieties of Parisian audiences. Sergei Diaghilev, a Russian impresario of opera and ballet, brought a music sensation to 20 th century Western ballet with the establishment and sustainment of Ballets Russes in Paris. He recruited innovative composers and choreographers into a Russian troupe that capitalized on Parisians' fascination with exoticism and orientalism. The project began with the innovative