I am a 21st century dancer.
During the past eighteen years of learning to dance I have broadened my dance skills and knowledge and have been lucky to get to try many different styles along the way.
When I was young, the main focus was on technique. Dance is competitive, and in order to be successful the basic technique and skillset must be there. Before you can be successful as an artist, or before you can attempt difficult tricks and moves, you must have the basics down. But as I’ve grown older I’ve been able to experiment.
I got to work with true artists like Jason Parsons on improving my ability to move creatively and authentically, leaving behind some of the rules I’d been trained in. I got to try new leaps and turns with every practice, progressing in difficulty as I got older. I became more athletic and strong as I pushed myself further.
This was my experience with dance. But was this everyone’s? Did dance always allow both artistic and athletic options?
It didn’t used to.
If you were a dancer a long time ago, your options were limited and you fulfilled a very narrow purpose: pleasure for the audience. In the sixteenth century dancers would perform for royalty. The main reason to watch dancers was that they were nice to look at.
They were female. They were beautiful. And they moved their limbs in captivating ways.
The things they did with their bodies did not need to be complex, and often they barely moved their legs under the long heavy skirts that covered them. They used their arms to entertain. Yet that was enough because that was all that was wanted from them. They only needed to function as a pretty view.
What Changed?
It wasn’t that the purpose of dance ever really changed for the observer. Dance has always and still is meant to entertain and awe audiences. The audience’s expectations never really shifted. What shifted was the dancer’s expectations and desires.
Dance, particularly the classical ballet dance, has always been primarily female. The wealthy wanted to watch beautiful women dancing with grace, poise, and delicacy, the same way they wanted women in society to behave.
While there were male dancers who danced masculinely and performed impressive leaps and jumps that showed off their strength, their purpose was to lift and support the women. The choreographers were male and the partners were male, and they both worked to create an illusion of perfection and grace in any female dancer. The male was the strong supporter while the female was the frosting on the cake.
"The ballet is a purely female thing; it is a woman, a garden of beautiful flowers, and the man is the gardener"
George Balanchine
Balanchine and many others in his time thought of the women as the tree to be pruned. They needed to be shaped and morphed into perfection in order to be seen as truly “feminine” and beautiful. There are few true lines in nature, and yet the image of nature that consumers of ballet desired was perfect lines and shapes. If ballerinas wanted to succeed they had to have lean and elegant bodies. They stretched their bodies day after day into unnatural positions so the audiences could see a sense of perfection that is at its essence non-human. The women were expected to dance and move and look like goddesses, without getting any of the credit.
They were the plants that the choreographers created. The perfect and poised expectations for ballerinas were no different than the expectations men had for their wives and their daughters.
By the 20th century, women had had enough. They began to fight for their freedom to just be human and not be a female in the perfect sense they had been taught. Dancers wanted that same liberty. And why shouldn’t they? They wanted recognition beyond just being a tool for the choreographer’s usage.
When an artist paints a beautiful work of art, there is no question where the praise should be given. The painter is responsible for the masterpiece- not the paintbrush, not the canvas, not the paint supplier- the painter. We praise the painter and no one else for the success of the art. Yet when audiences are watching dance, who are they praising? It is not so black and white in this case- some praise could be given to the choreographer, the costume designer, the stage manager, the lighting designer, the list is endless. But how does the dancer fit in? Who is the true artist, or is there one true artist?
I would argue that the dancer is not the paint that the choreographer is painting. They have as much if not more of an active role in the creation as anyone else. The shapes their bodies make, the emotions they convey, what intensity they bring to their movements, all of these are the artistic aspects of dance. These can’t be truly taught by a choreographer or conveyed with a sparkling costume. They must be brought by the dancer themselves.
Isadora Duncan (1877-1927)
The first person to make a ripple through the dance community by saying enough was enough was Isadora Duncan. As women were arguing that they didn’t need to be beautiful, delicate, and weak, she made the same argument for ballerinas. She took off her corset and danced without it, something unheard of at the time. With her corset and shoes to the side, she fought to show that the stereotype of the ballerina as delicate and graceful was demoralizing for women as it made them seem weak.
She removed these physical constraints to show how fed up she was with the rules for ballerinas and the image that they had to uphold.
That was when Martha Graham joined the dance world and decided it was time for a change. She thought it was silly that ballerinas hid the supreme effort they were putting in as they danced, and she wanted to make the physicality visible. She created her own rules. Her movements were choppy and tight, defined by alternating contractions and releases that removed the graceful flow dance had previously had.
Martha Graham Dance Company performing "Steps in the Street" (1936)
Along with being dissatisfied with the way dancers moved, she also wanted to change the emotional expression. Ballerinas are often playing roles of blissful women, lost in love with a man. Graham wanted to get more real than that, and her dancing allowed for expression of pain, heartbreak, and struggles as they actually happen, not romanticized.
Martha Graham on the meaning behind "Lamentation" (1930)
Her movements were often rhythmic and masculine, draining all flowing elegance from dance, taking perceptions of perfect and delicate females with it. Her dancers were powerful. Her dancers showed real emotions. Her dancers didn’t have to act perfect to draw in an audience.
After these two dancers began making ripples in what was considered dance, the possibilities for dancers expanded. If you wanted to use dance to show your emotions by moving your body, you could. If you wanted to appear strong, throwing away traditional female roles and dancing powerfully and forcefully, you could.
Today, we have the opportunities we do with dance because these women were frustrated with their limitations and wanted to change what was allowed.
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