ORIENTALISM AND THE BALLETS RUSSES

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ORIENTALISM AND THE BALLETS RUSSES

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• Publié par: igytogad
• Nombre de lectures: 111
• Langue: Français

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Situations Vol. 1(Fall 2007) © 2007 by Yonsei University  

Artem Lozynsky   Professor of English Literature (Sogang University)

    ORIENTALISM AND THE BALLETS RUSSES   ABSTRACT    I n its twenty seasons of performances (1909 – 1929), the Ballet Rousse of Sergei Diaghilev presented before the eyes of cultivated Europeans an evolving figure of the female dancer. On the one hand, there was the ballerina in the style of ballet blanc ; on the other, the “harem dancer” in a fashion envisioned by the notions of “Orientalism.” The romantic ballerina symbolizing the “soul” of the West rose on her toes, as the “harem dancer” representing the “body” of the East sank to the floor. The development of this figure is traced chronologically in three pairs of contrasting ballets: “La Sylphide” (1832) and “Le Corsaire” (1826); “Giselle” (1841) and “La Bayadere” (1877): “La Sylphide” (1909) and “Scheherazade” (1910). This distinction supports Theophile Gautier’s division of the ballet dancer into two types—the “Christian” and the “Pagan.”                  

 

 

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