The Spectrum of Contemporary Ballet: Giving Your Students a Leg Up
To discuss dance, we grapple with a variety of terms: modern, post-modern, classical, neoclassical, contemporary, contemporary ballet and more. We volley this lexicon back and forth, assuming that the meaning is the same for all of us, as we attempt to position what we see in a neat little file. This is human nature: to connect dots, to make sense, to understand by definition so we can meet on common ground. Although this practice is sometimes useful, struggling with the term contemporary ballet makes it necessary to resist absolutes. A Venn diagram is more appropriate here – circles converging and dissecting each other, borrowing from one another and coloring the outcome so that a lot of gray is mixed in with black and white.
One of the major instigations for the creation of modern dance was the categorical dismissal of the rigidity of ballet, and yet a plié remains a plié, as do tendus and dégagés. Modern dancers borrowed from the ballet vocabulary, just as ballet had borrowed from its predecessors. In turn, ballet borrowed back from modern dance. Today, contemporary ballet choreographers consider the contraction to be just one of countless modern inventions available to them. But that is not all. These choreographers have also borrowed from African, Afro-Caribbean, jazz … even hip-hop, yoga and more. The difficulty in finalizing a complete picture of contemporary ballet is that it runs the full spectrum between modern dance and classical ballet. It elusively tips the scales one way or the other, often even within the same piece. Some argue that contemporary ballet is whittled down to only those ballets in which pointe shoes are used, but in this we miss out on some extremely important choreography: Jirí Kylián, Lar Lubovitch and Nacho Duato come to mind. More important to this discussion is that although the line is often blurred between modern dance and contemporary ballet, ballet technique remains primary to the final outcome of a contemporary ballet, pointe shoes or not. Mind you, we have not fabricated a new technique. When we refer to contemporary ballet, we are acknowledging the style of a choreographic work, not the name of a technique. This is an important distinction, particularly for young dancers who aspire to dance in a company that performs contemporary ballets. The training remains the same; classical ballet technique is fundamental. Today, it is certain that a ballet-centered dance company juxtaposes works of both contemporary ballet and modern choreographers against its classical repertoire.
Attempts to label choreography or choreographers also creates problems. Most choreographers are not interested in viewing their work in terms of category. They are reaching for inventiveness, whether always successful or not and regardless of the movement style. In a recent article in The New York Times, chief dance critic Alastair Macaulay discussed the resistance to pigeon-holing Jerome Robbins’ choreographic legacy. William Forsythe patently dismisses labels, jockeying between pointe shoes, soft shoes and bare feet. Twyla Tharp purposefully blurred the lines and likes it that way. Considered first and foremost a modern choreographer, she has several ballets to her name, including her most recent ballet for American Ballet Theatre, Rabbit and Rogue.
Trey McIntyre Project
Photo by Jonas Lundquist
“Contemporary has two distinctions: that it is present, and that its relevance keeps it present,” muses Alonzo King, long-time artistic director and founder of Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet, based in San Francisco. He continues, “Bach, Shakespeare, Homer, and Vyasa (the writer of the Bhavagad Gita), are certainly contemporary regardless of when they created work, because the essence of these works is based in primordial truths. What should we call it, classic contemporary? …For most artists the aim is clarity and accuracy, and the resultant look is a by-product. I would argue that any true classic, removed of its current sentimental and mannered approach, would be classified contemporary.”
Despite the difficulty in applying labels, it must be acknowledged that certain aesthetic assumptions are made by those who choose to choreograph with ballet at the core. There is an inherent value system that differentiates it and keeps it from slipping too far away from its roots to be ticketed as something other. I would argue that one of those assumptions is line. However, and in light of the demands placed on the dancers of contemporary ballet, we need to caution against thinking of line as a stationary position. To interpret position as stagnant in either classical ballet or contemporary ballet is a mistake.
Christopher Wheeldon, after many years as resident choreographer for New York City Ballet, has successfully launched his own New York City-based company, Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company. In positioning his own work he says, “I am using a rather classical tool in that I am keeping myself based in the confines of the classical ballet technique because I choose to use the pointe shoe. The shoe allows for an extension of line that cannot be achieved otherwise. Consequently, I am already making an aesthetic assumption. This value system creates a different center of gravity. Simplistically speaking, I aim to pull the dancer more out of the ground, which differs from a modern-based, grounded center.”
However, when speaking about the kind of dancer who can carry contemporary ballet Wheeldon adds, “As ballet companies today expand their repertoires with works by choreographers such as Duato, Kylián, [Paul] Lightfoot, [Mats] Ek, etc., the dancers are acquiring new skills in fluidity and connection with the floor. These grounded skills and heightened sense of articulation in combination with the refinement and line of ballet creates a hybrid, super versatile ballet dancer who can handle all types of choreography. The argument could well be that perhaps this modern rep in ballet companies is diluting the classical skills needed for the nineteenth-century ballets or that ballet dancers are not fluid enough to handle the earthy movements of modern dance. But we see more and more that ballet dancers can handle both.”
Trey McIntyre of the Boise, Idaho based Trey McIntyre Project says he doesn’t care about making distinctions. “What I know is my own background and training has been classical ballet. That vocabulary and system works for me; I find it to be a very clear way of communicating. I use it as a tool for exploring my world as an artist. The relationship to ballet is about clarity and making sense for the human body. I'm not bound by much more than that, so hopefully the exploration takes me all kinds of places that may be awkward to define. Looking for a definition of what makes contemporary ballet in itself stops dance from evolving and becoming the best incarnation of itself. Once defined, the goal becomes achieving that definition rather than exploring and diving into the difficult unknown. It keeps us [from] trying to find and reveal things that are greater than where we began.”
Under the artistic leadership of Jim Vincent, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago has clearly moved to position itself as a contemporary idea, but it swings the contemporary ballet pendulum to the opposite side. The dancers are trained extensively in ballet, as their bios clearly indicate; yet they must move in any number of ways and don’t wear pointe shoes. Perhaps the company swings between contemporary ballet and just plain contemporary. But, Vincent’s aesthetic cannot deny being shaped by 12 years with Kylián and four with Duato, and it mirrors much of what contemporary ballet choreographers seek in dancers today.
Today’s contemporary ballet dancers are incredibly facile, not just with their ballet technique but in many other techniques/styles, which makes for a rich stomping ground. Wouldn’t those of us who teach like to discover the recipe that reveals the right ingredients for creating just such a dancer? Alchemists beware – there is no elixir like the tried and true with the spice of new dance medicine poured over the whole.
To train the dancer, King says, “I don’t believe the standard has changed. I think what is emphasized has changed. The standard throughout the ages has been transcendence. It is the same today. I couldn’t overemphasize that what is being trained is the mind. The mind and heart dance the body; motive is constantly examined. There has to be an understanding of meaning and what is being conveyed in every aspect of dance language [with an] ability to inhabit movement forms and have them resonate with meaning so they are clearly understood. The work must be deeply personal, and at the same time impersonal, balancing both feeling and logic.”
Wheeldon looks for these qualities in a contemporary ballet dancer: “An understanding of sensitive articulation, an ability to speak with every part of the body, a natural sense of freedom of movement that can largely be attributed to exposure to the great modern choreographers of today, a refinement of line, and a softness of port de bras that…can [also] become aggressive and muscular.” Most of all Wheeldon seeks “a dancer who understands that shape is energy that is instigated by music. These shapes begin in the body, articulate through the muscles and then continue to create shape in space after leaving the extremities.”
This all sounds right, but how does the young aspiring dancer acquire these skills? Franco De Vita and Raymond Lukens have been grappling with this question for years. Under the direction of American Ballet Theatre (ABT) artistic director Kevin McKenzie, De Vita and Lukens designed and wrote the newly launched ABT National Training Curriculum (NTC) in collaboration with ABT’s artistic staff and an artistic advisory board. Additionally, a medical advisory board was assembled to write medical guidelines for dancer health. They begin with the premise that “Contemporary ballet choreography has been from ABT’s onset an indispensable part of the company’s artistic fabric. The mission at ABT Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School is to produce superb artists; dancers who have no artistic and technical limitations, [who are] sensitive to different qualities and textures of movement …. ABT’s NTC includes elements of the main schools of trainings that have proven their validity through time. We teach schooling without imposing a highly specific style, and ensure that an acute eye for detail is developed. We teach dancers to search for balance and harmony in their work and to be open minded; this gives dancers the ability to adapt to all styles and techniques of dance. To borrow the words of one of our mentors, Richard Glasstone, ‘The dancer who learns to discipline mind and body in this search for balance and harmony will become the ideal instrument for the inventive creativity of any choreographer,’ including those of contemporary ballet.”
“At Juilliard,” according to Dance Division director Larry Rhodes, “we try to address the problem of creating a dancer for today’s market through the combination of rigorous training and performance opportunity. Ballet is a constant in the four-year training program, ballet that is not taught as a style but as a true technical tool, minus mannerism, while focused on articulation of the body, elongation of muscle and production of line. Our students receive instruction in no less than five classical modern techniques – Graham, Limon, Taylor, Cunningham and Horton – and have guest teachers from today’s contemporary scene. Flexibility of brain and body in an unafraid dancer is one of our foremost goals.”
More concretely, we need to think about economy of movement. Once the dancer begins to understand that less is more and that not every movement involves the same amount of energy or engagement of muscle, subtlety begins and nuance can occur. Ultimately we can become more preoccupied with transition than the actual step itself. The step is in the transition; line is produced through movement.
Vincent helps us to understand contemporary ballet when he suggests that “dance and the creative process of choreography are influenced by the current issues and events around us.” Thus, it is this relationship to the current moment that makes contemporary ballet contemporary. Its relevance is now, despite the gamut it runs. George Balanchine, Kenneth McMillan, Maurice Béjart, John Butler, Glen Tetley (who specifically sought to combine modern and ballet) were all considered contemporary. Today Balanchine is known as a neo-classicist. In reviewing the history of American Ballet Theatre, De Vita and Lukens recount, “ABT’s first 1940 season opened with the earliest abstract ballet ever choreographed, Fokine’s ‘Les Sylphides’, its repertoire includes groundbreaking works such as De Mille’s ‘Rodeo’, Robbins’ ‘Fancy Free’ and Tudor’s psychological ballets and the list goes on with ballets by Elo, Kylián, Lubovitch, Morris, Peterson, Tharp and Welch.” To use King’s term, Kurt Joos’ 1932 ballet, “The Green Table”, could be termed a ‘classic contemporary’. Established in 1956 by Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino, the Joffrey Ballet brought forth and today continues to create in the name of contemporary ballet.
Contemporary ballet lives as a continuum of forward thinking ideas and ambitions to question what has come before. It has access to all current techniques, styles or methods, as long as its primary focus remains ballet with all the assumptions that go with it. But we are attempting to shoot at a moving target. Try to hit it on the head, and we are likely to miss.
Katie Langan is a Professor of Dance and Chair of the Dance Department at Marymount Manhattan College.