Male ballet dancers rise and fall
Published on Sep 26, 2017
https://youtu.be/jCHIxKyRVEU
Here we have a compilation of different male variations and two different versions of three of the most famous classical male variations.
What I want to draw attention to here is just how much male choreography has evolved in ballet, especially throughout the 20th century.
A myth says that Petipa's male dancers did not do a lot of dancing, but that is not true, as shown through the notated male variations.
After the Russian Revolution, a popular belief was spread that male dancing became more frequent in 20th century Russia and that the men were given more to do, especially in the revivals of Petipa's ballets in the hands of Vakhtang Chabukiani and Konstantin Sergeyev.
That, however, is really up for debate.
The Soviet authorities limited the classical dance vocabulary, removing much of the important allegro vocabulary and added circus tricks and acrobatic jumps, especially into the male choreography.
Chabukiani is considered by many to be the "godfather" of male dancing as his male variations for roles like Solor, Acteon and Ali are still performed today. I, however, beg to differ regarding Chabukiani's contributions to ballet. Chabukiani's choreography was good when he performed it, but now, it's as tacky as ever and there's really nothing very special about his variations.
When one looks closely at Chabukiani's variations, one thing that pops out is that they're all pretty much the same as each other; none of them are very different because they all contain the same three sections
- section 1: big jumps,
- section 2: pirouettes a la second,
- section 3: big fancy ending.
Another problem is that they're all so unmusical; there's so much more that can be done with all that music.
In my opinion, male choreography did not improve during the Soviet Union, but rather, it fell backwards and the men's vocabulary became very limited and repetitive.
Before the revolution, the men did much more than just big jumps, leaps and spins. In Petipa's time, when the men danced, they really danced - their vocabulary came from the old French and Italian schools and was very much like Bournonville.
Through Alexei Ratmansky's reconstructions, we've been seeing what male dancing should be like, especially in the classics.
The men are capable of so much more than the usual big jumps, leaps and spins we're used to seeing today almost everywhere.
The variations in this video are the following:
- Chabukiani variations:
Variation of Ali/Conrad - Ruslan Skvortsov
Variation of Acteon - Vyacheslav Lopatin
Variation of Solor - Vladimir Shklyarov
Classical variations:
Variation of the Bluebird (traditional) - Artem Ovcharenko
Variation of the Bluebird (notated) - Daniil Simkin
Variation of Prince Desire (traditional) - Andrian Fadeyev
Variation of Prince Desire (notated) - Claudio Coviello
Variation of Prince Siegfried (traditional) - Danila Korsuntsev
Variation of Prince Siegfried (notated) - Timofei Andrijashenko
Look closely at all these variations and notice how similar or how different they are, for example, look at the three Chabukiani variations and tell me that all three of them are not more or less the same as each other.
As for the classical variations, compare and contrast the traditional and notated versions.
What really makes the notated versions stand out is how much more detail and material they have, which alone gives the men more to do; notice how they never or barely stop moving. I also love how much more musical the notated variations are. It's interesting how the Bluebird variation hasn't changed too much, but the notated version still contains more material and is very Italian style.
The notated variation for Prince Siegfried is much more French style, while the notated variation for Prince Desire seems to be a bit of a mix of French and Italian. In all honesty, the notated variations for Prince Desire and Prince Siegfried both make the respective traditional variations look like a joke, especially the traditional variation for Prince Siegfried, which, in my opinion, is perhaps the most boring male variation of all.
So what really happened in Russia after the revolution is that a lot of the male dancing in the classics was lost and the male variations became more acrobatic than balletic.
Luckily, however, most of what was lost in Russia was kept alive in the Bournonville method. But hopefully with the reconstructions, male dancing can be restored to what it used to be and choreographers can really learn from this past style of male dancing, which some already have.
Seeing the men doing so many of the same jumps and spins in one whole variation or ballet has really become dated and boring, so hopefully now, things can start getting better in terms of the male dancing in the classics.
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