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Have Been Identified: Conclusion

The document discusses George Balanchine's impact on the perception and role of female dancers in ballet. It analyzes how Balanchine offered women a new opportunity to present themselves as individuals, contrasting with the 19th century view of women as ethereal creatures defined by men. Balanchine envisioned female dancers as moving geometric shapes with power of expression through temperament, music, and emotion. His style helped make women on stage feel confident, charismatic, and empowered. However, female dancers were still dependent on male partners for support and some felt manipulated by them. Overall, Balanchine created a new ballet style that allowed audiences to see ballerinas in a new light and pushed social

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Mirela Olarescu
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65 views1 page

Have Been Identified: Conclusion

The document discusses George Balanchine's impact on the perception and role of female dancers in ballet. It analyzes how Balanchine offered women a new opportunity to present themselves as individuals, contrasting with the 19th century view of women as ethereal creatures defined by men. Balanchine envisioned female dancers as moving geometric shapes with power of expression through temperament, music, and emotion. His style helped make women on stage feel confident, charismatic, and empowered. However, female dancers were still dependent on male partners for support and some felt manipulated by them. Overall, Balanchine created a new ballet style that allowed audiences to see ballerinas in a new light and pushed social

Uploaded by

Mirela Olarescu
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Conclusion

By drawing a parallel between the 19th century romantical view and 20th century
revolutionary vision of Balanchine on female dancers, contrasting aspects which are deeply
relevant for understanding the status of the woman in society and therefore in ballet have
been identified. In the 19th century the perceptions of females were defined by men
viewing women as unreal ethereal creatures that would only exist in male’s pleasure seeking
mind. In contrast, although the 20th century woman was still presented by men’s vision,
Balanchine’s innovative abstract thinking of classical ballet, offered her a new opportunity
to present herself as an individual. These changes were fastly accepted and implemented in
the context of modern social changes. Balanchine's freedom of expression led to the
improvement of womens' status in ballet.

Another point of the dissertation was to identify the Balanchine’s choreographic style in
which he envisioned women. Balanchine’s female dancer represents a moving geometrical
shape, an extension of 19th century danse d’ecole ballet aesthetics characterized mainly by
grace, beauty and elegance. Moreover, impressing is the innovative concept of the
individualized ballerina, who is now expressing herself through temperaments, through
music, through vulnerability in emotions as well as movements. This contrasts with the
earlier century where women had less power of expression. Another result concerning
Balanchine's choreographic style is the concept of the female dancer being more than a
ballet dancer. Due to jazz, acrobatic and the entertaining style of musicals which blend under
Balanchine’s neoclassical ballet, the steps she performs achieve a colorful, exciting,
entertaining and rapidly captivating atmosphere for the audience. As a consequence, the
woman on stage is confident, charismatic, empowered and therefore more individualistic.

The combination of above-mentioned observations with the in depth analysis of


FourTemperaments initiated curiosity regarding the perception of the female dancer within
the male-female pair on stage, her view on herself as well as the audience’s. As far as
gender domination is concerned, the female, although increasing in power, still depends on
her male partner’s support. Analysing herself, Balanchine’s woman enjoys and accepts the
choreographic challenges: the spatially dynamic movements, fast paced music as well as
the quick change between Laban’s passive and active weight. Although some only express
their appreciation for Balanchine’s choreographic vision, others mention feeling manipulated
by their male partners in dance. In terms of the audience's perceptions, it cannot be
objectively defined. Understanding the stage performance depends on who the audience is.

All in all, it is important to remember that Balanchine brought a new vision and created his
own distinctive ballet style in the 20th century and pushed boundaries not only in
choreographic steps but also in his presentation of females. Due to experimentalism,
abstraction, minimalism and extension of the classical ballet he allowed the audience to see
the ballerina under a new form. The way you perceive Balanchine’s ballerina is a matter of
which lens you choose to look through, it is a matter of individual interpretation and therefore
subjective. One of the lenses shows a real charismatic woman capable of pushing social
and individual boundaries. Which others can you find?

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