An American Ballroom Companion
The Library of Congress website Western Social Dance provides not only a background on the history but dance instruction manuals and video clips:
For centuries, in Europe and wherever Europeans have settled, the ballroom was the perfect setting for men and women to demonstrate their dancing abilities, to show their awareness of the latest fashions, and to display their mastery of polite behavior - qualities required for acceptance in society. The importance of dance and appropriate conduct was echoed in manuals that date back to the early Renaissance, to a time when courtiers, gentry, and wealthy citizens were fortunate enough to have a private dancing master or to have taken advantage of the skills of itinerant masters who traveled from one court to another.
The grandeur of the Baroque court of King Louis XIV and his court at the Palace of Versailles set the stage for a new style of dance that would spread to royal courts throughout Europe. With the development of a dance notation system, published in 1700 by dancing master Raoul-Auger Feuillet, French court dance could be taught in every palace and manor house. By the end of the eighteenth century, when ideals of democracy swept through nations, group dances gained popularity, so dance instruction manuals, as well as etiquette books, were published to enlighten a growing middle class of Europeans and European colonists, especially those in the Americas.
In the era of the nineteenth century, a proliferation of publications were intended to aid those who needed to adhere to the expanded rules and regulations surrounding the growing ritual of the ballroom. As well as knowing the most fashionable dances, precepts for the ballroom also included the organization of balls and the protocol of invitations, introductions, choice of dances, and appropriate music. Dance instruction manuals and corresponding etiquette and fashion manuals provided instruction for fashionable dances, appropriate ballroom conversation, and even the handling of silverware in the supper room.
Read More...Liz Lerman's Dance Exchange
While looking at a previous newsletter of the Howard Hughes Medical Center, we came across an article on Liz Lerman's dance, Ferocious Beauty: Genome. Still being performed today, we went to Liz Lerman's Dance Exchange, only to find that much of her company's choreography centers on contemporary issues.
"Commissioned by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts' Local Dance Commissioning Project in 2008, Drift is an original work by company member Cassie Meador. The initial concept for the piece was inspired by Meador’s visits to her hometown of Augusta, Georgia. Over time, a nearby plot of land was transformed from rich farmland to a strip mall, to the site of a Piggly Wiggly supermarket, and finally to what now is a place of worship – complete with the leftover electronic swinging doors from the Piggly Wiggly."
"Ferocious Beauty: Genome investigates the startling realities of how knowledge of the genome will change the way we think about aging, perfection, ancestry, and evolution. The company developed the piece through collaborations with thirty-four genetic scientists and researchers from leading universities and government agencies across the country."
"The result of an unprecedented partnership with Harvard Law School and commissioned by the Seevak Fund for The Harvard Law School/Facing History and Ourselves Program, Small Dances About Big Ideas premiered in November 2005, at Pursuing Human Dignity: The Legacies of Nuremberg for International Law, Human Rights and Education, an international conference that commemorated the 60th Anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials."
Bejeweled
The New York City Ballet's site presents a slide show, Bedecked, Bedazzled & Bejeweled: Costume Ornamentation At New York City Ballet.
Robert Sandla writes of the exhibit in the Power of Costumes:
On paper, the descriptions are carefully neutral: “ Tutu, classical: Dark grey silk bodice, heart-shaped neckline and beige tulle halter….Has matching headpiece.” “ Dress: Peach chiffon dress, knee length, asymmetrical straps, faux lacing on back, jewels at left shoulder, bow at waist where skirt opens.” “Tutu, classical: Gold and pink lamé brocade bodice with jewels, blue satin sash over right shoulder; jewel brocade palettes, stylized sequin ‘flippers’ from waist.”
In photographs, the costumes bloom with a fierce poetry, products of wild imagination and painstaking industry. The tutus and tiaras, the grand gowns and flirty skirts, the formal men’s jackets and dapper vests worn by generations of New York City Ballet dancers can now be viewed here on the Company’s website – and it’s a dazzling display. Ballet is famously the most ethereal of the arts, and most of us only glimpse costumes as they move at high speed on a distant stage. New York City Ballet’s new online gallery gives everyone the chance to examine a treasure trove of costumes at leisure, and in ravenous detail. Balletomanes, dancers, artists, fashion plates, cultural historians, designers — anyone with eyes — will stare for hours.
Click on the link to begin the slide show
Many of the costumes highlighted at the NYCB online exhibit were designed by Karinska. We've found a Dance magazine article on the costumer by Allegra Kent, who danced with the New York City Ballet from 1953 to 1983:
"I lived an important part of my life in Karinska's creations. Night after night during many seasons over the course of thirty years, I pursued my childhood dream of dancing, and I did so for the most part in her costumes. I explored some of the greatest choreography ever invented while booked or snapped up in her sumptuous creations."